Full disclosure that I know the maker and have had a whole bunch of stuff made by Chronocide (weapons like this and also scabbards, etc.) but I've been using these hand axes as well as two handed axes and polearms made along the same lines for a few months now and they seem to reach an excellent balance between being rigid enough to be functional for hooking and the like but have enough flex to be safe for sparring (unlike say a cold steel tomahawk which is great but you have to be careful) - the poleaxe still requires a good degree of common sense and control for obvious reasons. Since you mentioned the shape of the head it's worth noting that since they are all hand made, Chronocide are also great at doing bespoke options (I have a halberd as well as a tomahawk/handaxe similar to the one you have - I know someone else who has had a glaive made and others who have had specific types and styles of axes made).
I feel like all of these reasons are exactly why we see so few historical training manuals for pole arms, axes etc. Especially in antiquity when materials tech and medicine wasn't as good as anything we have today. The sword really becomes a weapon of self defense for a reason. You can actually train with it in advance and not seriously injure or cripple yourself. Otherwise you'd need to be wealthy enough to have a second set of armour to just smash apart while you train.
Good points, but the sword becomes the choice for self defence because it is useful for both attack and defence, and ease of wear. There is little to suggest that, during the peak of sidearm carriage in the early modern period, most of the civilians wearing rapiers (and similar) had any training in their use.
The problem with most commonly available rattan is its low density (and the fact that getting thicker stuff may be difficult in general), which makes it wobbly like those Kung Fu props, making many of the techniques simply unusable (especially in meyer's staff). Has anyone tried making a shaft out of a bundle of thinner rattan/bamboo bound together in a sort of shinai fashion?
@@Sk0lzky in Filipino martial arts like Kali, they actually heat treat [via a kind of burning process] the rattan to make it more rigid and resilient. ( Of course, there's plenty of times where they just burn patterns into the surface to make it look cooler, but that's different. ) I've handled both unburned and burned rattan shafts for practice polearms firsthand-my club does some controlled training in Bolognese partisan with rubber heads-and the difference in give over the length of that 9 ft / 2.7 m haft is significant, enough to make a world of difference in handling if the opponent is using, say, an oak haft. Bamboo is different again, because it's thickest within a couple feet / ≈0.5 metres off the ground, and gets measurably thinner every 25-30 cm. In a video explaining test cutting, Scott M Rodell took samples from his own bamboo garden and measured the wall thickness with a caliper rule to show this. Cutting a length of bamboo to suit a training haft would be odd, though, as the hollow nature would change how it feels in the hand, and edge alignment is harder to get right.
Interesting vid! A quick note of historical ways - friend of mine at Projekt Frolog recently put up an article about organic axeheads in the early medieval period. There were dozens of them found made mostly of bone and antler and all but a handful were very very blunt. One of the theories about the use of such is that they were sparring tools, for safe(r) training of combat with axes - I would presume with thick clothing worn whilst in use, much as I would assume people that couldn't afford real armour would use in battle.
I used to do work w/ plastics etc & ive been using what i know about the chemistry to try & create a better material to make such things out of. Something rigid & durable but safe. When & if I have a breaktrough maybe ill send you some prototypes if youd be interested.
In competetive viking reenactment, we use blunt axes. Most of my scars are from those. They can be used and fought with, but only if carefully stopping the blow as it hits.
It's been years since I've done re-enactment but most groups I'm familiar with also limit targets - partially as a necessity due to less protective gear but even with a sturdy fully enclosed helmet I wouldn't want to take a full force hit from an axe to the head; even blunted it's basically still a mace.
I think it helps elucidate the reality that these new sparring sports are just that-sports. The safer we make it, the farther it is from the real thing, but that's no reason not do it anyway!
That axe reminds me of the Igorot axe Skallagrim talked about a few years ago, minus the long spike on the backside. Man, the Igorots (edit: I wrote "were" but that's really inaccurate) are cool.
Cold Steel makes a good rubber headed trainer tomahawk! I've ordered a couple of them from Amazon and they work great for training tomahawk technique and also for sparring with axe and shield.
Is it acceptable to have bruising as part of HEMA sparring? Thinking to when I trained for rugby and particularly when I boxed....injuries were completely accepted as part of the training.
We accept a certain level of bruising (each individual will decide what's acceptable to them) we try to minimise and avoid anything more serious though
Thing is, in HEMA you can potentially go from bruising to broken bones or worse quite quickly. Think of HEMA long weapons like roundhouse kicks, the lever is a game changer, even if you protect your head and hands without going full harness. And, being a "young" martial art (in its reborn state), it really needs not to get a bad rep. So bruising potential from these kinds of weapons is to be sensibly regulated, for the good of everyone, and HEMA.
I think some degree of risk has to be accepted in a full contact martial art - the goal is to make it as safe as possible to minimise those risks and the severity of potential injuries.
@@dexterbelmain589 Yes, understandable - thinking back about sparring in boxing all those decades ago - it wasn't every training session by any means, it was probably once every 4 sessions with the rest just circuit training, bag work and shadow. You guys must be sparring and risking some injury much more often.
Might I suggest Parlament and Number Ten as a starting point :) Those places are usually full of heartless uncaring wastes of spaces. With all the parties they have there, It should be easy enough to find some inebriated volunteers. :)
Probably a silly question: Would it be worth the effort to manufacture foam axes and other bludgeoning weapons with added weight in the head, say by wrapping the head end of the handle with lead wire before adding the foam head to more closely approach the weight of a real axe? That foam axe as you say won't simulate the handling characteristics of a real axe. Or, do you feel that adding mass would increase the possibility of harming the person you hit to an unacceptable level?
The mass would certainly work to make it handle more realistically, but if you make the foam axe head thick and soft enough to largely absorb enough of that weight I still don't think it would really become safe enough myself - maybe for a larger head mace where there is good padding in every direction on the now weighty handle you can do it but axes are all in one plain so anything that twists that strike off as you swing could end up smacking what in effect is a real mace into the target with only a tiny bit of foam padding. I think the weight will always have to drop for axes for safety.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 Yeah, everything in life is a tradeoff. That's why I asked about the safety issue, which for sane people overrides "authenticity" when sparring.
@@markfergerson2145 Indeed, and so it should - sparring these days is done entirely for fun and should be safe from serious harm. Which is why I don't think its ever going to be safe for axes but do think you can get nearly full weight if not full weight on the ball headed mace easy enough - with a good soft head the very large area and relatively long time the delivered blow is spread over should make it safe enough (I would think - some testing would be needed along with a little artistic license in the heads shape perhaps).
A part of me want to buy a cold-steel axe, but the daggers can hurt like hell when cutting so I've been dithering on it. Maybe these are a better option.
The Cold Steel plastic training weapons are pretty awful on anything bigger than their Bowie knives. Their knives and daggers are good though and we use them.
Chronocide literally started making these so we could do axe training because while the Cold Steel tomahawks are good for technique they hit hard and have no flex so they aren't great for sparring.
Your video got me thinking that swords might be the more popular weapon to write and learn about because of the difficulty of safely practicing with a simulated weapon that is not a sword. Are there any historical notes on this? From my own LARP experience, we don't let new players use two handed weapons until we are comfortable they won't hurt anyone. Even extra padded and light LARP safe weapons represent an unacceptable chance of injury in the hands of an over enthusiastic newbie.
I, Brittas boyfriend, am german and don' t practice any martial training. About ten years ago, while dancing, a lady did accidently a wrong move and hit me so hard on my eye, that i was nearly knocked out. When i told this incident to my coworkers, they asked, why do you do such dangerous things like dancing?
@@HarryGreenMathematician yup, I'd definitely want to be kitted up but it doesn't need to be anything especially heavy, just a normal mask, gloves, jacket, etc. (I was using a light jacket and red dragon gloves with the two handed version of the axe and they were fine).
Weight is an issue I think many fail to consider. But axes, maces & hammers need weight to be realistic. A light 'boffer' works in LARP as LARP isn't focusing on realistic combat; HEMA is. But weight certainly poses issues for safety. It's an interesting problem to contemplate.
My friend's wife broke his finger with a boffer one-handed mace that was pretty heavy. Even 3 inches of good closed-cell foam and a flexible fiberglass shaft doesn't protect enough from the mass of the weapon, as we found out.
@@bolieve603 Yes it can definitely happen. Sorry your wife's friend got hurt. Even boffer weapons can hit with force & potentially break small bones like fingers, but they are still far safer with less protection than blunt steel weapons. LARP weapons do try to be safe against people with little to no safety gear, but it is still getting whacked with semi solid tools moving fast. Eyes & fingers especially can still be hurt dispute it all.
"Don't want no short, short shaft." 🎶 I prefer the option to work one-handed or two-handed. 26-30 in is ideal for me. I'm very leery of the weight and handling, for now. But I'm all for advancements in the practicality and realism of axe play.
if i had to make a random guess, then a quarterstaff would do the job being a long stick-like object makes it a perfect simulator for other long stick-like objects, yeah?
There's depictions that show sparring/training halberds in some of the treatise (Meyer springs to mind) so there would definitely have been purpose made training weapons... I'm not an expert but I'd guess made of wood. It's also worth noting that they wouldn't necessarily have been as aware of micro concussions or injuries caused from repeated strikes like we are today so even though it may have been safe by historical standards it isn't necessarily something we should do today.
they probably had some kind of training weapon with a head made of wood, perhaps with leather padding, but it seems that ultimately it's up to the people sparring to pull their strikes and never hit with full force.
Random thought, most cavalry is based on using momentum to power a stab with a spear-like weapon. Was this ever attempted on foot? I.e., rather than riding a horse, just point your spear at the enemy and *run* at them?
Id say regarding sparring swords it really depends. Most asian swords are front heavy for example katana, shamshir, kilij, tulwar, and dao so they would give a very similar amount of impact as an axe.
So, I wonder if this means that in the middle ages they could easily spar with dull swords, but they couldn't really spar with axes and maces, because they didn't have these materials.
I personaly think sparring axes are simply not a good idea, cause you can't really make a compareable version that is safe. The weight is just way to important of a espect of the weapon. I usely do solo drills with real steel axes that are blunted though, but there still the real deal. I actuely tryed out a synthetik axe before and to me it felt like a really REALLY licht viking style sword in the hand not even remotly like a axe. To make a safe axe most people either take away way to much weight from te top ruining it's balance or nerf it's overal weight into oblivian or even worse both. Honnestly non of these are a good comparesons for top heavy weapons. The best option in my eyes would be take a giant nerf brick that's the same weight as the weapons head and slap it on to a handel. If it's the same weight, but the impact is spread out over a giant soft surface it will still handel like a mace or axe, but don't do as much damages as one. Bassicly turn the thing into a vagly axe, mace or hammer shaped maul like the once dwarfs in fantasie use, but made out of foam. Yes it will look ugly as hell and not even remotly like what it's suppost to look like, but it will still be a better training tool then the other stuff they make.
Latex weapons aren't typically what's used for combat sport larps. They're typically used in more of the "D&D style" campaign larps. Most rulesets have weight minimums and balance point requirements.
These aren't cosplay/larp style latex (I'm not an expert I don't know what they are :D) - we have had other "safe" sparring axes that have been too light, too spongey or just tear when trying to do techniques like hooking. Nothing is ever going to be perfect but these seem to be durable trainers that are a good balance between effective and safe.
I know at least one respectable LARP weapon maker who hangs from a branch on the hook of his LARP Dane Axes to make sure they're ok for hooking... (Not that it's a technique allowed at all LARPs)
@@danioshea I wasn't trying to suggest that you couldn't make good quality LARP weapons - definitely not the case! I just meant that the goal of a LARP safe weapon is different from the goal of a HEMA safe weapon and I think these are very good HEMA weapons (but for the same reason probably wouldn't be as good as a proper LARP weapon for LARP purposes).
Full disclosure that I know the maker and have had a whole bunch of stuff made by Chronocide (weapons like this and also scabbards, etc.) but I've been using these hand axes as well as two handed axes and polearms made along the same lines for a few months now and they seem to reach an excellent balance between being rigid enough to be functional for hooking and the like but have enough flex to be safe for sparring (unlike say a cold steel tomahawk which is great but you have to be careful) - the poleaxe still requires a good degree of common sense and control for obvious reasons.
Since you mentioned the shape of the head it's worth noting that since they are all hand made, Chronocide are also great at doing bespoke options (I have a halberd as well as a tomahawk/handaxe similar to the one you have - I know someone else who has had a glaive made and others who have had specific types and styles of axes made).
I feel like all of these reasons are exactly why we see so few historical training manuals for pole arms, axes etc. Especially in antiquity when materials tech and medicine wasn't as good as anything we have today. The sword really becomes a weapon of self defense for a reason. You can actually train with it in advance and not seriously injure or cripple yourself. Otherwise you'd need to be wealthy enough to have a second set of armour to just smash apart while you train.
Good points, but the sword becomes the choice for self defence because it is useful for both attack and defence, and ease of wear. There is little to suggest that, during the peak of sidearm carriage in the early modern period, most of the civilians wearing rapiers (and similar) had any training in their use.
I'd add the use of flexy rattan for the shafts like SCA, especially if thrusts are used
Yes we use rattan for spear shafts.
@@scholagladiatoria how do we wield them
@@ajithsidhu7183 you grip them by the shaft and move your hands up and/or down depending on the relative size and needs of the situation.
The problem with most commonly available rattan is its low density (and the fact that getting thicker stuff may be difficult in general), which makes it wobbly like those Kung Fu props, making many of the techniques simply unusable (especially in meyer's staff). Has anyone tried making a shaft out of a bundle of thinner rattan/bamboo bound together in a sort of shinai fashion?
@@Sk0lzky in Filipino martial arts like Kali, they actually heat treat [via a kind of burning process] the rattan to make it more rigid and resilient. ( Of course, there's plenty of times where they just burn patterns into the surface to make it look cooler, but that's different. ) I've handled both unburned and burned rattan shafts for practice polearms firsthand-my club does some controlled training in Bolognese partisan with rubber heads-and the difference in give over the length of that 9 ft / 2.7 m haft is significant, enough to make a world of difference in handling if the opponent is using, say, an oak haft.
Bamboo is different again, because it's thickest within a couple feet / ≈0.5 metres off the ground, and gets measurably thinner every 25-30 cm. In a video explaining test cutting, Scott M Rodell took samples from his own bamboo garden and measured the wall thickness with a caliper rule to show this. Cutting a length of bamboo to suit a training haft would be odd, though, as the hollow nature would change how it feels in the hand, and edge alignment is harder to get right.
Interesting vid! A quick note of historical ways - friend of mine at Projekt Frolog recently put up an article about organic axeheads in the early medieval period. There were dozens of them found made mostly of bone and antler and all but a handful were very very blunt. One of the theories about the use of such is that they were sparring tools, for safe(r) training of combat with axes - I would presume with thick clothing worn whilst in use, much as I would assume people that couldn't afford real armour would use in battle.
I used to do work w/ plastics etc & ive been using what i know about the chemistry to try & create a better material to make such things out of. Something rigid & durable but safe. When & if I have a breaktrough maybe ill send you some prototypes if youd be interested.
In competetive viking reenactment, we use blunt axes. Most of my scars are from those. They can be used and fought with, but only if carefully stopping the blow as it hits.
It's been years since I've done re-enactment but most groups I'm familiar with also limit targets - partially as a necessity due to less protective gear but even with a sturdy fully enclosed helmet I wouldn't want to take a full force hit from an axe to the head; even blunted it's basically still a mace.
@@pringle9984 we do that in "Eastern Style". Find videos of Wolin and have a look at what the Daneaxes do.
Just ordered one after seeing them in use at the weekend 😃
My daughter picked hers up and used it at the Gathering of Wolves last Saturday. It's a lovely thing to behold and to wield 😀
Great vid! I heard that hammers and maces were disallowed in Knight Fight because these weapons are actually dangerous, even if full armor.
I think it helps elucidate the reality that these new sparring sports are just that-sports. The safer we make it, the farther it is from the real thing, but that's no reason not do it anyway!
That axe reminds me of the Igorot axe Skallagrim talked about a few years ago, minus the long spike on the backside.
Man, the Igorots (edit: I wrote "were" but that's really inaccurate) are cool.
Cold Steel makes a good rubber headed trainer tomahawk! I've ordered a couple of them from Amazon and they work great for training tomahawk technique and also for sparring with axe and shield.
Is it acceptable to have bruising as part of HEMA sparring? Thinking to when I trained for rugby and particularly when I boxed....injuries were completely accepted as part of the training.
We accept a certain level of bruising (each individual will decide what's acceptable to them) we try to minimise and avoid anything more serious though
Thing is, in HEMA you can potentially go from bruising to broken bones or worse quite quickly. Think of HEMA long weapons like roundhouse kicks, the lever is a game changer, even if you protect your head and hands without going full harness. And, being a "young" martial art (in its reborn state), it really needs not to get a bad rep.
So bruising potential from these kinds of weapons is to be sensibly regulated, for the good of everyone, and HEMA.
Yes, bruises are frequent and normal.
I think some degree of risk has to be accepted in a full contact martial art - the goal is to make it as safe as possible to minimise those risks and the severity of potential injuries.
@@dexterbelmain589 Yes, understandable - thinking back about sparring in boxing all those decades ago - it wasn't every training session by any means, it was probably once every 4 sessions with the rest just circuit training, bag work and shadow. You guys must be sparring and risking some injury much more often.
Instead of finding special practice weapons, why don’t you just find expendable people to practice on?
Thats an excellent idea. Two birds with one stone
Too expensive
Local law enforcement tends to be a bit touchy about that, even if the person in question really sucked
Some sort of a "squid game".
Might I suggest Parlament and Number Ten as a starting point :) Those places are usually full of heartless uncaring wastes of spaces. With all the parties they have there, It should be easy enough to find some inebriated volunteers. :)
long been meaning to axe this question
I was axepecting that
These terrible puns are not axeceptable.
Matt i would love to see you do a video on the USMC kabar.
If there are people who genuinely question why a steel axe shouldn't/can't be used for sparring............ I guess I just feel bad for them is all.
I feel bad for their sparring partners.
@@texasbeast239 feel bad for the sparring partner's widows and orphans
I have been looking for something like this for a while
Probably a silly question:
Would it be worth the effort to manufacture foam axes and other bludgeoning weapons with added weight in the head, say by wrapping the head end of the handle with lead wire before adding the foam head to more closely approach the weight of a real axe? That foam axe as you say won't simulate the handling characteristics of a real axe. Or, do you feel that adding mass would increase the possibility of harming the person you hit to an unacceptable level?
The mass would certainly work to make it handle more realistically, but if you make the foam axe head thick and soft enough to largely absorb enough of that weight I still don't think it would really become safe enough myself - maybe for a larger head mace where there is good padding in every direction on the now weighty handle you can do it but axes are all in one plain so anything that twists that strike off as you swing could end up smacking what in effect is a real mace into the target with only a tiny bit of foam padding. I think the weight will always have to drop for axes for safety.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 Yeah, everything in life is a tradeoff. That's why I asked about the safety issue, which for sane people overrides "authenticity" when sparring.
@@markfergerson2145 Indeed, and so it should - sparring these days is done entirely for fun and should be safe from serious harm. Which is why I don't think its ever going to be safe for axes but do think you can get nearly full weight if not full weight on the ball headed mace easy enough - with a good soft head the very large area and relatively long time the delivered blow is spread over should make it safe enough (I would think - some testing would be needed along with a little artistic license in the heads shape perhaps).
A part of me want to buy a cold-steel axe, but the daggers can hurt like hell when cutting so I've been dithering on it. Maybe these are a better option.
The Cold Steel plastic training weapons are pretty awful on anything bigger than their Bowie knives. Their knives and daggers are good though and we use them.
Chronocide literally started making these so we could do axe training because while the Cold Steel tomahawks are good for technique they hit hard and have no flex so they aren't great for sparring.
Hey Matt! if you get the chance you gotta take a look at the new Black Fencer cutting longsword!
So in Meyer's books we see practice polearms with knobs on the point of them. What else were they doing to make them safe(ish)?
Your video got me thinking that swords might be the more popular weapon to write and learn about because of the difficulty of safely practicing with a simulated weapon that is not a sword. Are there any historical notes on this? From my own LARP experience, we don't let new players use two handed weapons until we are comfortable they won't hurt anyone. Even extra padded and light LARP safe weapons represent an unacceptable chance of injury in the hands of an over enthusiastic newbie.
I, Brittas boyfriend, am german and don' t practice any martial training. About ten years ago, while dancing, a lady did accidently a wrong move and hit me so hard on my eye, that i was nearly knocked out. When i told this incident to my coworkers, they asked, why do you do such dangerous things like dancing?
That is a lovely Pollaxe, does anyone happen to know who makes/sells it perchance?
So, in essence, you want to be bonked - just enough as not to give somebody a concussion.
Yeah, I'm very much into bonking.
@@HarryGreenMathematician that's what we were using at the weekend. Worked perfectly well
@@HarryGreenMathematician yup, I'd definitely want to be kitted up but it doesn't need to be anything especially heavy, just a normal mask, gloves, jacket, etc. (I was using a light jacket and red dragon gloves with the two handed version of the axe and they were fine).
looks like the sheetrock hammer i keep at the side of my bed except the hammer head is missing
Weight is an issue I think many fail to consider. But axes, maces & hammers need weight to be realistic. A light 'boffer' works in LARP as LARP isn't focusing on realistic combat; HEMA is.
But weight certainly poses issues for safety. It's an interesting problem to contemplate.
My friend's wife broke his finger with a boffer one-handed mace that was pretty heavy. Even 3 inches of good closed-cell foam and a flexible fiberglass shaft doesn't protect enough from the mass of the weapon, as we found out.
@@bolieve603 Yes it can definitely happen. Sorry your wife's friend got hurt.
Even boffer weapons can hit with force & potentially break small bones like fingers, but they are still far safer with less protection than blunt steel weapons.
LARP weapons do try to be safe against people with little to no safety gear, but it is still getting whacked with semi solid tools moving fast. Eyes & fingers especially can still be hurt dispute it all.
Thank you for an amazing video :)
The name of the company is Coronaside as in time killer.
Chronocide = Killing Time :)
"Don't want no short, short shaft." 🎶
I prefer the option to work one-handed or two-handed. 26-30 in is ideal for me.
I'm very leery of the weight and handling, for now. But I'm all for advancements in the practicality and realism of axe play.
hi, question here... so, how did people historically spar with poleaxes and the like? wooden ones?
if i had to make a random guess, then a quarterstaff would do the job
being a long stick-like object makes it a perfect simulator for other long stick-like objects, yeah?
There's depictions that show sparring/training halberds in some of the treatise (Meyer springs to mind) so there would definitely have been purpose made training weapons... I'm not an expert but I'd guess made of wood. It's also worth noting that they wouldn't necessarily have been as aware of micro concussions or injuries caused from repeated strikes like we are today so even though it may have been safe by historical standards it isn't necessarily something we should do today.
they probably had some kind of training weapon with a head made of wood, perhaps with leather padding, but it seems that ultimately it's up to the people sparring to pull their strikes and never hit with full force.
Why are poleaxes sometimes found in HEMA but no maces, axes, or war hammers?
What were your impressions of the axe?
What did they use for training heavy weapons in period?
Long long ago in a place far away a sort of elves fought with axes like this, that was made of slippers
Missed opportunity of head-bonking meme revival!
So, no chopping tests with that axe?
Random thought, most cavalry is based on using momentum to power a stab with a spear-like weapon.
Was this ever attempted on foot? I.e., rather than riding a horse, just point your spear at the enemy and *run* at them?
Like a Macedonian phalanx that runs?
Pikes blocks would charge at times, spear phalanxs did charge in a couple battles.
Sweet work.
Were there sparring versions of pole weapons back when they were used in combat? If so, did they just use sticks?
Would it be safe to spar with metal head spears
Id say regarding sparring swords it really depends. Most asian swords are front heavy for example katana, shamshir, kilij, tulwar, and dao so they would give a very similar amount of impact as an axe.
They are relatively more front heavy, but they are still a very long way from anything like an axe.
@@scholagladiatoria sure nothing will hit literally like an axe unless it actually is one, hence the word "similar"
So how did people train with these weapons historically? Just solo and never sparring?
So, I wonder if this means that in the middle ages they could easily spar with dull swords, but they couldn't really spar with axes and maces, because they didn't have these materials.
Dussack sparring has been done with leather sparring weapons. No reason it can't be done with others.
I personaly think sparring axes are simply not a good idea, cause you can't really make a compareable version that is safe. The weight is just way to important of a espect of the weapon. I usely do solo drills with real steel axes that are blunted though, but there still the real deal. I actuely tryed out a synthetik axe before and to me it felt like a really REALLY licht viking style sword in the hand not even remotly like a axe. To make a safe axe most people either take away way to much weight from te top ruining it's balance or nerf it's overal weight into oblivian or even worse both. Honnestly non of these are a good comparesons for top heavy weapons. The best option in my eyes would be take a giant nerf brick that's the same weight as the weapons head and slap it on to a handel. If it's the same weight, but the impact is spread out over a giant soft surface it will still handel like a mace or axe, but don't do as much damages as one. Bassicly turn the thing into a vagly axe, mace or hammer shaped maul like the once dwarfs in fantasie use, but made out of foam. Yes it will look ugly as hell and not even remotly like what it's suppost to look like, but it will still be a better training tool then the other stuff they make.
I've honestly never seen any leather sparring weapons. I've seen rubber, plastic, foam and steel. But never leather.
Rather dussacks and polearm heads are quite normal
Cheers!
"stiff and bendy at the same time". Guys see your Doctor
A broken blade in 1933 caused the last death in ,Academic Fencing'.
If its impact and you know it, watch your hands
Latex weapons aren't typically what's used for combat sport larps. They're typically used in more of the "D&D style" campaign larps.
Most rulesets have weight minimums and balance point requirements.
These aren't cosplay/larp style latex (I'm not an expert I don't know what they are :D) - we have had other "safe" sparring axes that have been too light, too spongey or just tear when trying to do techniques like hooking. Nothing is ever going to be perfect but these seem to be durable trainers that are a good balance between effective and safe.
I know at least one respectable LARP weapon maker who hangs from a branch on the hook of his LARP Dane Axes to make sure they're ok for hooking... (Not that it's a technique allowed at all LARPs)
@@danioshea I wasn't trying to suggest that you couldn't make good quality LARP weapons - definitely not the case! I just meant that the goal of a LARP safe weapon is different from the goal of a HEMA safe weapon and I think these are very good HEMA weapons (but for the same reason probably wouldn't be as good as a proper LARP weapon for LARP purposes).
awesome
Put tiny airbags to axe heads, maybe a plugged hose to the edge.
👍🏻
real maces and war hammers are always blunt.
Do you think one could 3d print an axe head, spear, halberd and the like and use them safely? I got recommended the FDM material for this.
I'm aware of at least one maker who 3D prints the moulds that they then use to make heads out of rubber.
just yesterday i bought an axe from another type...
well maybe next time
A hammer would be awesome :D especially a bec de corbin !
I thought it is real weird looking axe.
Yeah let's totally make a steal sparring mace, what could go wrong???
Axes
Yxor
Maybe you can do some Tomahawk work and practice throwing it at people.
👍🏻⚔️
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Isn't chronocide literally "wasting time"?
Killing Time
How to make weapons safe? Only in merry ole England. Without proper protection those American Hickory shafts are going to break bones.
that's a tiny hatchet. Not really a proof of concept when polearms are the problem for HEMA sparring