pvc pipe vs wooden dowel

bamboo is all you need.

 

Dowel vs. PVC: PVC is generally lighter, but it tends to flex a lot more than dowel does when you're at action speed. That can present problems for rotoscoping later on.

If you're going to use plastics, I'd recommend 20mm electrical duct rather than PVC. It's thicker than PVC, doesn't flex quite as much, and in eight months of practice and filming we shattered one, count it, one blade.

Dowel is all right, but you'll still find it splintering and/or shattering a fair bit. In terms of making your dowels last longer, I recommend the following, which is a technique applied to bokken: (wooden swords): -- sand the dowel down, and then rub it down with a vegetable-based oil--canola, olive, it doesn't matter, so long as it's vegetable-based. Don't use motor oil. You'll find it takes a lot more impact and lasts longer, as the oil makes the wood more supple and able to absorb an impact.

 

i find it so strange, all the time money and effort people put into making inferior blades, when bamboo and ceap tape will work better than anything.

 

Where do you get bamboo? and can you get it hollow? I kind of need a hole running through it, and I think bamboo is only hollow in chambers, the "joints" are solid.

 

I know a lot of people have been suggesting PVC, but a natural substances (as opposed to a synthetic substance) are better for your body. There has been talk among kendo people for years that polycarbon shinai have caused wrist trauma. I don't know how scientific these accounts are, but there is a logic to it in that natural substances can absorb vibrations very effectively.

Regarding broken dowels. There's the issue of simple physics. Is it strong enough to handle the beating you will be dishing out in your choreography? This is a function of density and strength of the wood you use. Broom handles are pretty good, good kendo shinai or reputable wooden sword (wasters, if you wish) armorers create weapons for this purpose. If you're looking for your own materials, you should be as thoughtful as they are and hold the wood in your hands and experiment with it.

There's also the mechanism in which you use your materials. The weakest place on any wooden material is where there are natural meeting places between the various fibers in organic wood. Then, with impact from strikes, internal breakage will begin. This, of course, is where breaks will occur. Also, if the dowel is mounted in a lighsaber frame, the weakest point will be where the metal stops and the naked wood is exposed.

If your problem is constant breakage and shattering, one area of consideration is the manner in which you are using your prop. Depending on how you teach your choreography and blocks, you will measurably cause the deterioration of your weapon. If you teach your students to strike short of the target (which I encourage), the subsequent block will be (and should be) relatively light. If you teach your students to take full blocks, then your body and arm placement better be correct or hard strikes will smash through the guard.

Good luck.

 

With bamboo, make sure the piece used is relatively young and with some flexibility. I was practicing with a set of stiff, dry bamboo sticks a month ago and one shattered, driving an inch-long splinter into my left shin.

 

PVC is definitely the way to go in terms of safety and durability. They are also pretty cheap to buy for a tight budget. The next step from there is aluminum rods, which I use currently and am very pleased with. Then from there is the ever coveted carbon fiber rods.

 

So, Neo, what exactly is it that you're saying about the bamboo?

5/8th oak dowels wrapped in colored electrical tape work great for me. I don't like PVC because of the way it bends and bounces when you make blade contact.

With regard to weight, consider this: more important than weight is balance. The closer the weapons center of gravity is to the base of the blade, the easier it will be to control.

Example: We were practicing a duel-wield fight with a finished hardware stunt saber and a spare PVC pipe for the other weapon (I hadn't finished the second saber yet) - now, you would think that the finished prop would seem heavier because it has more material, but the pipe actually felt heavier and was harder to control because the center of gravity was farther from the fighter's hand.

So, yeah . . . balance!

/elementary physics lesson.

 

"I was practicing with a set of stiff, dry bamboo sticks a month ago and one shattered, driving an inch-long splinter into my left shin."

thus the tape.

even a generic, dry, packaged garden stake from a grocery store will be strong enough to last through allmost any kind of fighting, even AFTER it breaks, when it's wrapped in tape.


"I kind of need a hole running through it"

why?

 

ouch

 

Well, I don't really want to give it away, but I'm trying to run some wires through it.

 

I've been playing 'lightsabers' since I was three - so, a little over twenty-three years. I've used wooden dowels, metal tubes, solid metal rods, Hasbro toys and PVC.

Wooden dowels are good because they don't bend. Compared to metal rods, they're remarkably light. Next to PVC and metal tubes, the weight is pretty much inconsequential.

Metal tubes are light, but once they're bent, they're bent. No way around it.

Solid metal rods. Tried it for a week. Never again. Too heavy, and too dangerous.

Hasbro toy lightsabers. Yeah, so you've got a built in costume hilt. Big whoop. The blades are usually too short. And if the blades aren't too short, you're probably spending more than you really need to.

PVC. Now, just straight PVC does break rather easily. So does PVC covered in some color duct or electrical tape. However, if you add a criss-crossed pattern of strapping tape (clickie), it reinforces the blade, preventing most breakage and even helping to strengthen the blade against bending. With this tape in place, even if the blade does break, most of the shards will be caught up in one layer of tape or another, further preventing injury.

Most hardware stores charage as much for ten feet of PVC (from which two or even three weapons can be made) as they do one four foot piece of wood. Yes, the strapping tape adds to the cost, but over the range of making several weapons, it's almost negligible.

Nyar!

 

hehe, i have to dissagree with you there, although dowels are better than PVC, (simply because PVC shatters quicker), i've shattered so many dowel rods that i lost count, all of them when fighting with my friend, (of cource we also try and hit eachother to make the fight more realistic), and believe me, they can cause major injuries, Example: my friend has had two fingers broken from us fighting, and i have four scars...... hehe..... they can shatter very esely, and they can cause major injury, but it's still kinda fun though, but they are better than PVC, because it's harder to shatter dowels for most people...... and for me and my friend, PVC would last about two minuets....... so yeah...

 

thats why you wrap the blades in tape, it reduces breakage by a ton... and in my experience, if i get hit really hard in the hand with pvc, i have to stop for a few minutes because it hurt so bad, if i got hit with a wooden dowel, i just stop for a few seconds, then i'm fine with it.


and everyone else, i really dont see how you think pvc is lighter than wooden dowels... maybe i'm using the wrong pvc or something

 

believe it or not.... i've tryed tape.... it didn't help much...... actualy it hardly helped at all....

and whenever my friend an I are fighting, we don't stop untill the fights over, even if we get hit and no matter how hard it is..... we've been told that we need to ease up and slow the fights some.... i think that's why we got in trouble with the security gaurd at the theater at the EP III priemer.........

hmmmm.... kinda tells me somthing


[edit] and also, about the dowels not bending that someone said..... i can prove that wrong to..... i have dowels from our fights that if i had an arrow and some elastic string i could make a bow out of it....

 

thats why you pull your hits, if you practice at it it can look just as good as if you werent slowing down

 

well we do pull some attacks.... but only in the choreographed fights..... but most of our fights we actually try and hit each other.... which i know isn't save.... but it looks more real then because we're actually trying not to get killed....... i'll have to film one of our choreographed fights and one of our non choreographed fights and post to show what i mean..... but i spent alot of money on dowel rods for a fight at the EP III premiere.... we choreographed some moves and randomly preformed them in our "improv" fight......

 

i use these broom stick handles, but there METAL TUBING, they bend if you hit them hard, but you can resharp them easy.

 

You...You...You sharp them? What if you get poked!?!?! Just kidding.

 

Has anyone used polycarbonate? I'm thinking of trying one out. I heard it's lightweight, durable, and the same material used in the movies, right?

My question: Overrated or well worth it?

_Max

 

Since when did they use polycarbonate in the movies?

 

So I came home from school today and it turns out my blades arrived about 2 minutes after I went back after lunch Going from 3/4" PVC to 1/2" aluminum tubing, wow. Awesome, I love them! The bending, yeah, that's the only bad part. So far we bent one blade a tad bit, but it wouldn't really be noticable on video. Also with my 11 1/4" sink pipe hilts, they are very nicely balanced. My vote goes for aluminum for now on...until I try carbon fiber

 

i am all about those .5 aluminum tubing.

 

I've done PVC, I've done bamboo and and now I'm on to golf club shafts. These are by far the best I've used. Very light, they don't bend, and they don't hurt too much (they're built to absorb shock). We have them wrapped with colored duct tape and then run them into 3/4" PVC pipe and secure them with screws. We then dremmel out 1" PVC pipe to different shapes and slide those peices over the 3/4" PVC to create the layered depth of the hilt. We spray paint it silver and cover parts with black electrical tape and chrome metal tape.

You can see here how they look:

[image=http://www.vbf.org/lightsabers/singles_one.jpg]
[image=http://www.vbf.org/lightsabers/singles_two.jpg]

These sabers end up being balanced really well. You can see in the photos that I can balance them right about where the hilt meets the blade.

[image=http://www.vbf.org/lightsabers/yellow_balance.jpg]
[image=http://www.vbf.org/lightsabers/red_balance.jpg]

We can fight very fast with these. They are the lightest, quickest, and strongest blades I've ever used.

 

I use PVC because its cheaper. Its slightly heavier though so you cant swing as fast, but in my experience wood breaks much easier. I've never used bamboo, but that looks like the perfect weight.



Man I could think of so many wood jokes right now.