Our long swords are made from closed-cell foam glued to fibreglass sail batons. They are counterweighted with lead, which means you can easily and accurately thrust, parry, feint and swing.
Other weapons such as javelins (non-thrown thrusting spears), axes and short swords are constructed from PVC pipes, corflu, and closed-cell foam. These are not counterweighted.
Sheilds are made from laminated corflu and are lightweight and strong.
We have little bags of rice that act as arrows. They are designed to flatten on impact and spread their energy over a larger area. Unless they are thrown with excessive force, they should not hurt. The current design is some strong, bright pink material, which holds the rice. A bright pink tail about 50cm in length is tied to this to slow the arrow in flight, and to minimise the risk of loss during a combat.
Safety
All of our weapons are very light, and fully padded with closed-cell foam, and are design to be easy to use, and easy on the target. We are very safety-conscious, but let's face the facts: this is a contact game and people are swinging swords, javelins, pole arms, axes etc and throwing arrows.
Although we try to minimise the kinetic energy you receive from a tag, it is still possible to get hit harder than you like. Injuries from the playing the game are very unlikely and injuries from weapons are rare; players are more likely to sustain a hurt from tripping on a tree root, slipping over, or even running into a tree !