[Ansteorra] Youth combat sword confusion

[Jeff Cargill]

Just wanted to explain some of the rules for sword making, and why changes had been made.
 
6-9 year olds originally could only use golf tube with half inch of padding.  We changed the rule to allow 1/2 inch pvc or Rattan so the swords would last longer.  

Also, all pvc swords were to be capped.  We changed this because if you made your sword with the minimum half inch of padding the cap could be felt as a hard "knot" on the end of the sword and would leave bruises on the kids with out much effort.  For this reason we do not require the ends to be capped.  This is primarily for non thrusting weapons.  If you build a sword with a thrusting tip then I would go ahead and cap the end since the tip would need to be built up to 2 and 1/2 inches anyway. 
 
 NOTE the 6-9 year olds cannot use thrusting weapons.
 
Thanks,
 Caedmon

The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. - On Combat