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These are looking promising, although slightly expensive. http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... p?t=109140 I hope to be able to afford one eventually.

I agree, very promising. I just wonder who makes them and how? That's not really anything you get done in a hobbyshop. Though I thinks it''s a bit fuzzy on the exact construction. The idea of covering aluminum in rubber is great, however one would need to weld the aluminum core from several parts and then coat it. It's not exactly an economical substitute but I belive the cost mentioned in the link above is more or less what the cost without giving any or very slim profit. Would be interesting if it was possible to make other weapons in the same way.

Thanks for the link!

They look great! I'm just sad that they can't be made to work with rattan. I've seen too many dangerous breaks in hardwood shafts to trust them for regular use.

Hardwood is dangerous for so many reasons and we are having problems finding something suitable for sparring with staffs. Perhaps you have some ideas?

We are looking for something reasonably light, about 800gr, and non-flexible. White wax is pretty OK even with controlled strikes and read oak can be used for thrusting. I heard that Tazmanian oak is supposed to be good too, but I bet it is hard to find. Some say that thicker rattan is good, but it is hard to find here in Sweden and few companies in the UK will ship longer staffs... Eric makes some fine octagonal ash wood staffs and we will be trying them out soon. Maybe they will work out fine.

Shay, how have the breaks in hardwood shafts you witnessed occured? It's always interesting to see what kind of abuse others put to their equipment. It can help us to develop better equipment and safer wasy to us them. Information not shared is lost I belive they say...

My experience with rattan is that it's a bit to flexible. And a bit too light for my taste. And they deform quite easily.
So far I've used ashwood to great satisfaction. It's almost as durable as oak but a bit lighter and more flexible. Wi still haven't broken any of our old wasters we had in trainingpractice many years ago. Me and a friend started wrestling each other during a quarterstaff training and we managed to break both our staves but they we're a bit too thin. I think that one problem is that most polearms doesn't have the proper taper wich makes them wiggle and flex too much. But to achive the proper shape one would ahve to plane the wood oneself. It's almost impossible to get a good taper on a wooden stave if you're using machines and makes several att the time. But making them is guite easy if you just have the tools and time.

We use 1.5" rattan, which is still a bit flexible but I feel that's a safety plus. The weight is a problem though. I do fear that working with too light of a weapon can hurt technique. I've been trying to figure out some way of weighting rattan, maybe with rubber-coated lead rings or something. I'm not a craftsman! If you have any ideas I'd love to hear them soon, because our group is picking up an order of 15 shafts next week.

The breaks I've seen have usually come from trying to meet force with force, not ideal of course. Most breaks seem to happen about 1/3 of the way down from the head, usually just under the languets, if any. Projectiles are not uncommon. It's only a matter of time before someone gets really hurt by this.

As for materials, Paul Wagner does a lot of staff fighting so you may want to check with him. There's also the BQA: http://quarterstaff.home.comcast.net/~q ... index.html. Oh, and don't forget David Cvet.