Percy's Forge - Latest Inventions

Though I have done a miserable job of chronincling it, Percy has certainly not left his forge idle in the past couple of months. Indeed, quite the opposite, I'm excited to say. I always knew he was one for putting things together and so forth, and this PVC weapon making seems to have taken a firm hold of his imagination and creativity.

I bought him the red tassle from Jo-Ann's.

First he made the spear. It's a fairly easy design, which I have given the dimensions for in the post before this one, but cool noentheless. He and I actually started choreographing a fight scene between a spearman and a swordfighter. At present it is far too hot to go outside and continue it, but I'm sure we'll pick up again at a later date.

Then, a little bit ago we watched the 2002 version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I personally really like that version (minus a couple of scenes for obvious reasons). The acting, cinematography, and especially the swordfights are all great. Soon after watching it, Percy decided he wanted to come up with a PVC Rapier design, and spent quite a bit of time contemplating how to do this before we actually went to Home Depot and bought the pieces he'd decided he needed. I must admit the result impressed me more than I thought it would.

Percy's first rapier.



Blue crusader coloring.

Obviously the basket hilt was the only hilt Percy could make using PVC. At least at the moment, with the tools he has. The one in the picture has the one and a half inch rim on the hilt, but he made another one where he sawed that rim off. Unfortunately, that one sufffered an accident (*cough*Seph.*cough*) and cannot make an appearance at the moment.

So! While we were on vacation, Percy taught Dana how to make some of the basic PVC swords, and in the process forged a broadsword. Since none of us really needed another weapon, he decided to have fun with the duct tape design on it. At the same time, Dana got creative with his sword's coloring, as well. However, I haven't gotten pictures of Dana's sword yet (or the Lance-Blade, another sword variant I'll discuss later), but if I can remember, I'll do it tonight.

And now for my favorite. I was browsing pinterest some while ago when I came across a tutorial for how to make a "Brave Little Miss PVC Bow and Arrow." It consisted of a very small, simple bow made of PVC that fired dowel rods tipped with giant wads of foam in the shape of arrowheads. Yeah. I told Percy about it anyways, he did a very brief perusal of the how-to, then went off and came up with his own design. Once again, I confess to not have had as much faith in his abilities as I should have. The bow he made not only looks awesome, but actually fires. I have an awesome little brother.

He's still figuring out how to make arrows that will fly straight, but I've learned my lesson by now and have no doubt he'll have a working prototype soon. There's a video I found on youtube for how to make functioning arrows for a modern recurve, so he's going to look into that. Plus I need to figure out (or ask Lynn to) how to make a quiver for when he learns how to do the arrows.

Have no fear! If and when he makes another bow, I'm GOING to make a tutorial for it because it's too cool for me not to. I'll do the same thing for the rapier, as well. Promise.

The stack of PVC weaponry in the corner of the boys' chambers is growing in both number and diversity. When we move back up to Illinois near the forest preserve, we are going to have a full arsenal for our Imagination Games.

I can't wait.

Dia duit,
~Penny