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We were busy swinging the lead and swabbing the deck in preparation for Captain No Beard Will’s big celebration next weekend. Lots of pirate activities afoot.

Doug made some awesome daggers out of PVC, electrical tape and gold spray paint.
Here’s how:

Materials:
– Gold Spray Paint (or silver if you aren’t a dandy)
– Black Electrical tape
– Cutting device – we’ve used hack saws for cutting PVC before, but today Doug broke out the chop saw for mass production
– PVC glue
– Length of PVC – we used 1/2 diameter, schedule 40 thickness
– t shaped PVC joint to fit the PVC

How much PVC?
– Our dagger “blades” were 6in. The hilt was measured to fit a 4 yr old’s hand (~3 in of grip + 2in per arm of the Quillion, or crossguard, and a t fitting for the crossguard). You need to add .5 inches to each measurement, as this is how much will fit into the t-fitting of the hilt. So, our final measurements were 6.5in + 3.5in + 2.5in + 2.5in or 15 inches of PVC.

Cutting and assembly:
– To cut the grip, fit your hand on the PVC then add 1/2 inch to accommodate the grip that will fit into the crossguard or t joint.
– Cut 2.5 in pieces for each arm of the crossguard.
– Cut your dagger or sword blade to your desired length.
– Coat insides of the t-joint fittings, then insert each PVC piece.
– Let the dagger dry for 30 minutes standing on end. You don’t want to lay this down in case you were too generous with the glue…

Decorating your dagger/sword:
– Once the PVC glue has dried, spray paint the blade and hilt, and let this dry.
– When the paint has dried, wrap the grip with electrical tape beginning at the bottom and wrapping the electrical tape at a 20 degree angle around the grip until you reach the bottom of the crossguard. Be sure to wrap the electrical tape tightly. When you reach the crossguard, wrap 2 final turns of electrical tape squarely against the butt of the crossguard.

En guarde.