Belegarth

*HAFT-padding

Two wraps should be solid enough to pass most places, add a third if you're worried.

Layers of foam is no way to **** measure. We (humans) have cleverly invented a codified system of counting and determining distances. Please use it. Counting layers of padding is **** worthless.
you need 1' of padding on any haft(it's haft, not half). Less padding and you are breaking peoples knuckles. More and your weapon is huge and ugly.
FB

Give the Haft a Good squeeze. If it feels like mostly Pole. No good. If its not straight pole and there's cushion for the pushin(in this case, swinging) i think your good.

Akon:

Hakon:

I am, sadly, not an enormously rich singer.

Ok so I see no reason to start a new thread since the question is almost the same. I recently built a spear and a quarter staff on 11/16ths fiberglass. I love both, but for haft padding on both I used a single spiral wrap of blue camp pad. (aka one half inch thickness).

This is doubly true for my staff. It's about 6' 2" with the Stab tips and I have no handle just haft padding. I figured having to replace my haft padding frequently is better than risking whacking somebody with handle. I have 20 inch striking surfaces. The rest is haft padding. A single wrap makes for comfortable gripping but am I using too little padding? Is the spear held to a different padding standard due to it not being swung?

The guides on geddon.Org's build instructions usually use pipe innsulation in older builds I assumed an equivalent blue wrap would work.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

Hakon wrote:Two wraps should be solid enough to pass most places, add a third if you're worried.

Aslo, spears are held to the same standard.

Blitz. wrote:Give the Haft a Good squeeze. If it feels like mostly Pole. No good. If its not straight pole and there's cushion for the pushin(in this case, swinging) i think your good.

Haft padding that compresses to the core AT ALL is failing.

Deisu, I use a good 3/4" thick pipe insulation for my spear courtesy padding, and I've never had a problem with it passing locally or at Chaos.

Blitz: I wouldn't go squeezing haft padding. You get unrealistic compression from finger tips and can damage the weapon.

All haft padding should be checked with the pads of three fingers and, if necessary, then struck with a forearm just like testing the edge of a shield.

And as Cal said, yes, any core felt fails it immediately.

Tiberius Claudius wrote:Blitz: I wouldn't go squeezing haft padding. You get unrealistic compression from finger tips and can damage the weapon.

All haft padding should be checked with the pads of three fingers and, if necessary, then struck with a forearm just like testing the edge of a shield.

And as Cal said, yes, any core felt fails it immediately.

Caleidah wrote:

Blitz. wrote:Give the Haft a Good squeeze. If it feels like mostly Pole. No good. If its not straight pole and there's cushion for the pushin(in this case, swinging) i think your good.

Haft padding that compresses to the core AT ALL is failing.

I think you both misunderstood me.. Squeeze.. AKA Full hand. Foam is Foam.. Its gunna compress And on hard swings even with foam there chances are you still might feel core.. I mean foam does give way. While bondshoppe doesn't.. I possibly could have worded things better.

Blitz. wrote:If its not straight pole and there's cushion for the pushin(in this case, swinging) i think your good.

By this i mean if you squeeze it and it takes ALOT of force(white knuckling) to even start Feel core, but i doubt you even need that much force.. then im pretty sure it'd pass. But i suppose the Forearm test would be better.

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^^ Im too lazy to fix the post...

Tails wrote:

Hakon wrote:Two wraps should be solid enough to pass most places, add a third if you're worried.

Aslo, spears are held to the same standard.

Where? Spears pass with one layer of bluefoam haft padding up to the base of the head basically everywhere I've been (Geddon, EQ, Beltaine, DurD, Dun Abhon, Dagorhir country) since they aren't swung at other fighters.

Deisu: You typically want more than a layer of blue on a swung weapon anywhere above the half-way point of the weapon's length.

I've been told to check for core through haft even on spears, I could be wrong, I'm no expert weapon checker.

No, you're right Tails.

Spears aren't swung to strike people, but they're whipped around by careless fighters all the time to face fighters coming in from angles other than 90* to front.

Haft padding needs to prevent injury from such a maneuver and a single layer of blue will not do that.

The proper way to change fronts with a spear is to choke up on it and rotate or put it mostly vertical, rotate, and lower it in the direction you need it to go. Excited and new fighters accidentally strike with the haft all the time.

You can't seriously think you can get hurt through a layer of bluefoam from the unintentional bumping against your limbs or body of a piece of bandshop pole which is being repositioned, not swung with intent.

We're not talking about striking someone with the * thing. If someone is swinging a spear around fast enough to hurt someone through a layer of bluefoam, (and you'll recall that this is a spear: It only has to be padded on the top 1/3 of the weapon; The bottom two thirds can be bare pole!) then that person may need some talking to about the proper use of a spear.

I have literally never seen a spear fail for insufficient thickness of haft padding.

You're right about a "bump", but I'm not talking about a bump. Hell, we wouldn't even need the blue if it were just a bump from a slight repositioning.

I'm talking about idiots who swing the spear around because they're new/careless/excited/what have you. People do it all the time and I do lecture them when I see it. Just had one a few weeks ago in my realm crack someone across the head by being stupid like that. They're not swinging with the intent to hit anyone, but hit someone they do - with force.

The general rule of thumb on incidental padding is that you aren't supposed to feel core through it. I apply that to spears as well. Remember, our weapons need to be safe for anyone to pick up and use on the field, especially including the inept.

That's just wrong-headed. You can't make anything so safe you CAN'T hurt someone with it if you're trying.

Spears are only required to be one-third padded because we feel that is enough padding for safety when the weapon is used as intended. If we were trying to make spears safe enough for morons with no idea what part of the weapon was the striking surface, we'd require that all of the entire haft be padded!

Just because your newbies don't understand that "long pointy thing" doesn't mean "hit them with the side" doesn't mean that everyone needs to start padding their spears like glaives and padding the handles of their glaives because God forbid some newb could hit somebody with it.

Wrong as ****, Tibby.
If you have people swinging spear, it is a introductory training or disapline problem, not the weaposn fault.
FB

Forkbeard wrote:If you have people swinging spear, it is a introductory training or disapline problem, not the weaposn fault.

Sure, but you don't fail a spear for feeling core through haft padding? What standard do you use when you build your spears?

Tails wrote:

Forkbeard wrote:If you have people swinging spear, it is a introductory training or disapline problem, not the weaposn fault.

Sure, but you don't fail a spear for feeling core through haft padding? What standard do you use when you build your spears?

Tails, unless you are over testing a spear haft, 1 piece of pipe insulation is FINE for a accidental hit. Its been passed that way for years. When it breaks down, fail it. but you wont find it breaking down too often because it doesn't take damage often.

If you are failing that on a spear you are testing weapons in ways they arent meant to be used, I can fail any weapon if i started testing them that way.

Ok, so you don't fail a spear for feeling core through the haft.

Tails wrote:Ok, so you don't fail a spear for feeling core through the haft.

How are you checking to see if you can "feel core" on a spear? Because that will make a big difference, here.

I put my palms on either side and push it together. Isn't that how it's done? I was told using individual fingers is a no-no.

if you are feeling core through pipe insulation you are checking it wrong tails. Do a squeeze maybe a quick chop with a forarm and you wont feel anything.

Sounds to me like you are squeezeing to hard of at a wierd angle.

Ok, I'm trying not to be a d'bag here. Do you, Varadin, fail a spear if you feel core through haft? Yes or no?

Depending on where on the haft padding yes i will. If its a tiny sweet spot near the end on the end of haft padding thats half the length of the weapon ill let that slide.

I can honestly say ive maybe failed 2-3 spears on haft padding the entire time ive fought. Striking weapons scare me much more about haft padding

Well we have similar ideas about haft padding on a spear, if I feel core anywhere on the haft I fail it, that being said I've never failed a spear because of that.

Arrakis, no one is trying to make weapons 100% safe for every circumstance and no one is advocating increasing the required minimum length of haft padding. Stop attempting to divert the argument.

What I am advocating is universal application of standards when it comes to checking haft padding on weapons because its the simplest way to do it when the Book of War remains silent on the subject of different amounts of haft padding for different weapons based on how they're used.

All we're given is, "1.3.2. All non-striking surfaces must be padded adequately to prevent personal injury from incidental contact." It doesn't say spears need less padding than glaives. The only real guidance is "adequate" and that's a totally subjective term.

Because you may not have never witnessed and have difficulty fathoming people being so careless, you advocate less padding. I can see where you're coming from, but if Joe N00b takes the field and picks up your spear and cracks someone over the head because he's excited and uncoordinated and whips it around to face the guys rushing him from the rear, then yes, it is entirely his fault, but it could have been mitigated with proper padding. Could it be made 100% safe? No - a pole to the head is still a pole to the head, but it might make it less dangerous.

I think what's also being interpreted differently is the meaning of "accidental" or "incidental". I'm going with "I hit you hard, but I didn't mean to." It sounds like some people are going with "a light hit". There's a big difference between the two, but if either thought process is applied to all weapon haft padding, then either:

• spear haft padding must be as much as swung weapon haft padding
  or
• swung weapon haft padding can be as thin as spear haft padding

Now, we all know that swung weapon haft padding will never pass with just Arrakis' suggestion of 1 layer of blue, so what must follow then is that if haft padding rules are universally applied spear haft padding must be equivalent to swung weapon haft padding.

Varadin wrote:...Do a squeeze maybe a quick chop with a forarm and you wont feel anything...

emphasis mine

This is exactly how I check haft padding on all weapons, and if I feel core then it fails. There is no exception for a spear. Haft padding = haft padding = haft padding.

This isn't wrong-headed or wrong as ****. It's safe and its consistent.

The incidental contact, that is, the contact likely to occur as a part of normal use of the weapon, is much reduced in magnitude for a spear than for a glaive.

Otherwise, you're indicating that you believe that the first inch of haft padding above the hand on a 30" OAL flail should be checked to the same exact standard as the first inch of haft padding below the blade on an 8' glaive with only 16" of striking surface.

And that's absurd.

Check weapons how they're meant to be used. You don't test spears for striking or glaives for buttspiking. Why test the haft of a spear for the sort of impacts the haft of a glaive will sustain?

"Likely to occur" and "how they're meant to be used" - subjective.
"Strike with a forearm and don't feel core" - objective

So if I have a facsimile of a naginata (one-sided glaive if someone reading doesn't know), does that mean the non-striking portion at the blade end only needs one layer of blue, but the haft padding on the striking side needs to be thicker? It's only meant to be swung hard in one direction and I don't think people are likely to get hit with the back side.

Where does this striving for minimalism end?

You may find it absurd, but I check all haft padding equally because its fair and its simple. No need to explain to anyone "well, this is ok in this situation, but this isn't ok in this other situation, so you can go ahead and do it when these guys are checking because they're cool with it, but don't bring it to this other event because they won't pass it."

Fin

I was fighting against a spear, made in your realm and covered with event stickers just tuesday, tibby. It had 1/2" of Haft padding.
It passed all YOUR. Weapon checks.
I call * on you.

I'm not sure what you guy's are even still arguing about. You both agree that if you feel core through haft that the weapon fails, right? so is it how you check for it that you are arguing about?

Forkbeard wrote:I was fighting against a spear, made in your realm and covered with event stickers just tuesday, tibby. It had 1/2" of Haft padding.
It passed all YOUR. Weapon checks.
I call * on you.

It's probably Dusty's or Dan's spear that they took when they moved up that way months ago. Call * all you want, but now that I'm the most senior member in the Realm our Council has gone through some changes and is fleshed out with people who were elected by their units and are more in tune with the way I think, which frees me to flex my Realm Leader muscle more than before. This wasn't the case until February, so, what once was is no more and now haft padding is checked in An Tir Dearg the way I describe (just as I have always checked it), hence my Realm member starting this original thread because I failed her min glaive for haft padding at practice because I could feel core through it when she built it according to a less-safe philosophy which I do not espouse.