+

[Uerria]

I want to make two of these tonfas, but I'm having a hard time finding something cross shaped like that. The only things I've found have been flat. Does anyone have a clue where I can find anything? Thanks in advance!

I was also planning on finding wooden cone/spikes, but if there's a better (or cheaper) idea, that's cool too!

[Nostrum]

I'd suggest making the whole thing out of wood (or foam reinforced with wood), and shaping them with a dremel and sandpaper.

MDF or particle board is relatively lightweight, and is pretty easy to work with (though do bear in mind the toxicity)

As for the circle section of it, if you can find a premade wood shape that's the right size, will save you a lot of hassle. I think the circular section proves more work than the shaping of the cross.

[Penlowe]

picture doesn't work for me. Michael's has flat MDF circles in various sizes in the floral decor section for making wreaths

[animenerd93]

U could run this out of PVC and use a 4 section cross connector. Then use spray insulation foam or paper mâché and paper clay for the ends

[Nostrum]

[djlemma]

Do you have access to a drill? With a hole saw, you can cut a rounded end off a dowel or tube of PVC so that it'll join to another piece at 90 degrees. It's basically like this or this, except you don't need a fancy jig to do it with soft material like wood or PVC. I've done it with a hand drill, you just need to take time and make sure to have a good pilot hole. Seems like it would be faster than truing to cut a pattern out of flat stock (wood or foam) and then round off the corners.

For the circle part, you can get foam wreath rings at craft stores. If they're too think, I'm sure there's other ring shaped things you could find- like those pool toys that you dive for, or just get some flexible tube and make a ring out of it.

Not sure what to do about the pointy bits other than make them out of foam and trial+error.

I betcha one of the guys in this forum has made this exact prop.

[Uerria]

Fixed the image!

My tools are pretty limited, I have a palm sander and a saw... and that's pretty much it. I can also hand sand...

I can definitely try out the wood at some point, but I was hoping to find something more simple since I only have about a week or two to finish this. I made my last version from pink insulation foam, and the sanding was just a bad experience. Sanding took me 4+ hours and it wasn't even completely accurate in the end. XD; Not to mention it just burned. I'm clearly doing something totally wrong, or maybe this is how it works. .-.

I've already gotten the circles figured out, you guys had said pretty much everything I was gonna do. ^^

I'm sure I'll figure this all out and check out what I have in my basement. I do have scrap wood and pvc laying around, so I'll see what works better for me! Thanks for the suggesstions guys!

[verdatum]

The 4-way PVC connector can be tough to find sometimes. Plumbers often use 2 T-joints instead. Further, the connections aren't flush, so you'd have to add body on top of the pipes to fix that.

4 hours for sanding, particularly on a first project is completely normal. There's a major learning curve for sanding. Knowing when to change grits, how much pressure to use, when to add filler vs. when to just sand down to the lowest point; it all takes a decent amount of practice. Further, if the muscles aren't developed, your arms hurt pretty quickly. If you try to use a power sander of some type, it can often take away far more material than you intended.

You get a little faster every time, and the final product when you hit the "I can't afford to spend any more time sanding" moment gets better and better. After awhile, you can sand while watching TV and you barely notice the time passing. You just need to set up a working environment that's both comfortable, and easy to vacuum up. And it's pretty important to leave that dust mask on.

For anyone who loathes sanding, consider that pretty much all that beautiful furniture, and string instruments and such made before 1850 or so was done without a scrap of sandpaper. Theoretically, if you did this project from wood, you could do the whole thing using a handplane or two, maybe a drawknife, a bench scraper, and a wood rasp, and you'd have to do very little sanding at all. Granted, this requires a bit of woodworking knowledge, and a decent workbench.