Boffer Weapon Construction
The primary concern in designing a foam weapon is safety; a pulled blow with a foam weapon should not hurt the target, and in systems that allow it, even a full-strength blow should not cause injury. Combatants who consistently fail to pull their blows are liable to be ejected from an event, or at least pulled out of the fighting for safety reasons. The weapon should be durable, to withstand the stresses of combat.
A secondary issue is aesthetics; often, a foam weapon is designed to look something like a real weapon such as a sword or an axe, sometimes with detailed adornment. The weighting and balance of a foam weapon can also affect how easy it is to use in combat.
Normally there are several main features of a foam weapon: A core, padding, thrusting tips, various forms of functional and artistic flourishes, and an outer coating or shell.
Read more about this topic: Foam Weapon
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