I make a lot of things for LARP. I've made props, costume pieces, shields, and more relevant, swords. 

There's two main ways to craft a boffer sword. The cheaper and simpler way is to take some PVC pipe, stick it in a pool noodle, and tape it all up (see image below). However these weapons are heavier, which means that they're slower to swing and carrying them around all day is just that much more tiring. The other method is to make a weapon as light as you can, which makes it easier to move quickly. These could be made with existing materials, like the rods of golf clubs or fishing rods. Those are easy, and if you buy them secondhand they can be cheap as well. The drawback is you're more or less stuck with the handle you get, and they just don't look as cool (looking cool is one of the pros of LARP). For this project, I took a stab at making an ergonomic handle for a boffer utilizing a doubled up fiberglass core.