For one of the operas we are doing this summer, we needed some “sconces” made up of armor and weapons: shields with swords crossed behind them and that sort of thing. The designer wanted some pole weapons on one; we had a halberd in stock he really liked. Since we only had one, I had to replicate a bunch more to match it. Since these halberds were only going to be decorative, I could crank them out quickly with scrap materials.

In the photo above, I traced and cut out the main shape of the halberd blade from quarter-inch plywood. You can see the original blade at the very top of the photograph.

I attached a piece of 1-inch pink foam to each side of the plywood. I rough cut the foam to the shape, but left it oversized so I could trim it to the exact shape after the glue dried. I used Gorilla Glue to adhere it.

After the glue dried, I trimmed the foam to the shape of the plywood. I used a knife to make the bevels, followed by sandpaper to refine the curves.

Next I did a very “proppy prop” thing; I used hot glue to adhere some cord to create raised detail. These halberd blades are only meant to be decorative, and are way upstage; also, this is how the original one was made, and I needed them all to match.

The whole piece was then coated in FoamCoat, and sent off to the painters.