I Made My Kid "Nunchuks"

Xav got it in his head that he needed a set of nunchaku.  If you don't know, nunchuks are an martial arts weapon made out of two sticks and a short rope or chain connecting the sticks.  I have no idea what brought on this desire, probably Lego.  Thanks a lot.  I was not about to have him clobbering people and breaking things around the house with a couple of sticks.  When he asked me to help him make some, I mulled it over a bit before I agreed to the task.

I had just received a blanket as a gift.  It was wrapped around a piece of foam, which I guess was intended to make the blanket appear more plush or larger than it really was.  Jerks.  But it *is* a nice soft blanket which has since been removed from my possession by Merrick.  Anyway, that piece of foam became the "stick" filler.  We dug through the duct tape assortment and Xav, surprisingly, went with plain white.  But, how to hook them together?   That was the real brain teaser.  Some days, I feel justified in hanging onto all the weird stuff I have...  I found a lanyard with a badge clip on one end.

First, we cut the foam piece in half.  There's nothing technical about it.  I measured nothing.  I had a piece of foam and I needed two pieces of foam, so we cut it in halfish.  I had Xav start making duct tape "sheets" by cutting off strips of several inches and overlapping them so they stuck together.  They needed to be as long as the foam piece.  When that was ready, I knotted and Xav tucked one end of the lanyard into the foam as I rolled it tightly into a long cylinder.  I had cut a small piece of duct tape and made a small X cut in the center.  We used that to help hold the lanyard into the end of the foam.  Then we placed the rolled foam on the duct tape sheet and rolled it tightly again, sticking the tape to itself.

For the second piece, I slipped the X cut tape on the lanyard first, facing the opposite way as the first piece.  Then we tied a knot again and rolled it into the foam.  When the foam was rolled, we wrapped it tight in another duct tape sheet. 

Xav had a blast playing ninja and spinning it around.  The two pieces did eventually separate because the boys have a habit of holding it over their heads, a "stick" in each hand.  They played with it intact for a couple weeks though and Xav still uses the one end still attached to the lanyard.  It was a fun project together and it makes him feel special when we do something, just the two of us.  I hope this inspires you to make something guy-like with your boys.