Aluminum Swords: Construction methods for assembly

Aluminum swords have become much more common in live theatre in the 20 years or so I've been doing prop weapons rentals (and more than 20 that I've been doing fight choreography). They bring with them obvious advantages: lighter weight, safer, cheaper to ship, won't rust... but still metal. But they have disadvantages as well, due to the softer nature of the metal. Here I look at a few of the ways folks deal with that.
I skip over peening, in part because aluminum also has more issues with metal fatigue and brittleness in that way, so peened aluminum is much rarer than peened steel. I also skip over welded, because welding aluminum is harder and more dangerous (toxic fumes and whatnot). Both of those are fairly commonly used for steel swords though.
You can see (or rent!) all of these and more at www.fightdesigner.com/swords.php