Halo 3: ODST- Buck's Bowie Knife

Hey all. Thought it was about time I got around to posting about a build I recently finished- Nathan Fillion's character Buck's bowie knife from Halo 3: ODST.

I was a bit of a regular over on the 405th where I've drawn up blueprints of a few Halo weapons over the years. I've always been a fan of the UNSCDF knives and have a particular fondness for Sgt. Forge's Tanto and Gy Sgt. Buck's bowie. These knives took down an Arbiter and Brute Chieftan before players even had the option of using knives in game and that made them really stick out for me.

Anyway I drew up Buck's bowie about two years ago as it was the easiest to get reasonable screenshots of-





And here are some snazzy updated versions of the blueprints I drew-





Pretty much straight after I drew up the blueprint I intended to start a build out of MDF, so I drew up the blade-



Annnnd, that's all I did on this project until about seven months ago, when I decided to get off my lazy arse and finish it.

First up I wanted to do a test of milling the fuller using a bull nose router bit-



If you look closely on the above image you'll notice I failed to seat the test piece in my vice properly, the left is ****** a little high resulting in a tapered cut of varying depth-



A mistake I did not repeat when doing the blade itself-



I must admit even looking back at this image I'm pretty happy with how neat and accurate the fuller came out on both sides of the blade. Using my small hobby mill gave me so much control and accuracy when doing the cuts.

After that I cut the blade out using the scroll saw.



Then I shaped the edge of the blade using files, sand paper, and scrapers to get the edge just the right shape-







After that it was a matter of sealing all that exposed porus MDF-



And then an over night stay in my dodgy spray booth-



And that was the blade pretty much done at that point.



Hope my thread's not too boring. I'll try to get the next post up sooner rather than later.

Hurry up then. I've got nothing going on.

red4 said:

Hurry up then. I've got nothing going on.

Click to expand...

Patience is a virtue red4.

So it was at this point I did a little more fine tuning on the blade.









Next I drew up the guard also in 6mm MDF-



and I also drew and cut out the pommel from 6mm MDF and 7mm plyboard to get the correct thickness-





I pretty much got everything going on at the same time here so I also cut out 5x 6mm handles with the intention of gutting the centre one for the blades tang to travel through-







Next up I got started on the guard as it had the least amount of work required. I drilled out most of the area for the blade's tang-



Then filed it to shape-



After some triming on the scroll saw and shaping on the linisher the guard was pretty much done-





More soon. And by soon I mean the next day or so.

Sure, just build a knife out of MDF, why don't you.

TheShinyOne said:

Sure, just build a knife out of MDF, why don't you.

Click to expand...

Oh, not just a knife, I made the sheath out of MDF too! Not sure I can see it being labeled as "..The knife material of tomorrow!" though

I built an MDF knife recently doing almost the exact same steps.

Used super glue to seal the filed MDF knife edge. Nice and sturdy now.

Fun stuff.

nick daring said:

I built an MDF knife recently doing almost the exact same steps.

Used super glue to seal the filed MDF knife edge. Nice and sturdy now.

Fun stuff.

Click to expand...

Looks great Nick. What's that you're working on there?

I'd definately recommend checking out some form of sanding sealer after using it on MDF for a couple of different projects now. It seals the porus exposed edges of the MDF and helps to re-enforce the material like you described, but I'd assume it's easier to apply evenly than superglue and probably works out cheaper per ml.

I'll make a build thread soon for the project.

nick daring said:

...I'll make a build thread soon for the project.

Click to expand...

Woah Nick, that looks great! Make sure you do I'd love to see how you went about the build. It looks cool on the bookcase too, nice placement.

By next day or so, turns out I mean next week or so. Sorry folks.


Next up I got into the pommel, drilling out most of the material where the tang fit-





After a bit of filing a test fit-





Then a bit of sealer on it and the guard-




My original intention with the handle had been to put real pins in it as my drawing indicates with the holes in the tang-



But it didn't take long for that idea to wear off, so I gutted the handle layer that I'd drilled allowing for the tang to fit through-



I had also considered that if I were to mold & cast it I'd do it all as seperate pieces, but that idea wore off pretty quick too and I opted for it all to be one piece when it was done. So I glued the handle together rather than make it two pieces-



After a bunch of sanding and filing the handle was coming together. I decided to use a hole punch to indent the MDF to give the impression of the pins-



Some sealer on the handle and the back of the pommel-



Then with it all put together-







And EXPLODED!



I then needed to tidy up the "pins". I used sealer to build up the areas (this is just one drop on each pin)-







After I took these pictures I then carefully filed them down to match the handle.


And that was the knife pretty much done. Next up was the sheath.

Classy.

Looks absolutely amazing.
Great work.

friggen sweet, MDF Bowie... think i want one... nope, i know i want one