I asked my LOTR fanboy buddy: "If you could have any weapon, what would it be? He said: "Witch-king's mace/flail/club thing, from The Return of the King."
And with little to no prop-building experience, here we go.
Budget is tight, and cardboard would be covered anyway, so that's where I started. My build closely follows the route taken by forum member Evilcorpse.
This cardboard is double-layered heavy stuff (I think from a refrigerator) and FREE.
Cut slots in the middle, and an opening for a wood dowel at the top of each.
Slid sections together:
Since you can only slot-fit 2 pieces together at a time, I had to cut these next ones completely in half...
...and just glue them straight to the others. I used Liquid Nails for this.
To keep the thing rigid, I hot-glued cardboard wedges between sections with my Little Blue Hot Glue Gun of Doom. Also, I cut a 6-inch piece of 1 & 1/8" oak dowel, ground it down to about 1" diameter, and inserted it (heh) into that top slot (again, trying to save money, so I just bought one diameter rod for both the flail head and the handle, and used a bench grinder to get it small enough). Maybe I should have just started with a dowel rod running the full length of the flail head. We shall see.
To start filling the gaps, I cut a bunch of very rough styrofoam (FREE from work) and hot-glued it in. Looks ridiculous, I know. The styrofoam exploded every time I cut it, and was not fun to work with, as it floated and static-clung to every freaking thing in the room.
The eye-screws and chain I bought at the home-improvement place. I've looked through images and video of this weapon from the Return of the King DVD Appendix, and I'm pretty sure the chain had 14 links in it.
How did I get the chain onto both those eye-screws? By putting them each in a huge bench vice and beating the living crap out of them with a monkey wrench and a piece of rebar. Drilled a hole in the dowel section (with a corded drill, mind you, not a drill press), and amazingly got it in straight. I actually had to do this twice, as I split the first dowel section while beating the eye-screw into shape.
Aaand here's where we are now. Used spray-foam to further fill in cracks, and the dowel with the chain was glued in with Liquid Nails. I hope this and the other stuff that goes on top will be enough to prevent the flail head from flying off and killing a small village when someone is in mid-swing.
I've never gone beyond hot glue and cardboard building anything. My idea next is to carve the general shape out of the styrofoam and then go over the whole thing with bondo (like in the build I've seen before). If anyone who actually knows what they're doing can suggest something better, I would love the advice. Thanks in advance and happy Election Day.
And with little to no prop-building experience, here we go.
Budget is tight, and cardboard would be covered anyway, so that's where I started. My build closely follows the route taken by forum member Evilcorpse.
This cardboard is double-layered heavy stuff (I think from a refrigerator) and FREE.
Cut slots in the middle, and an opening for a wood dowel at the top of each.
Slid sections together:
Since you can only slot-fit 2 pieces together at a time, I had to cut these next ones completely in half...
...and just glue them straight to the others. I used Liquid Nails for this.
To keep the thing rigid, I hot-glued cardboard wedges between sections with my Little Blue Hot Glue Gun of Doom. Also, I cut a 6-inch piece of 1 & 1/8" oak dowel, ground it down to about 1" diameter, and inserted it (heh) into that top slot (again, trying to save money, so I just bought one diameter rod for both the flail head and the handle, and used a bench grinder to get it small enough). Maybe I should have just started with a dowel rod running the full length of the flail head. We shall see.
To start filling the gaps, I cut a bunch of very rough styrofoam (FREE from work) and hot-glued it in. Looks ridiculous, I know. The styrofoam exploded every time I cut it, and was not fun to work with, as it floated and static-clung to every freaking thing in the room.
The eye-screws and chain I bought at the home-improvement place. I've looked through images and video of this weapon from the Return of the King DVD Appendix, and I'm pretty sure the chain had 14 links in it.
How did I get the chain onto both those eye-screws? By putting them each in a huge bench vice and beating the living crap out of them with a monkey wrench and a piece of rebar. Drilled a hole in the dowel section (with a corded drill, mind you, not a drill press), and amazingly got it in straight. I actually had to do this twice, as I split the first dowel section while beating the eye-screw into shape.
Aaand here's where we are now. Used spray-foam to further fill in cracks, and the dowel with the chain was glued in with Liquid Nails. I hope this and the other stuff that goes on top will be enough to prevent the flail head from flying off and killing a small village when someone is in mid-swing.
I've never gone beyond hot glue and cardboard building anything. My idea next is to carve the general shape out of the styrofoam and then go over the whole thing with bondo (like in the build I've seen before). If anyone who actually knows what they're doing can suggest something better, I would love the advice. Thanks in advance and happy Election Day.
