Rita Vrataski Sword - Edge of Tomorrow

Pretty cool prop, right? Let's make it.

At the moment I'm about 35 hours into the build. I made the blade, the blade grip and the guard thing out of beech wood. As with most of my replicas I'm going for durability and detail of the prop rather than lightness, so beech is nice cause it's dense and hard (also heavy). I cut the edge of the blade seperately and glued it to the rest of the blade. I think that was the easiest way to make the edge.



I took the dimensions of the sword from screenshots and promo pictures. The overall length of the sword is about 130 cm (53') and width of the blade is 17 cm (6.9'). It might be slightly oversized but oversized is always better than undersized.
To attach the handle to the blade I inserted a threaded rod into the blade. For the handle I used a 30 mm aluminium pipe that finely ground and I made the pommel out of steel, polished it and cut thread to screw it to the threaded rod.



The handle assembly looks like this: the blade grip goes on the rod first, then a plastic sleeve and a nut. The sleeve centers the aluminum tube on the on the rod and acts as a spacer/washerfor the nut so I don't have a problem reaching it with a wrench. Next comes the alu tube and in the end the steel pommel that screws on the rod and also centers the tube.


The polished pommel is a bit too pretty compared to the reference, but I like how it looks now so I'll probably leave it like this and maybe go light with weathering on other parts too. The steel also wont be clearcoated and will probably slowly corrode, which will look just right (in a couple of years).

And here are the first prototypes of the blade grip nuts. I'm making these out of aluminium shaped like plugs so I'll just push them trough the holes in blade grip into holes I'll make in the blade.


Does anyone know what the black parts of the handle of the movie prop are? It could be black paint but it looks like black electrical tape in some pictures. I don't want to use paint cause then I'd have to clearcoat the aluminium and I don't want to use any kind of sticky tape, cause those quickly go ugly and sticky. I ordered some electrical heat shrink tubes and I'll try those to see how it looks.

At first I thought the sword in the movie was made from a part of the main rotor - one blade chopped down to size and sharpened. But I had the privilege of seeing an army helicopter up close a few days ago and the blades of the main rotor were way too big. The blades of thetail rotor, however, were almost exactly the same width and length as Rita's sword.

So here's my dilemma: should the sword be one complete heli blade with a finished edge or should the end look like it's been cut off?

I know MatterMaker in his thread on this forum made the sword's end look like a jagged cut. But as far as I can see from my blurry screengrabs, the end is black and finished. I tried to find a helicopter with tail rotor blades, that are diagonally cut at the end, but I couldn't find any.



Also, there is a red line on the end of the sword during the beach attack that isnt there on promo shots. Probably blood splatter, but could be painted (check middle picture) like Rita's suit. It's on both sides of the sword.

I finished the build a few days ago and made a fancy stand for it too. I decided to make the end of the sword look finished rather than cut off. And I painted the red line on the end.The white "UDF" graphics are mostly made up.
Enjoy.

OUTSTANDING. :thumbsup :thumbsup

Ziga. you did It again. Awesome!:thumbsup

Nice and awesome work! ^^
But it is funny how they changed the weapon.
In the book is her weapon a giant Axe made from Wolfram.

Great build! Nailed it.

Very, very cool. I love the movie and this prop. Well done!

Nailed it. :thumbsup

Hi Ziga - just letting you know the beautiful piece is now pride of place in my collection. FYI - the pommel has aged nicely. Purchased from tmax - March 2021. It was fanastic to follow your build of this Edge of Tommorrow Sword - you are a skilled propmaker! Now resides in the First City to see the Sun - Gisborne, New Zealand.