Hello everyone! This is my first post here and I'm super excited to show off Finn's Golden Sword (also known as "Scarlett") that I built for NYCC 2015 (also a first for me!). It took less than a week to build, and maybe less than $10 USD (I had some household materials already on hand). Hope this helps anyone looking to build a sword of their own, and ask me anything about my building methods. Enjoy!
1) Draw and cut out some cardboard. The proportions were eyeballed, and the blade is roughly 3 times the total length of the cross guard, hilt, and pommel. I scored along the center line of the blade so I can get a clean bend when I get to giving the blade some 3-dimensionality.
2) Wrap it up! Taped together the two halves along their edges. Got about halfway down the blade before I stuffed the blade with a few skinny slivers of cardboard. This gives the blade the appropriate "bulge" along the center line. I preemptively started making the hilt out of layered pieces of cardboard...
*END OF DAY 1
3) Cardboard hilts aren't strong enough for delivering a deadly strike. I want to be able to "z target + forward joystick + A" on that biz, so I decided to make a stronger hilt to blade connection. I dismantled the cardboard hilt and added a dowel rod in its core (thanks, wooden coat hanger!)
4) Now the cross guard, because cross guards are cool! (sorry, Star Wars purists - not sorry). Again, layered a whole bunch of 2 inch wide slivers of cardboard, and lashed it all together with masking tape! I wanted the cross guard to look a little brutish, so I made it extra bulky. I figure I'm going for that "first sword I ever found in the wasteland" kind of vibe.
5) It's starting to look like a proper sword! I'm filling in any gaps between the cross guard and the hilt with extra little bits of rolled up cardboard, so that that the cross guard is pressure fitting nice and snug around the hilt. Stability is key!
*END OF DAY 2
6) Wheat paste or "engrudo" is pretty great. Super easy and cheap to make (2 cups flour, 1 cup water, mix, heat on stove top 'til whitish, cool, add water to desired consistency. or google it). Had some newsprint paper on hand, so I shredded some of that up into a few different sizes and got to work. Started with the blade and did about 3-4 layers. The cardboard I used for building the blade had some nasty creases that kept showing through the paper layers, so hung the sword upside down from the hilt using an S hook. The last layer, with a gravity assist, smoothened that crease right out! Once dry, I proceeded to papering the cross guard and hilt.
*END OF DAY 3
7) The pommel was built out of a poster tube and a couple pieces of cardboard. Wood glue was used for attaching the cardboard to the poster tube. I used the casing of a generic lip balm called "revo" (walgreens) for the jewel. Before adding the jewel, however, I had to layer on some paper for consistency. I filled up the poster tube with some wadded pieces of newsprint so the poster tube wouldn't shift around while I did that. Then black acrylic paint for the cross guard, hilt, and pommel! And of course, gold paint for the blade. Finally, a strip of black leather was wrapped around the hilt and super glued down.
END OF BUILD!!! Thanks for looking
Here are some pics of Scarlett in action at NYCC 2015.
1) Draw and cut out some cardboard. The proportions were eyeballed, and the blade is roughly 3 times the total length of the cross guard, hilt, and pommel. I scored along the center line of the blade so I can get a clean bend when I get to giving the blade some 3-dimensionality.
2) Wrap it up! Taped together the two halves along their edges. Got about halfway down the blade before I stuffed the blade with a few skinny slivers of cardboard. This gives the blade the appropriate "bulge" along the center line. I preemptively started making the hilt out of layered pieces of cardboard...
*END OF DAY 1
3) Cardboard hilts aren't strong enough for delivering a deadly strike. I want to be able to "z target + forward joystick + A" on that biz, so I decided to make a stronger hilt to blade connection. I dismantled the cardboard hilt and added a dowel rod in its core (thanks, wooden coat hanger!)
4) Now the cross guard, because cross guards are cool! (sorry, Star Wars purists - not sorry). Again, layered a whole bunch of 2 inch wide slivers of cardboard, and lashed it all together with masking tape! I wanted the cross guard to look a little brutish, so I made it extra bulky. I figure I'm going for that "first sword I ever found in the wasteland" kind of vibe.
5) It's starting to look like a proper sword! I'm filling in any gaps between the cross guard and the hilt with extra little bits of rolled up cardboard, so that that the cross guard is pressure fitting nice and snug around the hilt. Stability is key!
*END OF DAY 2
6) Wheat paste or "engrudo" is pretty great. Super easy and cheap to make (2 cups flour, 1 cup water, mix, heat on stove top 'til whitish, cool, add water to desired consistency. or google it). Had some newsprint paper on hand, so I shredded some of that up into a few different sizes and got to work. Started with the blade and did about 3-4 layers. The cardboard I used for building the blade had some nasty creases that kept showing through the paper layers, so hung the sword upside down from the hilt using an S hook. The last layer, with a gravity assist, smoothened that crease right out! Once dry, I proceeded to papering the cross guard and hilt.
*END OF DAY 3
7) The pommel was built out of a poster tube and a couple pieces of cardboard. Wood glue was used for attaching the cardboard to the poster tube. I used the casing of a generic lip balm called "revo" (walgreens) for the jewel. Before adding the jewel, however, I had to layer on some paper for consistency. I filled up the poster tube with some wadded pieces of newsprint so the poster tube wouldn't shift around while I did that. Then black acrylic paint for the cross guard, hilt, and pommel! And of course, gold paint for the blade. Finally, a strip of black leather was wrapped around the hilt and super glued down.
END OF BUILD!!! Thanks for looking
Here are some pics of Scarlett in action at NYCC 2015.
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