Beginning Batman Begins Ninjato sword...

[jblakey]

Hey guys,

I'm currently working on a new project for a client, and I thought I'd share. It's a replica of the League of Shadows Ninjato sword from Batman Begins. Didn't get much screen time, so the movie's kinda useless for information, but luckily the Prop Store in the UK is selling a couple of the stunt swords, and I'm basing this replica off what I can see on those.

Looks to me like the blade was a bit of a last minute prop. Off the shelf blade, using wall-hanger style fittings. Anyhow, I've tracked down most of the parts, if anyone is interested.


The blade looks to me to be a UC1184 Black Ronin Ninja sword, with a little grinding on the handle "wing" to get it to blend into the tsuba. Fittings are from a very cheap Chinese-made wall-hanger sword (I got mine from a second-hand tanto on eBay). It might even be the whole handle of the wall-hanger just epoxied onto the blade, but I can't go that route - I've got to make a proper handle out of wood, or I won't be able to live with myself Tsuba is the standard Ninja square. I'll be cutting mine out of Aluminum. Scabbard is a plain-ish looking leather deal.


Anyhow, first stage done - fittings are in hand. Next up, getting in the blade and starting the handle.

Strangely (and luckily), when I was tracking down the correct fittings, I actually bought two swords, thinking they both had the correct fittings, but they're slightly different. Looks to me like one company just copied the other, but I have no idea which direction that copying went



Thanks,
jason

 

[jblakey]

Oops, forgot to kick up a pic of the original tanto that I pulled the fittings off. They were epoxied on, but a minute or two with oven mitts and my trusty heat gun, and they came right off. Also, the handle was held on with a metal pin that needed to be hammered out.


Thanks,
jason

 

[practicecactus]

Great start. I totally want to make one myself. How did you manage to find those pieces?

 

[jblakey]

Just luck and looking, mostly. Got a tip from a guy on another forum that he had seen something like them on a wallhanger, and once I had that tidbit of info, it didn't take long to find them. They're pretty common... here's one I found in about 2 minutes of searching for "samurai sword", price range of 1 -20 dollars.

Samurai Sword Stainless Steel | eBay

Thanks,
jason

 

[jblakey]

Finally got around to spending a few hours working on the sword, and I've made some progress...

Ground down the tang of the blade. It had a strange, bulbous shape that I couldn't work with. This was some tough steel, btw
Cut out the wood blanks for the tsuka (handle).
Glued and fitted - machined out the tang slot with my good ol' ZenToolworks CNC.
Fitted the fuchi.
Milled down the wood to something closer to what I actually needed. Shoulda started with thinner blanks.
Hand work with the rasp/file/sandpaper.
Mocked up a tsuba out of wood just to get an idea of the proper size for the thing. Looks like 6cm x 6cm is the magic size.
Cut, sanded and epoxied the rayskin in place.

Next up, painting, more painting, a bit of paper work, and then the wrapping...


Thanks,
jason

 

[Richard Knight]

Hi, my brother has alot of the hero swords from Batman but unfortunately not that one! Real nice job!

 

[jblakey]

just noticed, reviewing this thread, that out of the two sets of fittings I had purchased, I've been using the wrong set! Bit of a handle rework necessary!


Thanks,
jason

 

[jblakey]

So, after three handles, this things finally done. Had to change the wrap on the handle a bit from the original prop, because the OP looks to have been such a rush job. I just had to do something more proper. Ended up doing standard hinerimaki with some Gunto end knots (because the kashira didn't have any holes to run the ito through).

By the way, if anyone is interested, this

The Art of Tsukamaki: Thomas L Buck: 9780984377954: Amazon.com: Books

is an excellent book on Japanese tsukamaki (handle wrapping).

Made the tsuba out of black ABS, cut it out on my CNC. Filled, sanded, primed, painted.



Anyhow, it's done and ready to go. My thumbs are still sore from the wrap Sorry about the grainy-ness of the pics, I've got to stop thinking that my convenient iPod's camera is as good as my inconvenient Sony camera. It ain't.


Thanks,
jason