Some Prop Materials help

[plasmajunky]

Hello Fellas
I got commissioned to build a pair of deadpool swords with scabbards and back mountings very straight forward …….so I thought. One of the requests is that they be con safe so NO METAL these blades are narrow and thin so making moulds and casting I feel are out as smooth cast 300 and 324 25 what ever are to brittle, foam it 15 same issue task 16 to rubbery if i build an aluminum sub structure I feel the blade would be to thick and the resin would be to thin and the first time the sword flexed a bit it would just crack off any of your fellas have luck with any other materials or techniques. By the way I wanted to simply use wood cust. wants some kind of resin so I honestly wanted to put forth the effort to see if there was a resin or other casting compound of choice for thin castings. I Talked to my rep at Reynolds advanced Materials he could only go off what his spec sheets told him I am actually interested in real world what works and don't work .
Thanks again Fellas

 

[robstyle]

What is your location? It potentially plays heavily with access to materials.

The old skool way to do swords in rubber is to thicken the blade to allow a heavy duty armature inside. If you ever noticed a few scenes in the POTC sequels the sword blades are about 1/4" + thick. That was due to the aforementioned heavy duty armature rubber sword. Yet the blade of course could only take so much a beating due to the materials used. Spiderman 3 had swords with cut outs on the blades so those had an aircraft aluminum water jet armature. Yet in the end the holes in the blades were just painted black. Master and Commander had a great set of stunt swords made out of a urethane that was flexible yet rigid which turns out was based on skateboard wheel material. A great instance of thinking outside the box.
Over the past few years I helped a friend and supplier develop a few new materials. One is a heavy duty rubber so rigid its near baseball bat worthy. Weve been using it for knives and such with no internal armatures and no issues. But this is for prop use, not cosplay. Its also only available within a narrow field of the professional industry and very expensive. The materials are out there, but again, expensive.

Cost wise it seems you may be best off with old skool fiberglass. Its inexpensive and repairable. I would suggest thickening the blades though. There is a fine line between accuracy and durability. The client needs to realize that when it comes to real world handling in a cosplay setting.

 

[plasmajunky]

Hey Rob style
Thanks for the info and ideas I like the hard rubber idea but I'm my experience with that type of rubber it is usually an injection mould so that is like you said very equipment and cost prohibitive. I ended up using good old wood light strong and repairable but i do want to make moulds down the road as there is some interest in a couple more sets so your urethane idea may play a part in this
Thanks jerry

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Oh Robstyle
I am from San Diego Ca.
Thanks Jerry

 

[airhead]

Adam Savage's recent One Day Build at tested may give you some ideas. He used thin plywood as a core and built the hollow-grind profile from Bondo. The finish was aluminum metallic tape with some easy paint weathering effects. He was building a Hellboy broadsword style sword, so he was able to make the blade fairly large. Here's a link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcDCZ2TmTck.

 

[robstyle]

No injection molding needed for rubber. Its brushed into the mould for a skin coat, armature suspended, then more rubber poured in both sides, mould is quickly closed and clamped with a little back pressure at the vent to force material into any voids... With rubber swords and knives a little flashing is desired as thats a guarantee of no air pockets or voids on the blade/edges. I just googled the Deadpool swords, they seem rather basic to fabricate and pull in rubber exactly as they were for the film. Ive had to make similar swords in an afternoon on location with nothing but a bench grinder and lengths of aluminum plate.

These are knives from Spiderman 3, the real knife is in the middle with the real scabbard, top is a rubber knife/scabbard, below is a rubber knife. There is a super simple wire armature in the rubber knife as the blade was requested to possibly be bent. If that request wasnt there the internal armature would have been a section of bandsaw blade. All were painted with mirra chrome with a little touch of Mohawk raw umber.

The same method was done with the swords for the same film yet the internal armatures were water jetted aircraft grade aluminum as they had to stand up to a massive beating. I dont have those rubber swords/knives pictures handy but these are the various hero swords/knives. All were moulded and cast in rubber.