Sword Art Online: Elucidator (Complete!) Revisited

[JureKorzuch]

Re: Sword Art Online: Elucidator-Complete!

I have enough of this sword. I choose wrong material and screw myself over while sanding.
I'm working right now on something else so i don't mind droping this failed try. I've learned few thing so this isn't waste of time.

 

[drjag]

Re: Sword Art Online: Elucidator-Complete!

So it's been over a year since I have completed this project and my friend who I made this for was very happy with its outcome, however, a couple months ago, he accidentally broke the sword in two. Although this happened out of nowhere, I knew it was inevitable because of a certain weakspot I ended up making during the process of making this sword. If anyone has noticed in my first post of this thread, the thick length pieces are in 2 pieces instead of 1 long piece, that's because the MDF simply wasn't long enough so a patch was made to keep the join together.

Affected Area by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

This patch I highlighted was strong at first, but everyone knows that 1 whole piece is always stronger than 2 pieces joined and eventually, that was the area that split.

If I was to fix this, I would have to find a way to join them in the strongest manor possible and after a few drafts, I decided a box joint style join with a threaded rod fed through the split would provide more than enough strength then it will ever need to never break there again.

First I needed to measure out the width of what the slots would be so they join perfectly together; I made a row of 6 with the middle intersecting area thicker than the other slots and I used a scroll saw to very carefully cut the slots out; this was incredibly nerving to do as one screw up would ruin the whole plan so I took my sweet time to do this.

2015-06-05 09.58.47 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

2015-06-05 10.08.21 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

With both corresponding slots cut out, I saturated the exposed surfaces with superglue to toughen and seal the MDF so I could file the slots without the MDF fraying like it does and after enough filing, they slotted in perfectly; again, I took my time as too much filing would make the fit loose, thus meaning the join wouldn't be as reliable.

2015-06-05 10.31.22 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

2015-06-05 12.46.54 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

I didn't take pictures of the threaded rod stage but what I did was drill 2 different sized holes in both ends, a small hole where the hilt is and a wide hole down the blade length. I threaded the rod through the small hole with some epoxy glue and slid over the blade length over the threaded rod and connected the 2 halves together with both more epoxy and expanding Gorilla glue to fill the gaps. (I won't lie, during the joining stage to make it as 1 piece, the Anduril/Narsil sword from LOTR sprung to mind a lot)

2015-06-05 13.24.17 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

2015-06-08 16.17.24 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

With the sword at full strength, I could comfortably work on the sword without it ever breaking there again. I sanded down the Gorilla glue mess and filled over with Milliput and body filler and sanded over that to get it as smooth as possible.

2015-06-09 09.25.51 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

2015-06-09 14.12.31 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

The last thing I did was cover up most of the sword and re-primed the area I've been working on with filler primer.

2015-06-09 14.56.58 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

2015-06-09 15.23.51 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

The rest to do now is to thicken the area because it's been sanded down so much and re-paint the whole sword because the random patch of primer needs painting anyway.

Until then...

 

[drjag]

So I thought I was just going to thicken the area I fixed and re-paint the sword, but then I got thinking about how it could be improved. During the process of making this sword, I was always worried about breaking the area if I worked on it too hard but now that it's fixed, I can work on it as much as I want. I never liked how "flat" the blade edge was so I decided to re-file every edge; This took hours but it looks SO much better now.

DSC01160 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

DSC01158 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

DSC01162 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

This was never visible on camera but there was this small flat bump made of Milliput that I was never able to work on because of the fear of snapping the sword but again, now that it's strong, I could vigorously sand it flat.

DSC01209 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

There was also this area that had a weird shaped pit that no filler would stick to but this time, I used squadron putty and it stuck very nicely which was sanded flush.

DSC01211 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

Lastly I completely re-shaped the horrible top hat shaped pommel I'd previously sculpted, down to one uniform tapered shape.

DSC01215 by Joshua Guess, on Flickr

With all of these changes, this sword will need to go through lots of fine sanding before I even begin to paint; this project will take longer than expected but I think it'll look so much better than it did before.

Until then...