Wooden Mjolnir Build

[TheWolfofBees]

Hello Everyone!

I am an amateur builder/prop make who runs a small woodworking shop in Ontario, Canada. In the past I've done a few video game replicas but recently I started working on Marvel inspired prop: Mjolnir!

I've seen a lot of really awesome builds of it done on here but none of them were quite what I was looking for. I primarily in the past have worked in wood and so am attempting this build entirely out of wood.

Feedback/Comments/Criticisms is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
-The Wolf of Bees

I started with making the large block that the head of the hammer would be cut from. Rather than spending a lot on a large enough solid piece I opted for glueing thinner 1.5" thick pieces together I had lying around. Once they were sized out to the 7.5" ish legnth of the prop they were cut out on the table saw.



It took 4 blocks to make up the entire bulk with the 4th one being chopped slightly to take off the extra .5". Sorry if some of the pictures are a blurry, I was rushing a bit and not paying attention to the quality of photos I was taking.



The final block after being all glued up and dried for 24 hours. It's very solid and has a nice weight to it. Heavy enough you know it's there, but not too heavy that you can't pick it up and spin it around.



I hope to have some more pictures/work finished soon so stay tuned!

 

[The Full Armor]

Looking forward to more pictures. Are you you planning to use a wood burning tool to create the designs?

 

[TheWolfofBees]

Looking forward to more pictures. Are you you planning to use a wood burning tool to create the designs?

I'm not quite sure yet to be honest. I had initially planned on relief carving all of them. We'll see, it will be a lot of hand work either way!

---

Now that the block had dried, I started marking out the spaces for the handle, the indents and the sloped edges.



Once I decided on roughly accurate angles (My block isn't perfectly 1:1 with the prop due to how it' made, so I adjusted the angles slightly as needed as so aesthetically it will appear the same) I took the block to the table saw and began to cut corners! (I also love dad-jokes)



Finished cutting all the faces. I took a hand file and neatened up the new corner angles at either end so that they were a little more uniform. Because the block was 100% square they all varied slightly, but with a little finishing you can't tell.



I then cross cut the block where the sloped edges and the sides meet to add a slight lip to the hammer, starting to really take shape now.



I'm pretty sure the designs I've been going off of are the version of the hammer from Thor 2 (although I may accidentally be pulling from more than one of the films). Here I cross cut out the bottom indentation of the hammer where the handle connects. Once all the slats where in I used a chisel to pop all the slats out and smooth it flat.



Hopefully I'll have more before too long!

- The Wolf of Bees.

 

[jarradfx]

I was actually thinking of doing this myself, my school has quite the variety of machines and tools available to make one of these bad boys. Subbed!

 

[TheWolfofBees]

A bit more progress done now with the beginnings of a handle and the end cap.

I grabbed a piece of 1/8 thick poplar that I had lying around to make the end cap out of. Traced out the circumference and marked the center.



I took this piece over to the bandsaw and cut off a few of the edges to make the rounding a bit easier, then slid it on to my hobby lathe to turn round.



Round and sanded, ready to take on its inscription!



I found some reference from the films and copied it out in pencil as evenly spaced as possible, took around 3 attempts to get it all fitting nicely. It lacks the spacing between words, but in favour of having a bit more detail I figured it was not as important, would be too small otherwise. I used a small router dremal bit to carve out the detail. I think this may be the last carving my dremel ever does, I accidentally dropped it off the table and it broke. It is a sad day but I got around 5 years of heavy use out of it so it definitely was worth every penny.



I haven't glued it on yet, just placed it to give an idea of how it'll fit in. I'm thinking it may be in the way when I go to do the detail work on the sides so I'll leave it off for now so it doesn't get scuffed up.



I had an old broken maple bo lying around that looked perfect for the job of handle so I cut off a section to see how it would fit.



It was a snug fit so I gently tapped it in about an inch with a rubber mallet....aaaand I couldn't get it out. Apparently it was a pretty snug fit so I decided I'd just tap it in the other 3 inches and call it a day. (I had simply drilled a hole on the drill press of roughly equal size). No glue for this and I don't think it will ever come out, that joint is solid.

 

[jimbob1986]

That is coming together really well. I've been thinking about having a go at making a wooden Mjolnir myself, and this build is some great inspiration. Looking forward to seeing it finished

 

[rocket20]

I really like how you are showing step by step progress.

 

[Xtafa]

Which version will the final product be?

 

[TheWolfofBees]

Which version will the final product be?

I'm pretty sure it will be closest to the Mjolnir from Thor 2. I'm not entirely sure of all the differences between them so I may accidentally mix up a few features. I'm gonna have a look again at the source material before I start doing the handle details though to try and match it correctly.

 

[TheWolfofBees]

Hey all,

Slow progress as I've been shuffling my time between a few different projects, but I'm wanting to get this one finished up reasonably soon!

I find so many people have a scrap bin that doesn't get put to great use, so I make extra effort to try and use up my cutoffs!
Here I grabbed two scrap pieces and glued the up to turn into the pommel (pun intended!)



Once dry I clamped the piece and took it over to the drill press. Part of the reason for the delay has been I needed to get a proper sized forstner bit for drilling out the center of the handle pieces. I couldn't use the spade bit I used to introduce the handle to the head because of how tight the fit was, it would break my thin pine fittings.



Took it over to the handle to double check if the depth was good, I ended up drilling it deeper after I turned it.



Turned the piece round and to the basic profile, it looks a lot different without the cut out sides.



I then took a coping saw and sliced out my sides top down, cleaned up the bottom by clamping and drilling it round and neatening the hole thing up with a file.



Not sure why this one posted upside down, but starting to draw on the design for carving. There will be a lip around the edge like the original and the carving will be relief in the center.