Reflections of Renaissance

Alright! Here we go. I promised sparks, and I think just about everybody will like those little golden flying nuisances because they’re not the ones dealing with metal in their hair and teeth and noses.

(Don’t call me an idiot. I already know. I’m going to buy a respirator as soon as I can XD.)

Anyway, here’s the first stage of the real build!

I had a pretty short materials list. I think the total price (for those of you who are considering building your own prop sword) was about sixty bucks.

Four feet of 3/8″ x 6″ flat bar.

20 feet of 5/16″ hot roll round stock, because they wouldn’t sell me less than a whole stick. They were kind enough to cut it into 5′ sections for me, though.

Lastly, 1-1/2″ cold roll round stock for the handle.

Here’s your first sparks. Yay, purple! Watching the plasma cutter can be really satisfying, but IRL it’s super bright and can hurt your eyes. I’d recommend wearing a pair of dark-lensed safety glasses.

You probably just noticed that there’s a blade blank sitting on the edge there and are wondering why the plas is still going.

You’re correct to wonder.

I decided to go ahead and make two of them.

The character in my book has two, after all, so why not create a cover and a costume at the same time? I’ll probably finish up the second sword much later, but it was more efficient to cut out both blanks at once.

Less sparks on this one, but it’s an important part, nonetheless.

I have a chunk of that 1-1/2″ round stock in the mill right now. The tool I’m using is called an end-mill. It’s very handy for turning a round surface into a flat one–in this case because I want to drill through the piece, and don’t want the bit sliding around on the round side.

In this picture the tang is pointing top left, and the blade extends lower right. The piece stuck on it is the product of my milling: four 5/16″ holes drilled all the way through, perpendicular to the main hole that slides over the tang. It doesn’t look very nice, though, and I realized that once I got it fit onto the sword.

So I ground it down … quite a bit … and ended up with this.

Looks a lot different, yes? Haha. Well it’s a lot sleeker, even though it’s not as strong. It’ll have 5/16″ round stock filling the holes, so it’ll be solid eventually.

It’s function is to hold the basket hilt together.

Time for another Blender graphic I put together!

This week at work I had access to the lathe, so I started working on the handle. Notice that in the graphic it’s got a bunch of ridges on it–that’s the reason there are white lines on the taper.

For those of you who are wondering, here’s a little tip for making a taper with a lathe!

The tool-block to the left of the rod I’m turning isn’t quite square to everything. Adjusting this angle allows you to cut any kind of taper you want. It’s pretty handy.

Anyway, that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with the handle. I’ll probably finish it by this Thursday.

The most current progress is just a bunch of sanding on the blade to make it look pretty. I didn’t bother taking a picture while I was working because (duh) there’s no sparks. (Why would anyone take a picture without sparks??)

But here are before and after pictures of the blade.

In this one I just finished roughing in the shape with an angle grinder.

This is after a few hours of sanding. It’s not quite done yet.

It might be a week or two before I post on this again. I won’t do updates on monotonous sanding or lathing or drilling. I’ll take a few pictures while I work on the basket hilt, and write again when I start putting it together!

Until then, God bless!

~Reflections of Renaissance/Carter Pierce