Today I reworked more of my bulky odd weapons into better more movable ones and I took lots of pictures. heres how to do it.

Now before I get into it I will give you a list of tools and shit you need : rattan, box cutter, big wire cutters, 1in paint brush, duck tape, tennis balls, steel binding wire, blue camping foam, black hose( I dont remember what they called it but you can get it at Lowes or Home depot, a grinder with a 24 grit sanding disk, ruler ,and it REALLY helps to have a vice see all these nice things





This is what I started with


I striped down the old swords to bare rattan.
Then I took a ruler and measured the diameter of each piece. I was trying to get it down to 3/4in so for example if I have a 1in piece of rattan I need to shave it down 1/8in on each side to make it work. I marked a line on the ends of the sticks of how far I wanted to go. Like this


then I took my marked sticks and put them in my vice like so

Start on the end with the markings sand down to the mark, then work your wake down the rattan making sure that you keep it all even and shit. like this

and this


once you are done with the first side flip the thing over and do the same on the other side. you will end up with some rattan that is oddly rectangular in shape.



next you need to use you box cutter to up open a tennis ball. Make it large enough that the rattan will fit inside. I normally make a X on the tennis ball. put the ball on on the stick and place you hand like so as to see where the cross guard is to go.


next roll out your blue foam. using some kind of marking tool(pin, pencil, marker, blood) mark out the shape of your rattan starting from the top of the cross guard line to the end of the stick.


I know its hard to see the lines ..... yes yes I know I should have used more blood. Now use a ruler to mark 1 1/2in from the end of your rattan like so

once again the lines suck , I know more blood
now what I do is at the bottom end of the foam , the part that will be close to the cross guard measure out 1in from each line then on the other end measure out 3/4in. make a line from the 1in mark to the 3/4in mark to make the taper of the sword. Then mark the point of the sword like this .


now you have to marked out sections of foam . First the section that is the same size and you piece of rattan and the section that is blade shaped. First cut out the rattan center part and then the blade shaped pieces from the foam.

Now using you box cutter take the rattan shaped foam and cut in half , as in instead of it being 1/2in make it 1/4in. like so


you should end up with pieces like this



OK now if you have it put you rattan in a vice like so


now open up your contact cement and your paint brush(did I mention that this stuff doesn't wash out of paint brushes , so this brush is a glue brush for life now) and cover all sides of the rattan down to the cross guard point with glue. on the foam coat one side each of the 2 1/4 rattan shaped pieces and all the in side edges of the blade shaped piece. wait about 10 min for the glue to do its drying thing......in this time you could read a book, punch a friend , go over long sword drills or just watch glue dry. Now that its dry stick all that shit together like this




now let it set for about 1 min then start rapping it with duck tape like so.


now comes the wire wrapping part . Just try and keep the wire flat along the rattan and close together ,but not overlapping if it can be helped. like this



now you dont have to do the rap all in one piece of wire but if you dont make sure you keep it close and tight to the rattan. Now before you finish the wire rap, cut out and place you cross guard. I normally just cut a hole in the middle of the tube length wise . Once on the wire rapped rattan Handel you can trim ether side to make it even it should look like this.


now finish wrapping the wire down to the end of the handle. about the last inch or so of the handle over lap the wire a few times to help balance out the weight of the sword. Now put the tennis ball that you used early back on the end over the wire and duck tape it in place. your sword should look some thing like this now .



now you can finish rapping duck tape on the sword as you see fit. their you are a new shiny sword ready to give someone a good beating. now here are some extra pics

first 2 are of my dagger that I worked on at the same time as the one hander




one pic of sir Eric getting changing clothes before going back to work...... I dont think he knows what bath rooms are for......


but anyway


AND one of the finished product




WOO yeah done. If you have any comments, questions , or death threats please let me know. I hope this has been a helpful post.

Squire Stephen

BWAHAHAHA!

You shoulda called the Inquirer or something. You might have gotten good money for that picture...

We need to work on your photo-graphy a lil bit. One thing that helps is if you turn the flash off and use a tripod. Then the pics don't look so washed out.

Otherwise, an excellent how-to post :D

Thank you, I am very greatfull to you, and all that share their experience in how to build armor and weapons.

i find this to be really helpful
thank you for the information

that's an awesome dungeon looking workshop area, is there a boiler in there as well?

No but we do have an air tank for air powered tools. Like my planishing hammer. And it is a dungeon. its in the basement of the LSU sculpture building.

I think I will be making some changes to this post. I will add a section on how to use washers as a counter weight instead of wire. seeing as how I need to re-pad my long sword any way.

So, I have a question about the wire. I made a short sword today without the wire, so I just put ductape over the rectangular shaped ratan (we had shaved it into a rectangular shape). However, the corners of the handle kinda jab at my fingers. It's a super small complaint, but I'm wondering if the wire would not only act as a counter balance but also as a sort of cushion for your fingers. I was jw...anyone can answer. Also, how well does wire work as a counter balance anyway? It its weight really that significant?

On my one hander, I wrapped a bunch of thick solder wire under the tape near the pommel as a counterweight. I think I might have a nut in the pommel as well. It took more than I expected to get a noticeable shift in balance, but I was happy when I was done.
-D

yeah I have been meaning to update this for a while. I found that for balancing the weight attaching washers to the pommel of the sword work much better then wire. Once I have some free time I will take more pics and update the how to, as for sharp edges I would sand them down . so that instead of just a square you end up with something that looks more like a square with is corners cut down.


Squire Stephen
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