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Outfitting your miniatures with scaled weaponry , and in context with this " How To " in particular , archaic weapons such as swords , is much easier to achieve than you may have imagined . In addition , the basic techniques I'll be introducing can also be applied across the entire range of weaponry , from knives to firearms ; once you know how to create a sword you can create a gun . That's what you call escalation .   The creation of the edged weaponry for this demo utilizes sheet brass , scissors , a rotary moto-tool all of which pose safety hazards from sharp edges and the use of powered equipment . If you are 16 years of age or younger get Mom or Dad to help , and be sure to wear safety eyeware . I will also be providing info for creating " safer " weaponry utilizing wood in place of metal . K & S Engineering manufactures a broad range of metal products for hobbyists that can be found in most craft and hobby stores , and you can click the following link to their website : http://www.ksmetals.com/  What you use as a base for your sword is determined really by how you plan to approach its creation . You can choose to do a great deal of detailed sculpting on it , or simply sculpt the hilt tooling only the blade or using a combination of materials to achieve your desired results . Some of this might be determined by the size of the weapon , or how much money you have to invest in the materials ; wood is much cheaper than sheet metal , and easier to work with , but requires a great deal more effort in the finishing . A straight tooled metal sword is much more dangerous than a wood sword , speaking from the sharp edge point of view and is also more prone to bending than wood . Actual tooling with metal requires more diverse tools than sculpting or carving wood but each technique can be equally work intense and the end results equally effective . There is no set in stone " BEST " method .  Case Study : Wood VS Sculpted In 1994 I began work on an 18 inch tall sculpture of Tars Tarkas from ERB's " Princess of Mars " . Due to his size , his swords were large; around 7 to 10 inches long . Finding an affordable sheet metal source at a gauge to match the scale of the sculpture was difficult , and my intention to incorporate a variety of materials and handle the paint job in an expressionistic manner as opposed to a straight up photo real manner left me a great deal of leeway as to how to best handle the construction of his weaponry . In the end I decided to use wood for the simple reason that it was cheap and I could get it at a thick enough gauge to create the proper look and weight while at the same time keeping the heaviness of the weapons to a minimum thereby reducing the strain on the armature . I could then combine both sheet metal and sculpey or kneadatite to handle the detail work for the hilt , hand guards and any scroll work much easier than were I to attempt to tool and engrave metal or wood as a whole . This allows me to utilize the various strengths of the various materials strategically , where they are most needed . Were I to use metal for the blade , at 7 inches I've got a potentially deadly weapon , wood minimizes that though it could still be dangerous , it would tend to break before doing any actual serious harm . Sculpting over a brass pattern is a more forgiving technique . Carving wood or tooling brass or aluminum requires a good deal more skill , if you goof you have typically ruined your piece and therefore must begin again from scratch . Sculpting is less intrusive , you are applying material rather than removing , so if you make a mistake your base pattern is unaffected so all you need do is remove the bit you messed up . Sculpted weaponry does tend to be much more fragile , and is better suited on a smaller scale than for large pieces for that reason . Sculpey of Kneadatite can both be used to fairly equal success , Kneadatite is the favorable material by virtue of its resilience to stress , it cures to the consistency of plastic whereas Sculpey is a more brittle ceramic consistency . The real difference between the two materials is work time , with kneadatite you'll have a work time of approximately 30 minutes and Sculpey will remain workable until you cure it by baking .  Sheet brass comes in different gauges , or thicknesses . They are .005, .010, .015 , and .032 mm . Aluminum comes in .016 , .032 , and .064 mm . The higher the number the thicker the metal sheet .The katana in this demo was tooled using .015 mm sheet brass not the perfect gauge since there is absolutely no margin for error at that thickness when machining down the cutting edge. As far as scale , it is the perfect thickness for the sleek look of a katana at kini scale , also it happened to be the only sheet brass I had on hand at the time . Ideally I would have preferred to use aluminum since it is softer and can be filed down with far better control by hand instead of dremeling on the brass ( this too could have been done by hand but would entail devoting much more time to it and I was in a hurry ) . Also aluminum can be polished to a shine and kept " as is " while the brass will need to be painted silver . Again , you have a choice as to how to approach the creation of the sword and this is determined by how much time and effort you want to devote to it . You can gain much more control using files opposed to a rotary moto-tool , but it will take longer . Hand filing also opens you up for more potential to bending your pattern out of shape than a rotary power tool which requires a lighter touch to remove the equivalent material . In general though , whether filing by hand or using a dremel , you can kick out a sword in about an hour , and again that will be longer or shorter in duration depending on the size of the weapon and the complexity of the design .  The Easy Part
The hardest part about sword making is the preliminary work : designing the sword and deciding on the best method to create it . Once you've jumped those hurdles actually making it is a breeze . For the most part the actual construction requires cutting out the shape , filing down the cutting edge and then smoothing and polishing . DONE ! Your introduction to sword making theory is now complete .In the next section , I will provide actual step by step graphics showing the creation of the katana. In addition to that , I will provide graphics that expand on the simple techniques used in the creation of the katana that can be modified to create different weapons from spears to axes and even firearms . | Let's Paint ! | PaintinKini2 | Steve Zodiac Shockini Custom | Sword Making | Swordmaking1 | Swordmaking2 | WarhorsePreview | Simple Masks | EasyVelcro_fro | Cool Girl Wrist Conversion | samurai_saddle | DX Disaster | Fix It! Loose Ankles | Fun With Texture | Body Armor | OneSixthBlades | Body Armor2 | One Sixth Blades PT II | Otaku Repair 101 | | Mail-O-Rama | Geeb's How To | Head Sculpts Using Polymer Clay | Customizing The Batcycle | 1/6 scale diorama | terrain diorama | 1/6 Scale Boots | Re-Rooting Hair | BimBott | Read_A_Book | WorksInProgress | Aki Ross Repaint | Gun-Bashing | painting heads | | Return Home | Updates | The Archive | Gorby Site Map | Geeb-O-Rama's Model Workshop | Geeb's Toy Box | Geeb-O-Rama Goodies | Movie Madness | World Of The Bizarre | Cool Beans | |
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