Against my better judgement, got a new sword. Forgive me, I have certain weaknesses. Pointy weaknesses. This one won't be awkward to keep on my right side at least. Yes, yes that's it! This was a thuroughly practical purchase that was in no way motivated by unfettered otakuism.
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| Manderville rapier and focus. Because the Antiquated Murgleis somehow felt like too much honkin' sword to drag around all day. |
Sword is noticeably longer than Talekeeper (by a solid 7 inches/17.78 cm). That officially makes it longer than my luggage case. Which is sort of a problem since we're flying down. There was a trick I pulled with Talekeeper, where the hilt could detach and that made it noticeably easier to transport. Might be able to pull off something similar here.
No clue how to attach the focus to the belt or anything. Not all of us
can just magick it in place. Maybe invisible thread? ...Although that would be hard to detach. Generic leather loop? ...There's not much for it to catch on there.
Haha, oh well. Get
the thing assembled first. Burn that bridge when we get to it.
Thinking about how to transport the focus makes me break out in hives right now (So thin! So fragile!) Don't think it would flag TSA for any reason. Could carry it around as a personal item. Paired with hat? Yeah, that'll won't get copious amounts of side-eye.
Can't do that with the sword though.
Story time: Once, on the way back from DC, saw a fellow try to carry on a (junk) katana. To his credit, it was wrapped in several yards of bubble wrap, but still. Ticket agent took one look at him and--with the sort of exhaustion that makes it clear this wasn't the first incident despite it only being 9 AM--sighed and let out a tired "Oh sweety no."
Bleary-eyed (and still possibly hungover from five days of con) he looked down at the four foot expensive butter knife in hand. "Oh. ...Yeah, that makes sense."
Circling back to now, overall the print isn't bad, but it's going to take a great deal
of TLC to get up to snuff. Product reviews said as much, so for the
price I'm not upset about it or anything. More annoyed because it's an
extra step. (But if I REALLY cared then I guess I should've just bought the STL files and prostrated myself in front of a friend that has a resin printer.)
The overall plan here is is to give everything a light sanding to smooth
out the print lines and fill in any remaining gaps with modeling paste. Then alternate
spraying primer and sanding until it's acceptable enough to paint.
This going to take a whole lotta sanding. So much sanding. Using an 80 grit to start, followed by a 320. 3M and Gator have some good multi sheet packs. Emphasis on "multi." Not even halfway through the sword and I'm already on my 3rd Letter sized sheet. All those beautiful curves and grooves are lovely until you realize you have to fold up the sandpaper and really dig in there.
That hole you see in the center is for a dowel rod to add stability. Otherwise it'll wobble and buckle under it's own weight. Hole diameter is supposed to be 1/4 inch (0.635 cm), with a total 40 inch (101.6 cm) in length. The actual hole size is a little larger than that, but not big enough to go up a dowel size. Hoping that doesn't become too big of an issue.
I don't trust wood to be strong enough for this. Aside from that, length-wise about the only thing I could find was straight up rebar. Not sure anything I own can cut literal rebar, but a Dremel can at least cut a bolt. Carriage bolts are cheap and will work for this. Just have to saw off the head and probably pick up some two part epoxy for the glue. For this length it'll need several 12 inch (30.48 cm) bolts.
(YMMV, but if you ever need to pick up a small handful of
screws/nuts/etc. from a big box store, I highly recommend setting those as "pick up". Any
time I try to take those to the register or self-checkout it's a ten
minute ordeal to cash out.)
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| Oh hey, Kentucky Kaiju. A neat book you done by some cool artists that you should totally check out. |
In addition to the core, I'm using some leftover music wire as a brace to further hold the pieces in place. (No, to the best of my knowledge no one actually uses music wire for musical purposes. But it's still called that.) Anyway, it's not hard to drill holes into this stuff. Although there is the tendency for the plastic to melt to the drill bit if it gets too hot.
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Case in point.
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(The plastic should pull right off, though. If it doesn't, a quick soak in acetone will fix it.)
Cutting music wire though is always a show.
Going to try the removable hilt trick, so some of the bolts have been cut to different lengths. Went ahead and color coded the ends so I can keep the order straight. Also numbered and lettered all the plastic pieces so it's not puzzle time every time I want to touch the focus.
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| Years of model building have made me hesitant to work with anything that isn't in some way labeled. |
On that note, mildly confused about how to assemble the focus. It comes with little square plastic tabs, but...they don't fit. At all. I have to be missing something. But may just ditch the tabs and use the music wire anyway.
It occurs to me that I don't actually have to do this much work. Mostly the costume will be viewed from 5 ft away or greater and from that distance you can't really see seams or print lines. The photo of the original costume backs this up. Furthermore, I could always just stick the hilt in the scabbard and call it a day. No one is going to ask you about it, so whose gonna know?
I'm going to know. It's complete vanity, yeah, but there's something just so unfinished, so unsatisfying about not making it look the best I possibly can. It's just not...proper.
Side note: I've started labeling posts, so if you only want to read about making the sword (or jacket or cape or whatever) you can just look it up that a way.
Next time: Measuring! Pattern making! An actual, factual sewing machine!
Material Directory:
Sword & Focus: Etsy (LootCaveCo)
Carriage Screws, sand paper, Dremel: Lowes (although any home improvement store carries these, lol)
Music wire: K&S Precision Metals (can also be found at most model railroad stores)
Current background music: GUNSHIP. "Tech Noir II (feat. John Carpenter & Charlie Simpson)." UNICORN.
Time until deadline: 6 months, 4 weeks
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