By Dan The Maker Man
I have always liked the shape of this sword from the Lord of the Rings, it appears briefly in the movie but it instantly caught my eye. It is called a High Elven Warrior Sword. I made this from a scrap piece of 1×12 pine board that I had left over from a project.
The first thing I did was find an image of the sword that I could enlarge and print out. I’m not sure how large the sword is actually supposed to be so I decided to error on the larger side, it ended up being just over 45 inches long. (For full instructions on how to enlarge an image and print it out on multiple sheets of paper please check out this Instructable https://www.instructables.com/id/Spider-Man-Wall-Art-Limited-Tools/ I cover this in-depth in Step 1. Its a long read but I think its pretty thorough.)
Once I printed out the image I trimmed the excess.
Then I taped it together this will be my template
I made sure to tape the front and back of the sheets together as well.
Here’s another view of what the template looks like once its taped.
Since the image was enlarged there was some pixilation of the edges.
So I traced the entire image with a marker. This will make cutting out the image a little easier.
I used a razor to cut out the template.
Next I taped the template to the wood in a few spots.
Then I traced it.
I used my jigsaw to cut out the rough shape of the sword.
Since the blade of the sword was a little thicker than I liked I used my table saw to rip down part of the blade. A band saw would be a much better tool for this but I didn’t have one at the time. I only cut down to the hilt of the sword. I still wanted the handle to be thick.
Then used a hand saw to finish the cut.
Now it was time to refine the shape of the sword. I used my belt sander to clean up the shape.
Here I was just trying to slim down the blade and clean up the transition between the blade and the hilt. Its kind of hilt/bolster so I will just call it a hilt.
I also eased all the saw marks left from the jigsaw.
Once the shaping was done I drew where I wanted the bevels to go on the blade. I used the template as a reference.
Another shot of where the bevel meets the hilt.
Here again I used my belt sander to add the bevels to the blade. I would sand in the bevel on one side and then move on to another bevel once I was happy.
I was happy with the blade bevel so now it was time to put in the swedge. It was the same process take a little off with each pass and try and maintain the same angle.
Take your time here it is easy to get carried away and remove too much material.
Starting to get there. I just kept at until I was close. All of the final shaping will be done by hand sanding.
This project requires a lot of sanding. I used my small belt sander to round over the handle section.
I used different items to get in to all the various nooks and crannies.
Once I was happy with it I did a lot of hand sanding on the entire sword. I sanded up to 220 grit on the entire sword.
To figure out the length of the handle I laid the paper template back on to the sword and made a mark.
Then I mask off the blade section. Now I move on to painting the handle.
I used brown spray paint and spray the entire handle then I take a rag and immediately wipe away the excess.
I was trying to reveal some of the wood grain, I didn’t want it to be a solid brown color. I still wanted it to look like wood. It kind of worked.
In order to figure out the spacing of the scroll work I taped a piece of rope to the handle and then wrapped it around the length of the handle. Then I adjusted the spacing so that it looked even.
I used a pencil to mark the position of the rope on to the handle. This would serve as my guide for when I draw the scroll on the handle.
Here again I use the paper template to help me determine where the rest of the decorative work of the handle should begin and end.
This gave me a rough idea of where to draw in the details.
Once I had drawn in all the decorative features, or rather the guidelines, of the blade I used a Metallic Gold paint marker to draw in the details using my pencil lines as guides.
I am not an artist so my gilded drawing sucks and I wasn’t going for a “hero” sword here. I just wanted to make a close enough approximation to the film version. We are just having fun here.
This is the technique that I saw Adam Savage use on his “Hero” Sword build on Tested.com. He used aluminum foil tape to give the blade portion of the sword a metallic look.
Its a pretty straightforward process you basically just cut strips of tape and apply them on to the blade. Then you cut off any excess. There will be seams visible but the effect is very realistic especially at a distance. If this was a straight blade you could match the seams a little easier.
After applying the foil tape its time to weather the blade. I tried several different things to weather the blade. First I scuffed the blade using some ‘0000’ steel wool.
This gave the blade a brushed looked. At this point I’m just experimenting and having fun.
To add a little more character I sprayed some black spray paint on a cotton rag and rubbed the paint on to the blade.
It had a small effect but it did add another layer of weathering to the overall look.
Lastly, I used a product called “Never Dull” which is a metal polish. I used this on the bevels of the blade only. I wanted the bevels to be a little shinier than the rest of the blade.
This adds a nice contrast and yet another layer of weathering.
I used a cotton rag to buff out the polish as much as I could.
Here is a glamour shot of the sword just in bare wood no foil tape applied yet.
Here is the finished piece. Taking pictures of shiny things is hard.
Here is the video detailing the entire process.
