The first prop I needed to make was a lightweight sword. It had to be a short sword (so the double handed sword I bought at my first DC was out) and it had to be me-sized. So smaller.
I went to Michael’s one day to scope out the small plywood situation, and ended up with Basswood, I think with the dimensions 24″ by 4″ by either an 1/8 or 1/16″ but I’m not sure which. I also purchased an 1/8″ diameter dowel, which gave the sword it’s structure. That was the cheapest Michael’s trip ever, because with a coupon, the main part of the sword cost $2.50. Craft stores never work out that well for me, so I definitely gave myself a pat on the back for a good job. Or rather, I took myself out to see the Incredibles 2 (this was late July/early August. It was still in theaters.
I’m pretty sure I cut the basswood in half lengthwise, then I cut the pointy bit out, and tried to match on both sides. Most of this was done at night, so cue the bad phone pic here:
I then taped the dowel to one of the sword pieces. Then I applied wood glue around the edge of the sword outline, and used every single clamp and binder clip I own to keep the pieces together.
Then I left it for a few days, even though it probably only needed one.
I used a laser cutter to cut out pieces for the hilt from 1/8″ plywood that would slide onto the wooden dowel for stability, and I aimed for a hand and a half length. In the end I got a stacked result, then used wood filler to fill it in and round it slightly. It worked pretty well, though it might’ve worked better if my filler was wetter. It has gotten rather gummy over time. Regardless there was a lot of back and forth between gooping and sanding. Using cardboard would work pretty much just the same way, if you cut some layers and used wood filler and glue and tape to hide the corrugated edges!
Then came painting and sanding. I painted up the “blade” with white acrylic first, then with Lumiere Jacquard paint in silver. Then it was too shiny, so I sanded it. Repeat once more to see if anything changed. Add the line down the center (kinda… don’t look too close) and then sand again to blend that in.
For the hilt I first painted everything brown, then painted it with Lumiere Jacquard paint in bright gold.
And the jewel. Still the biggest pain in the butt of this project. When I was designing the laser cut part of the hilt I made pieces for the end that would allow the jewel to nestle in.
Then I tried hot glue, then superglue twice, and now E6000. It’s sticking for now.
So that’s how I made my prop lightweight sword!