finnleo Posted September 4, 2016 This time around its a quick weekend project that sparked when I found a scrap piece of aluminium in me garage. The general design is based on something, a slightly twisted take on a classic fairy-tale, so I'll leave it up to you folks to guess, since its still very much a work in progress, and even though I would be chuffed to make a complete model of the character, I probably will bury this project with the rest... Anyways, so the main piece was a 4mm thick piece of alloy I found sitting in my garage, that I quickly thought would make a nice base for a weapon prop from the said piece of popular culture. I'd seen a few filckr folks make similar efforts out of this material, and I do have to deal with the stuff at the daytime work so I knew what was generally possible. Shaping the main blade was relatively simple. Just doing the outline at a grinding stone was the easy bit. the next part was trying to make the blade rounded, which basicly meant gently increasing the area being grinded from the edge towards to back of the blade. The design also called from a dip near the handle, which came about with a die-grinding bit on the end of a dremel. I should have taken more photos, but inspiration took the better of me this time, so I got around to photos only when the blade was roughly ready for final shaping, and I had checked that I had the necessary sanding items to finalize the blade: wood126 The original design of the knife calls for etching on the blade, which is a bit out of my reach, so the next best thing is to polish to a near mirror finish, and maybe in the future spray a lace-pattern, but for now polish..polish..polish.. Also seen in the photo are the scrap pieces of alloy that were left from the shaping operation: wood127 The handle was a source of endless grief, and by making it out of wood its actually against the original design, which apparently is all metal, but wood for now. the technique was just drilling the mounting hole at the end of a square piece of wood, and then twisting the piece on the drill bit firmly, and then spinning it with the drill, and shaping with the die grinder and finishing off with some sand paper. It took me four tries before I got anything I could even think of using. The first attempt was out of Pine, which was easy to shape, but the grain was to the wrong direction, and snapped in two after test fitting it. the second two were out of fig if Im not totally wrong, which was harder to shape, and tended to go to pieces at the end of the process. wood128 But in the end it all came together, for the blade I initially used 120 grit paper to get rid of most of the grinding marks, followed by 320 grit to even things out, 800 wet and dry paper with water to start polishing, followed by 1200 wet and dry, and the brand I use (mirka) the backside allegedly acts as about 2000 grit which was the final phase, before a going over with some Autoglym super resin polish that also brings up some extra shiny. wood129 wood130 Audrey posing with the end result, and the size match is quite splendid considering the source.. wood131 now then... what then.. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mikuland Posted September 4, 2016 YOU MADE ALICE-S KNIFE I LOVE YOU Holly smokes, it looks amazing!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
baldylox Posted September 4, 2016 Wow, that is extremely impressive! That has a super cool look to it and adding the wooden handle just makes it even more awesome. Congrats on doing this piece! Billy I gave up counting the girls I own, they keep multiplying and won't stop. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
finnleo Posted September 6, 2016 Thanks. It was a fun weekend stress relief project, I'm even considering breaking my doll-photo hiatus again after some fine tuning to it, and getting an outfit this week to go with the concept... but Will have to see. YOU MADE ALICE-S KNIFE Bingo.. It was modeled after the Vorpal blade out of the title screen from madness returns. But its still a far cry considering detail, since the knife in the game is redonkulously detailed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lightly Posted September 21, 2016 OMG this is amazing!!! ;w; (Now I feel bad for not finishing the second game, but.) Whoaaaaaa, amazing work! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites