Hey, I'm Adam and today's project is
going to be this really awesome sword. It's one piece of wood. The whole board cost $3
so you can make about three of them out of one piece. And it's a lot of fun, and don't hurt anybody. Now you are going to need a belt sander.
This is a Ryobi belt sander from Home Depot. It's very big and heavy.
You can adjust the speed here. The next thing you'll need is a coping saw. You are going to need some spray finish. and you can print out; in the description you will see a page you can print out and that gives you the shape of the sword. So you don't have to guess or measure anything.
It's really easy.
The wood you pick out is really important. If you pick a hardwood it's gonna be very
tough to make this. The wood you pick should be pine. Its very soft and easy to sculpt with a belt sander. You can get it here from Lowes. It costs $3 It's called 'white wood.' It's just a very light colored pine. It's very nice for making swords because the contrast from the blade to the hilt is very sharp. This is just a regular pine board. You can see it's kinda almost pink on
the top and that's a little lighter there but
it'll still work. It's a little harder wood so it's going to be harder to sculpt. But it's not going to look nearly as nice
as if you get the white wood.
This board actually measures 2-1/2" wide and that's what you are going to need. 2-1/2" x 3/4" Let's get to it! The first thing you have to do is print out the page you see in the description below. There is a link, it's just one sheet
you need to print and then cut it out. You are cutting out the back of
the sword and the tip of the sword. You will see the dotted lines. The back should look just like this. Then you mark the center of the board and trace the hilt. It should look just like this. Anywhere from 16" to 24" is a
good length for this sword. I'm making mine 20" long. Then trace the tip of the sword make sure
that it's centered on the board. There's a horizontal line along the edge of the sword that you need to trace two little markings on to. We'll draw a connecting line from the hilt to the widest edge of the sword.
You can make your sword any length you choose. But you'll want to watch out for knot
holes, or maybe splits or perfections in the
wood. It's okay to make a sword with knot holes in it, it's just that that wood is a little
harder than the rest to the wood so takes a little more time. Now we are going to cut it out and it should look something like this when we are done. If all you have is a coping saw it will still work fine. You might want to secure it in a vice if you have one. A band-saw is much better. So if you have one or know somebody who will let you use theirs, go for it. You don't have to be totally accurate, if you make wavy cuts and things like that. because you can fix a lot of mistakes with a belt-sander. Now I'm drawing a line around the entire
sword cut-out. You want exactly in the middle.
I'm holding my finger very stiff and using it as a guide. Next, I'm drawing a line down the center of the sword on both sides. Finally, a couple lines across the guard of the sword. I'm going to use three different grits of sandpaper. Sandpaper is classified by 'grit' and the higher the number the finer the
grit, or the smoother the finish you are going to have on your wood. I'm going to start with the roughest grit first.
This is going to take off as much
wood as possible. This grit is a 40-Grit sandpaper. I set my belt-sander on automatic. It's just going to be free running. It's upside down. And quickly I can remove a lot of material. I hold the blade at an angle and ride it back and forth along the belt-sander. Slowly grinding down the edge of the blade. I'm careful not to go past the center of the blade. Just work slowly and flip it over again
and again. Go back and forth from side to side and you will get a feel for how it works. Then I'm going to press the tip against the belt sander and grind it down. It might look difficult but it's really
not that hard. If you sand too much you can usually balance it out on the other side. You can see I'm always holding it at an
angle. So I'm not going past the middle of the blade.
I want the two edges to meet in the center. Quickly your sword is going to look like
this. It doesn't take much time at all with 40-grit sandpaper. Now on the handle I use the part of the belt-sander that's
not supported underneath. Where the wheel meets the metal plate. Because it will give a bit and help me make a curve. Now I have my sandpaper a little off track It's hanging over the roller a bit and that allows this part to work much easier.
There is a little adjustment knob that you can use to do this. I just roll it around the handle and it puts a nice curve on to it. Don't worry if its a little sloppy. You can fine tune it later. The Hilt of the sword is the handle of the sword. And it's made out of a Guard, Grip and Pommel. The Guard is the part between your hand and the blade. The Grip is the part you are holding on to. And the Pommel is the knob at the end. Here I'm sanding down the edges of the guard to make it a little narrower. and touching up the underside I'm cutting a little line to define the pommel. Now I'm cutting a line to define the guard. By the way when you are using a belt sander you will definitely want to wear ear plugs as well. Now I'm changing from 40 to 80-grit sandpaper. When you rough cut your sword the edge is probably going to be pretty crooked. You can just ride the edge of the blade along the belt sander. I'm doing it diagonally so I can get the most surface area.
It's going to be a longer flat edge I can ride along to help make my blade straight. Then I clean up a lot of the scratches
from the rougher sand paper. This is also fine tuning everything. It evens out all the rough edges. Basically with the 80-grit sandpaper you are doing everything you did with the 40. Until you feel like it's enough. Now I'm changing from 80-grit to 120. This is the final sanding. I'm adjusting the tracking of the sandpaper.
Now I'm looking for any rough edges and sanding them all down. Also I'm going to put the edge on the blade. Now this is a kids toy so I really don't want it that sharp. I'm going to round the edges down. But you could really sharpen it up if you wanted to. That's enough of the sanding. It looks pretty good. I'm happy with it. The lines look nice and clean. Here it is. It came out really nice. Really lightweight. Super easy to carve. So now on to staining. Always test your stain on a scrap piece of wood. Stain works best when you apply a coat, let it dry a bit. Then you apply another coat if you want it darker. Don't worry about it if it's not dark
enough on the first coat. Also the stain will have a tendency to
want to bleed. It will soak into places you don't want it.
So it's not a big deal. Try not to to get
it everywhere. I wrapped my in a piece of brown paper just to help not get splatters all over the blade. Now I'm going to do a second coat. I want it a little bit darker. I'm done staining but you see there is a little bleeding I will have to sand down with a belt sander. It's 55ºF outside and 50% humidity so let's see how fast this shellac will dry.
It says it dries in minutes. Shake it up and give it a coat. The more coats of shellac you put on the more shine it will have.
It will look better. Walk around the other side and spray it again. Wait a few minutes and it's dry! It actually is! In the summer dries really fast. Only a few minutes and it is dry now. So sprayed again, flip it over and spray it again and flip it over and spray it again and flip it over It takes a lot of coats. Here is the finished product. It's all shiny and ready to play with. The kids love these things so if you
make one make a lot because you can give a lot away as gifts.
And they are really fun. Also in the next videos we are going to be making shields. If you have a sword you need a shield. This once great because it's for
right or left handed. You don't have to switch them. And here's another one. Another style you can make. Also, we are going to make scabbards. You have to have something to put your sword in. and hang it on your back. Were going to do some leatherwork. Also here's a Master Sword we're going to
try and make. This one is in progress. It's a different wood we use for this one and it's a bit bigger sword.
A lot of fun. So anyway if this has been a good video for you please click 'like' and as always Subscribe, and I'll see you next time! Thanks for watching and have an awesome day..