I made my first wooden sword - Riptide from Percy Jackson

My kid was in a production of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief, and I jumped at the chance to make Riptide, the sword in the movie. I had never made a wooden sword before and it just sounded like fun. I learned SO much, and had to trust the process for a lot of it. It looked so bad for a while. But I am really happy with how it turned out.

I started with Adobe Illustrator to trace out the sword. You can draw it by hand, by drawing half of it lengthwise, the folding it along that half and cutting it out. I have been using Illustrator since the stone age, so it's just what I am familiar with.

I printed it out on a rainbow grid so that I could more easily align the sword. When trying to align a long skinny thing, like a sword, it can be difficult. I find the rainbow grid, or a pattern or something, easier to align.

Then I spray mount it to a piece of cardstock or bristol board, cut it out with an xacto knife. The cardstock is optional, it just makes it so much easier to detail with.

The blade and the handle are made from one solid piece. And two small pieces are sandwiched around the handle to make the guard. It'll make sense in a bit.

I used cherry wood because I had it on hand, but you can use whatever you have. You just want it nice and flat.

I cut out the pieces on the band saw

Below you can see how I am sandwiching the to pieces around the blade to make the guard. Keeping the majority of the sword in one piece with the grain running the length of it, makes it incredibly strong. It will be able to put up with a lot of abuse and play. But that also means it could be dangerous. So, don't give it to that crazy uncle or friend that starts a sentence with "Hold my beer..."

And since I did a horrible job of cutting out the guard, I had to fill in all the gaps with bondo. But I knew I'd be painting over everything anyway, so who cares. 

I traced the triangle shape around the trident onto the wood because when I carve it down, I want to make sure that I don't carve into that space.

I had never carved anything like this before, so experimented with a few different ways. Tried the belt sander with really rough grit. That did remove wood nicely, but it was hard to see what I was doing. So, that was a no go.

Tried the dremel. That did work, but much much much too slow, and I have no patience

Then I remembered I had a grinder. I have used it so little that I forget I have it. But it worked beautifully. It took off wood at the right speed and I cold see what I was doing. Eye and lung protection people! Made a huge mesh. Worth it.

Still had to use rasps and the dremel to get into that corner there.

Lots of back and forth on the carving until I was happy. And lots of sanding. Started with 80 grit because I had a lot of tool marks. Then, worked my way up to 200 grit.

Primed it with Filler primer so I could paint it. My favorite part! It's where it comes to life.

I knew it was going to take several coats of the gold paint to get good coverage. My kid is a total theater nerd. And I say that with love. It's awesome. They had to pick out the right shade of gold/bronze. And I REALLY wanted to add some authentic battle damage and weather it, but I was informed that that was a no go according to the theater nerd. Humph.

Then painted the handle and guard brown do that it would have a different base color than the blade.

Next I cut out the trident so that I could trace it onto the blade in the triangle notch I marked out earlier.

I traced it and painted it a marine blue to go with the Poseidon/Ocean theme. In retrospect, maybe I should have printed it on in blue and just decoupaged it on there. That might have made the trident a little more clean. But it was perfect enough for me.

I used a butter knife to create three indentations on the handle to give it a little more personality.

I used gold rub n buff on the handle, and you can see those indentations a bit. They are subtle, but I think it works.

I used a watered down black paint as a wash over the guard and handle to make it look a little less plastic. The whole thing has a metallic look, but I wanted the blade to be distinguishable from the guard and handle. I think it works.