I finished my sword and have painted it. The handle turned out really well and is by far my favourite part. The blade part had some holes and divots that I tried to fill but the glue ended up dripping out and didn’t work as well as I had hoped. I decided to wrap the handle in leather but the leather we had was a weird yellow colour and I wanted either dark brown or black. I tried a couple ways to dye it but they ended up not working or the dye rubbed off on my hands. I thought that I could just paint it but the I ended up colouring it with sharpie and it worked pretty well.
Overall I think this genius hour project went really well. I had learned a lot from last project and that really helped my success this time. My presentation went a lot smoother than last time because I realize I work better if I just put points to mention instead of writing an entire script. My final project turned out pretty well and I am glad that I chose to do this. I really enjoyed doing both genius hours and they taught me quite a few things. Overall everything went well and I’m glad we got this chance. Bye!
This week I worked more on the components of the sword. I have gotten a good rough base of the blade part and started to work on the hilt. The way I chose to do it makes it kindof hard to carve because of the angles it is at. I figured out how to have eequal shapes and could finally think about attaching the two pieces. I changed my original idea of carving out a hole to fit the blade exactly and decided to carve down the blade to a rod instead. This was a lot easier to glue and fit almost perfectly, with less chance of snappingthe hilt in half. Now I just have to make the handle and finish shaping the blade.
This week I finished the small sword completely. I had the most trouble carving the handle and hilt because they were so small. I glued on some small gems that I found to make it a little more fun. It looks bigger in the picture but it is about 6 inches long. I also drew out how I wanted my next project to look for a reference to compare when I finish it.
I reached out to a ouple more people this week. One person carved more simple kitchen things like dishes. Another person did more designs in their work and I thought he could help me handle some of the tools better. I glued the hilt and pieces of the small sword together and I just have to paint it now. I also started on the full sized sword and it is going pretty well.
This week I reached out to an expert that might help me. I saw his profile on instagram and he makes all sorts of things like spoons and knife handles. I hope he can help me with curving dips and curves. I also reached out to another person that I saw artwork of his in a shop. He makes more intricate things but I hope he will still be able to help.
For progress in carving, I tried to start the full sword but the wood ended up snapping. I made a small bookmark sword and I just have to glue the hilt back together. The other thing I was working on has not been working great. The handle is very hard to carve because of how the blade is shaped. I found some new wood to work with for the big sword and will start on that very soon. I am hoping I won’t run out of time before the things are finished.
For one of my big final projects I want to make a full sized sword. My mom suggested using larch wood because it carves nicely and we have pieces in the shapes I need.To practice and figure out shapes I am making a small version. I carved the blade and hilt so far. One of the things I have to figure out soon is my expert, I have a couple ideas and will reach out to them soon. The plan that i’ve been following is pretty easy to stay with and I have made lots of progress and my skills are getting better. One of my challenges is still carving curves but I have searched up tips and they have helped me a lot.
The blade turned out really well but it started warping weird and I had to staighten it out berfore it dried fully.
I tried to make the hilt one piece with a slit in the middle but I kept breaking the wood. I decided to make it two pieces and then glue them together after so that I could make the knotches properly. The wood was really brittle and I broke many pieces before I got two matching ones. I also realized I actually made them the wrong way but it still looks good. When I was sanding it down, I realized it doesn’t sand smooth when still slightly wet so I have to wait for the outside to dry fully before I can sand. I now have to make the handle and attach all the pieces.
I still have not decided what type of wood I’m going to use for the sword. I found a couple woods that I thought might work but my dad said they would be too soft or some of them would not hold together properly. One of my other projects was to make a cane/walking stick thing. It was a fairly easy project but I still had a couple struggles. The first problem was that the piece of wood I had was to wide and I had to shave down many layers, all the while keeping it straight. I practiced using a debarking tool ,that I can’t remember the name of, which helped make the cuts a lot smoother and straight. I also struggled a bit with the top. knew I wanted a round top that was comfortable to rest your hand on and easy to grip. Trying to carve circles and make things round is a challenge that I have to overcome.
I didn’t end up doing the part of a sword because I couldn’t find the right wood. I instead made another knife. For this knife I used aspen wood which is pretty soft and easy to carve. I didn’t want to get into handle detailing so I just shaved the bark off the outside and used the shape it already had. The blade was really simple just a flat one sided blade no curves. I ended up painting the blade grey to help seal some of the little imperfections made when carving.
I tried to make a simple wood knife out of the willow wood. It was really hard to carve and ended up cutting my finger twice. I have not finished it yet as I ran out of time, but I will finish the handle and blade this week. I would like to make a full sized sword and I will probably start part of that next week.
I finished the knife but I didn’t smooth it out or make it super even as it was becoming to thin and brittle in some parts and the handle and blade where really unbalanced. The biggest challenge was to work around a knot in the wood that happened to be right in the middle of the blade. I had to saw off little bits as my other knife couldn’t cut through it.
