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.

What it looks like so far

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.

For week 2 I made a small spike to practice carving the specific type of wood. It was very hard to cut through and took a while to make the shape I wanted. The handle turned out really pretty and had cool swirls. I will attempt to make more things with the willow wood but I will not use it as my main type anymore.

For week 1 I made a simple worry stick. I did it to practice my knife skills and to learn how the wood carved. I also gathered some different types of wood to have different patterns. The worry stick was pretty easy to make and didn’t require to much control, but the wood dried weird a wapred because I bent it accidently.

I decided to change my project idea because of multiple reasons. The first most promenent reason was because the materials were to hard to find and I needed a lot. I also didn’ t like how the work was progressing because it was taking up to much of my time outside of other things as it took too long to dry. I chose to switch to wood wittling which has always interested me. I made up for the first few weeks by making multiple projects.

For my first creation I did something really easy just to know how paper mache worked. I made a very simple bowl that was molded on a normal bowl. It was very fragile and I realized I didn’t add enough glue. It ripped very easily which I think is also because there wasn’t enough layers of paper.

For my second creation, I was trying some armiture styles. The first one I did was using tinfoil which did not work very well. The paper did not stick very well and kept falling off. The second one I tried was styrofoam which worked a little better but still didn’t work very well when it was standing upright. I found its easier to use something as a mold and the peel it off when its dry. I will start with the paste next week.