Make your own sword...with duct tape

Follow our step-by-step instructions and design your very own sword. 

You will need:

A sleeping mat (liggeunderlag in Danish), some double-sided tape, some duct tape (Gaffa tape - black and grey), a stick or thin plastic tube like we used about 80 cm long,  scissors, 4 sheets of A4 paper, a marker pen and at least a couple of hours until bedtime.

Instructions

Tape the three sheets of A4 paper together.

This is the blade. To get it symmetrical, fold the paper in half lengthways
and draw a line like ours (but a little bit more pointy on the right hand side)

This is the top of the handle (probably has a posh name but I'll edit that in later ;o).
Fold the last sheet of paper in half  and draw a shape like ours. The shape above is quite simple. 

Cut out the handle top and blade.

They fit together like this. We got carried away, as you'll see above, and
added spikey bits but they were hard to cover in tape. Simple shapes are easier. 

Place the shapes (templates) on the mat and draw round them.
It's easier if one person holds the template still and the other draws round it. 

You will need three blades.

Five handle tops and four blobby handle ends (good technical term there ;o).
Yes, there are only three in the picture. Well spotted. 

Put the stick on one of the blades. Making sure to leave room at the tip, draw around it
and then cut out the strip from the middle so the stick lies flush inside the blade.

Tape it in place. 

Cut the stick so that enough of a handle is poking out of the end.

Wrap the end of the stick in tape to stop it eating its way through the finished sword.

It's a good idea to fix the outer blades onto the middle blade using
double-sided sticky tape or  contact glue at this point.

We didn't know that and just duct-taped our three blades together at intervals.

This is the handle (right) and the three blobby end bits.

Wrap the handle round the stick and tape it tight

First in silver and then in black for contrast.

Take the five handle-top moustache shaped bits. Cut a section out of one of them
that is the width of the stick (like we did with the middle blade). And then tape them
around the stick at the base of the blade. 

Use enough tape so it stays put and won't whizzzz off when you swing it round your head
in the heat of battle and chop off an orc's ear. But not so much that you lose the nice contours. 

Cut a stick-width section out of  two of the blobby handle ends
and tape all four of them onto the end of the stick to complete the handle.

One long strip from tip to handle top.

And then one strip down each side. Cut 'feathering' to where the edge of the blade
comes so that the tape follows the curve of the blade edge without rucking up.
Now the other side.

Add black tape details or draw lines and runes on your sword
with a black marker pen. Then challenge your friends to battle!

See also...make a sword with latex