Attack on Titan LED Swords Part 1

For this project, I'll be making the Blades from Attack on Titan but with a modification that will make the blades light up from the edge. In addition, this is part 1 of the AOT equipment I'll be making custom Sheath and ODM gear later on. So for now follow the steps if you wanna know how I made it.

Note: There are 10 Steps to this project, I will be using steps to reference other steps and lastly the number on each picture you follow (example: 01,02,03...) are called pieces.

Supplies and Machinery I use to make the AOT swords

Machinery

Laser Engraver and Cutter Speedy Series from Trotec: Speedy 100

The wood I use is MDF - Medium Density Fibreboard

I was provided with MDF plywood, which is good for cutting without leaving any chips or splinters, and it's ideal for the handle of the sword. If you want you could use other types of wood and I would go for their selection of laserable materials from the Trotec website here below.

https://www.troteclaser.com/en-ca/laserable-materials/laser-engraving-wood

The plastic I used is Acrylic

For the plastic, I used acrylic because of the clear transparency which my LED lights can pass through and it could easily be sanded with sandpaper so it would make a blur effect when LEDs illuminate.

The other plastic I'm going to be cutting will be a polypropylene scrap poster it should be the same size as the MDF and it should fit the Speedy 100 laser cutter.

Materials

Spray paints

$15 Rust-Oleum® Painter's Touch 2X Ultra Cover Multi-Purpose Aerosol Spray Paint & Primer, Metallic Aluminum, 340-g

$15 TREMCLAD Rust Spray Paint - Flat Leather Brown, 340 g

Bolt and Nut

(6-32 x 1 bolt) x 3 (If you want both handles then 6 pieces)

(6-32 x 1-1/2 bolt) x 1 (If you want both handles then 2 pieces)

(10-32 nut) x 4 (If you want both handles then 8 pieces)

Scrap Wires

(Where to obtain: Extension cords, Electronic store, Broken Appliances)

LED Lamp

I bought a $10 LED lamp so I could take the SMD LED out

AA battery and AA battery Holder (2x if you want both handles) - BC4AAW

C Battery holder (2x if you want both handles) - BH24CL

Check here for the types

https://www.batteryholders.com/index.php

Plastic Pipe

2.5cm diameter - Have at least 10 cm long pipe so you can have extra if you mess up

Rubber Band Packs

Short rubber bands that are about 1.5cm in diameter

Copper Sheet/Plate

At least have a 10cm by 5cm copper sheet/plate

Tools

Wire Stripper

Pipe Cutter

Screw Driver and Flat head screwdriver

Wood saw

Sandpaper 220 grit: Fine

Wood Glue

Super Glue

Mini Rotary tool

Soldering Iron

Hammer Drill

After a series of Designing different versions, I ended with a compressed version of all the parts.

I also highlighted the parts where I'm Engraving and cutting.

Red = Cut

White = Engrave

My Autocad file should be provided below

Note: The units are in cm for the whole AutoCAD file also the Acrylic has only 1 print and the polypropylene plastic has 2 prints.

After saving my AutoCAD to my USB drive, I loaded the design into Trotec Laser Machine where I placed my plywood to cut my pieces.

The third and Fourth photo shows that the machine wouldn't let me print the whole dimension for the plywood so I had to separate the cut for the tail, I added a new cut to the endpoints of the blade and finally, the cut made both pieces connected and became whole.

The acrylic and polypropylene plastic in the last two photos are laser cut.

While your machine is cutting your wood, you can start working on the other details that will be added to the Handel later.

1. The 2.5cm diameter and 10 cm long Pipe is being trimmed to 1 inch in length using a pipe cutter then center drill with a 9/64 drill bit.
2. Turning a 4-slot battery holder into a 2-slot battery holder by cutting the center of the battery holder Horizontally then sanding the side of the 2-slot battery with 220 grit sandpaper and soldering the black wire to the positive side beside the black wire's slot so the battery's circuit becomes series. Throw away the other piece that has been cut and keep the small springs.
3. Take out the large springs in the larger battery holder then dispose of the battery holder and keep the big springs
4. Use 220 Grit sandpaper to sand the back face of the Acrylic and don't sand the other sides
5. Get the polypropylene plastic and superglue them both on both sides of the Acrylic.

The purpose of the Parts

• 1: The plastic pipe is part of the lever cover and it's one of the details of the AOT handle.
• 2: The 2-slot battery holder is to power up the LEDs in the blade later on.
• 3: The Big springs from the big batter holder are for the 2 triggers so it feels nice griping and
• 4: The purpose of sanding the back face of the acrylic is because when the LED illuminates through the acrylic it would create a blur effect, in other words, it scatters the light around.
• 5: The Acrylic is much shorter in thickness than the wood so you can extrude a bit by adding a piece of plastic up top.

Before we spray paint the parts that we printed, we need to wood glue the details of the handle so it's easy to spray paint every part after.

Follow my photos on how to attach the parts from the top left to bottom

Picture

1. Handle lever
2. 2 Triggers,
3. Lever
4. 2 pieces attach to one of the handle pieces, the function of the design is to let the wires run through the gaps.
5. Glue both parts of the design for the blades.
6. Rubber Band Holder,
7. Lever Cylinder Cover (For this part it is recommended to spray paint those parts first then super glue them because the extra layer would help the top piece glue easier.
8. Copy the side I'm gluing it on then glue the parts inside the blade.

Template: Don't glue this part because the template will help you indicate where to glue the parts in the blade

9. Follow the template by gluing the long rectangle piece to the right size that will fit inside the template.

10. Same as step 9 but the last piece at the top should be angled a little bit pointing at the blade so the LED would illuminate the edges up to the tip.

Note: When making the second handle, you have to invert or flip the details opposing the other handle.

1. Glue the detail cover then add the rectangle pieces (the short one and long one) then add another layer with the same rectangle pieces.

Then Repeat the other side of the handle but with a different detail cover.

2. Make 2x of the piece then glue it between the Rectangle piece that we have put down in Step 5 piece 1.

3. For this part, glue down the 3 placeholders, and don't glue the cover yet.

REMINDER: When gluing the parts make sure to be always aware and avoid being blind-sighted because I made a mistake that I had to fix in the end. Do a quick check on your work to make sure you didn't make any mistakes.

4. Use super glue to attach both small parts so it's tall enough to poke out of the hole then use super glue to fill up the corner of the 2 holes then place the 2 small parts inside.

5. From Step 4 piece 6 use wood glue to attach Step 4 piece 6 to either of the sides of Step 5 piece 1, from the opposing side of the detailed side.

Before Assembling I spray-painted both parts with Metal and Brown colors. The first photo should be double-sided sprayed with metallic spray paint and the second and third should be a one-sided spray with a metallic spray, the Final product for all the metal spray should look like the fourth photo. The last images are both knurling grips spray painted with brown spray paint.

Lastly, the knurling grips can be glued together along both the surface of the handle

The Circuit part is to make the edge of the blade light up and also making this part makes the edge chunky but it looks badass in the dark.

The Type of LED I took in one of my LED lamps is called SMD, it's much more efficient than DIP LEDs because it last longer, provided a heatsink, and has less wattage consumption as a result of bright lumens. The type/module of SMD I think I got was module 2835 which can be seen here for more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMD_LED.

1. Make sure when taking off LED on Light bulbs, remove the glass embedded behind LED if there's any substance/material connected LED and it should be only its heatsink and the LED itself. Then cut the LED into 7 pieces and then use the tip of the screwdriver to scratch off both sides of the white surface to the direction where the copper is connecting to the other side of another LED then trim both of the unscratched sides.

Then I first tested the SMD LED from 0 volts and crank up my power supply really slowly and it lights up at 3 volts, I also figured out that it doesn't increase the light when cranking up the amps on the power supply. So I had to make my circuit Parallel so each of my LEDs gets supplied by 3 volts.

2. From your scrap wires, cut two 22" inches of wire then strip the wires fully. Then get one LED and solder the two 22" fully stripped wires on both sides of the LED.

3. Get new wires and cut 2.5cm and 2cm wire then solder the long wire to the negative side of the LED and the short wire to the positive terminal. Repeat this 6 times on the remaining LEDs. After soldering all LEDs, super glue each led to each of their small rectangle walls, then test it out with a battery or power supply while running on 3 volts.

The diagram shows how my LEDs are connected.

4. From Step 3 piece 5 get the acrylic edge and super glue it on the blade.

5. Get a piece of copper plate or sheet then cut it into a 1cm by 1cm copper square then mark the middle of the copper and drill the center with the smallest drill bit possible enough to fit a copper wire.

6. Don't glue the cover yet or the other side of the blade piece, and put the cover on top so the wires wouldn't jump up then you insert both copper wires between the copper squares and slide them both in until it touches the tail of the blade and only super glue the copper squares on the bottom part of the blade then bend the wires facing each other and solder both of them. REMINDER: Make sure to test out the copper wires if they are connected to the circuit before sealing them with the piece cover.

7. Apply superglue above the blade including the rectangle pieces from Step 4 pieces 9 and 10 and the side/edge-top surfaces then place the other side piece for the blade above and use the clamp to tighten and seal the whole blade. After leaving it for 24 hours test out the blade by hooking up the power supply to the bottom of your blade while running on 3 volts.

8. Get 2 of 1cm by 1cm of the copper square again but without a hole and solder 18cm long wire for both of them and place them in the middle piece for the handle. Go to Step 8 if you are ready to assemble.

1. From Step 4 piece 4 we are going to take the whole piece and get the same piece but without the pathway for the wiring and use the big springs that we got from the big battery holder to attach them together without wood glue or super glue.
2. From Step 4 piece 2 you can assemble the 2 triggers by placing their tail end into the spring.

The third Picture is both steps combined, also the painted version, and has the copper squares outside and wires running inside.

3. Place one 6-32 x 1 bolt near the rubber band holder then place the lever through the bolt and hang the rubber band from the lever to the rubber band holder. Then place the first assembled piece which is shown in the third picture. Then place one of the handle covers above and through the 3 holes/bolts then place two 10-32 nuts on the top and bottom area.

4. For the other cosmetic we can attach a rubber band to the handle lever and then double loop the rubber band. Place the handle lever inside the plastic tube and hook the rubber band on one of the hooks of the plastic tube then pull down the handle lever so you could screw the 6-32 x 1-1/2 bolt easier and put a 10-32 nut in the end to lock it. After setting up the handle lever, place it on the handle by sliding it through the gaps and placing a 6-32 x 1 bolt, and locking it with a 10-32 nut.

1. Get a short piece of wire that is not too thick or not flexible, just enough to bend the wire easily, and also 13.5cm -14 cm long. Then put glue inside the rectangle hole then drown the wires inside and glue the cover so the wire would lock in then use super glue to attach the end wire to the plastic tube.

2. For 2 bolts that are poking out, I used the Mini Rotary tool to sand the sides of the bolt until they come off.

3. Glue the whole piece from Step 4 piece 5 to the blade, while the blade is attached to the handle.

Now it's finally done!

so a few features of the swords: It can attach automatically without manually lifting the lever, it can also detach from the handle just like in the anime, and lastly it can light up from the edge with only using 3 volts of power.