Cardboard Pirate Style Sword

Props are good for many different things from movies, videos, or accessories to costumes or cosplay. I made this sword for a play my friends were putting on, it is designed to be durable for "sword fights"

Cardboard

White glue 

Hot glue 

Hot glue gun 

Newspaper 

Water 

Paint (black, brown, white, and silver) 

Paint brushes 

Scissors 

Spare dishes (cups or boles you will not use)

Reference images 

chain, beads or anything silver and gold

place your cardboard on a flat surface, a table or the floor will work well. and with help from your reference image start to draw the design for your sword <add photo of the blueprints>

after you have made your design on the cardboard you will need to cut it out, try not to crease the cardboard, if you do crease the cardboard it will not effect the sword much since there will be three layers.

lay the cut out cardboard sword shape back onto the left over cardboard and trace it, then take the sword shape off the cardboard and make the blade of the sword smaller by around 1-2cm. once you have the smaller sword shape on the card board cut it out!

place the smaller sword shape on the cardboard and trace it, try to be as accurate as possible and cut out the traced small sword shape

spread white glue evenly across the smaller blade and glue the smaller blades to the outside of the bigger blade, place your paint bottles on top to add pressure and keep the blade flat while drying. Your blade will need to dry for 1-2 hours before proceeding to the next step.

if you feel the tip of the blade needs more stability add hot glue to the edge and smooth it into the cardboard.

cut up newspaper into 1 by 2in. pieces and mix two parts glue to one part water in a cup or bowl.

with a paintbrush add the glue-water mixture to a piece of cut news paper and apply to the edges of the blade.

repeat this process all the way around the edge and in the hole in the handle before covering the center of the blade.

around the edges you may want to soak the paper before gluing it onto the sword, when doing this make sure not to let it soak for too long, or it may start to mold. you will only need to let it soak for around 10 minutes. paper will start to mold after 24 hours

start marking where your handle starts and finishes, use that as a guideline and paint the whole handle. I used a mixture of brown and black until I found the shade I liked (roughly three parts brown and one part black)

mix white and black to make an even gray tone, and paint your blade and let it dry. use as many coats as you need for an even colour. when the paint fully dries use silver paint to the gray area to make it shine and add a metallic look. if you experience cracking in the paint, dot extra paint in those areas, and make sure each crack gets filled

put one more coat of white glue over everything to seal the paint on.