DIY: ZUKO'S DUAL DAO SWORDS

In the series avatar: the last airbender, Zuko has a pair of dual dao swords.  When I was making sokka's boomerang a year or two ago, I decided to make an instructable on it because nobody really showed how to make it.  Well, that situation is exactly like this.  Nobody has really made a very clear and simple tutorial on how to make Zuko's swords.  
     SpicyPandaCreations made a tutorial on how to make a blue spirit costume from the show and one of the steps was how to make dual dao swords.  You could find their instructable here:  https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-an-Avatar-The-Last-Airbender-Blue-Spir/   I was very inspired by their version of the swords but unfortunately, they didn't have a template and kind of explained how to make the swords in a few pictures.  But nevertheless, they still inspired me to make this instructable. Enjoy!

First, print out the three pages of my template below.  I traced all of the pieces on my template onto a sheet of MDF board that was 1/8 of an inch thick.  Once they were all traced, I cut them out on my bandsaw.  I gave all the pieces a light sanding.  I also cut out another two handle pieces.  I didn't really plan on making another two handle pieces but I made some last minute changes to the template and I put them in there. So cut out the yellow section of the blade/handle piece on my template and trace it onto the board and cut it out twice.

Using wood glue, glue your one of your handle pieces to the outer side of one of your handle/blade pieces.  Clamp these together and let them dry for a few hours.  Gluing the cross guard pieces to the handle and blade pieces was extremely tricky.  I ended up doing one at a time.  So take one of your cross guard pieces and apply some wood glue to the flat side of it.  Stick it on to the handle slash blade piece so that it is resting upon the ledge of the unplanned handle piece.  Clamping this piece was even trickier.  I tried rubber bands, a vice, and a few of those clamps that look like giant clothespins.  But, in the end, I just used a C-clamp.  Let the glue dry overnight so it is very strong.  Trust me, the last thing you want to do at this point is to unclamp it and find out that the glue wasn't finished drying.

I mixd up some bondo and I used this to make the pommel.  I piled up some bondo onto the ends of the handles and formed them into two great globs.  I also spread some bondo onto the weaker parts of the sword.  Once the bondo was dry, I sanded the inside half of the sword so the bondo was flush with the MDF board.  I did the same with the other sword.  Next, I taped the two halves together temporarily and sanded them into the best spherical shape that I could get them.

I used chrome spray paint to paint the blades. I masked off the blades and painted the crossgaurds and the pommels gold. I removed the masking tape and masked off the gold parts of the sword. I painted the handles brown and let them dry.  I gave the handles two coats. Thank you for viewing this instructable! If you would like to know how to make the scabbard for these swords please leave a comment saying so.