Mjolnir (Thor's Hammer)

A friend of mine is a massive Thor fan boy, he wanted a mjolnir or hammer, but he wanted a fairly good one, he looked on the interweb but the price was over £400! So in steps me with my big mouth " I'll do you one mate, no problem", so that's what I did, true to my word I've just finished his hammer, and here's the instructable to show how I did it, if you so wish to take up the task yourself, hope you enjoy the process, I did, and I'm a bit gutted I don't get to keep it now!

There's a few different designs for this one, after a good scour on my phone for images and sizes I came up with these, not many sizes to go in so I guessed it was time to just get stuck in and see where I go, I had the basics in my noodle so I set about making the basic shape I wanted ( I went with the movie hammer in the end)

So the basic build was to look at the images and try work out sizes, I went with :- 6x6x9 inch for the rough size of the hammer without the handle, that comes later. I used some left over 18mm ply to make a box, with the size above in mind, the ends of the hammer are 1piece 18mm and 1piece 9mm screwed together to make the right size, them bandsawed to the angle to make the tapered ends,

So the hammer has these engraving on the ends that I wanted to put in, my first thought was to cut the top and bottom slightly smaller, put in a piece and bondo round to make the recess, then use multiput stuff to make the engraving in. Long story short, disaster, the bondo didn't work as you can see. Hmmmmmm.............. Plan b!

First things first, the hammers got a "step" on the bottom, so with the aid of a router I cut that out ( bondo'd the bit where the router slipped and I dug in! Problems of playing after being up for hours), so after that scare, bed time. For the plan B ends, I recut the ends and used a dremel tool to mark the rectangles I want cutting out, then painstakingly hand chiseled out the recess, great fun at a silly angle! If like me you keep your chisels really sharp, don't put your hand in the way! ( see picture! Haha) Also centred the hole for the handle to slide into.

So to do the detail, I wanted the pattern to be uniform all the way round, the way I did it was to use a piece of plastic to etch out the pattern as a negative,( having to guess the pattern best I could because I couldn't find a really good pic of it ) then using the multiput to fill in the cut outs I just made in the ends then, press the plastic into it to get the detail

Well maybe not, but he wants it heavy, heavy as possible was the quota! So I capped one end on the hammer with more 18mm, then mixed up some concrete, before I set the mix, I installed the handle, by putting it into the bottom hole and screwing it into the top piece, I also screwed a few screws on the inside of the hammer handle so when the concrete sets It'll be solid!

Right, concreted gone off, it's bloody heavy, time to sand, sand, sand again and prime!

Time to fix it all together,add a few details in the hammer and start with the bondo and sanding to get it ready for paint

Ok so this was a challenge, make wood metal! The basic plan was and went like this:- Prime. Sand. Prime. Sand. Hammeright silver. Sand. Spray silver x9 coats, sand inbetween, working my way down (up) the grains of sandpaper, ending on 400 grit

After sanding my fingerprints to the bone and painting the hammer so much I know see silver paint in my sleep, it's the fun bit! Detail! --Black paint, 2 brushes ( one good, one to "pat" the paint in) and a rag to wipe and smudge, -- Sure is getting there!

So after experimenting with the movie style handle, it wasn't gonna work, I could do it but the silver inlays and the leather on top would be to fragile, so plan b (again) old style wrap, -- I got an old leather jacket from a charity shop, cut that sucker up and set to work wrapping the handle, all the while using a contact adhesive to help stick it all together, not many pictures of this process sorry, it was late, I was on a roll, time moved on etc etc, before I knew it, I was done!

So after waking in a daze and remembering my late night wrapping, I was quite happy with it, time to go to work, but first I gave the hammer a few coats of clear spray satin varnish! Just to seal it, and where done! -- my friend is over the moon with the hammer, the plan is to get up early Saturday morning, dig a bit if a hole in the yard and make it look like it fell to earth, then go wake his little boy ( also massive Thor fan!) and be a fantastic dad! I hope his boy loves it! , ( that said, it is heavy and not a toy, it's for display but this is a good way to get him excited and believe! Harmless fun! -- So that's the mjolnir, or Thor's hammer, or hammer of the gods, thank you so much for looking, if you liked it please feel free in check out my other instructables, Peace out! X

Time to tidy! --------------- and my friend sent me this shot of it ready for his son, he loved it! :)