It was my friend Zac's birthday in 3 days. I had no idea what to get him but I knew that I wanted to make him something pretty cool. I decided to start with making him something related to his favourite video game, League of Legends. I don't play so I asked a mutual friend who was his favourite character and he kindly reminded me that Zac has a tattoo of the blade of his favourite character, Pyke so I figured that sounded pretty perfect to me.
As always with one search in Thangs.com I found the exact model of the blade. I got that printed off in two parts and at a much smaller scale then the original file on my FDM printer. Absolutely could have benefited from the detail of resin but I knew Zac would play with it at his desk so the durability of PLA would have benefited him nicely.
Straight off the printer it looked pretty rubbish but with 20 minutes and a sharp blade I tidied it up pretty nice.
Now a 3D print does not make a gift, that's pretty lame. So I decided I'd make a stand to go along with it to make it a very stylish desk ornament. I started on Pinterest to find other tiny sword stands for inspiration and found a couple designs. I then moved to sketching some shapes to scale and playing around with shapes that complimented the shape of the blade itself. I then made some cuts of scrap pine on my scroll saw and came out with these two shapes.
In person I was initially very worried at this point as I only had 4 hours until the party and I wasn't sure if what I had made was any good or would come out looking very amateurish. I realised with the curved nature of the base shapes it would benefit from rounding so before I pined and glued the parts together I spent a lot of time sanding with my orbital sander clamped to the bench as a makeshift disc sander. This left me with a much more pleasing shape. I also flipped the base around and found that it made the whole piece better balanced.
Which after getting some nice curves I moved my way up the grits hand sanding to 240 which helped create a much nicer surface overall, I also cut a notch to hold the sword and countersunk a little divot. I then drilled, stuck in a dowel for security and glued the piece down.
I've been wanting to try engraving or marking the things I've made for a while and decided to try wood burning this piece. With a bit of practice I managed to do this which I think turned out really lovely and I'll definitely be engraving projects in the future. I think this really helped make the project special.
After one coat of Danish oil it was time for the party and I was honestly so pleased with this project as I have never made anything quite like this project before and it turned out better than I had expected. My friend absolutely adored it, childlike ran around the party showing people what he had just received and my gosh that warmed my heart. I know this will be a proud piece he will have for a long time and that makes me so happy.
I had also intended to paint the blade however I had both ran out of time and figured with my poor hand at painting it would likely look worse than just the lovely black. Especially considering how recognisable the silhouette of the blade is.
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