C'mon grab your friends! We'll go to very distant lands!
Who didn't want to wield (arguably) Finn's most iconic sword? Adventure Time is my favorite show and being able to bring this sword to life and have it mounted up on my wall brings just a little bit of the magic of the show to life.
After reading about all the major features below and my experience building Finn's Sword please do yourself a favor and go purchase the model so that you can bring this legendary sword to life and I can continue to make model such as this
Major Features
Blade
Usually when slicing any of my models into their printable pieces, I try to avoid visible seams, but in the event of large "singular" pieces like the blades of swords, this is unavoidable. For this piece, I sliced it in half and added the addition of an alignment peg to the bottom half. This bottom half also slides into the hilt itself. All of the battle damage seen in the show is faithfully recreated and the sword itself is proportionally correct as well.
Another important feature that I added to the model set, is the blade tip guard. This tip guard fits over the end of the sword so that when glueing the prop together, you can clamp the two ends of the sword together firmly without risking damage to the blade tip.
Hilt
The hill of the sword is one singular piece to cut down on assembly later on and to lower complexity. The shapes are simple enough that printing it as one piece did not make the sanding and painting any more complicated.
MAJOR RECOMMENDATION: When printing the Hilt, I highly using at least 20% infill. At lower infills and with certain infill patterns, there can be major stress concentrations on the top of the handle/bottom of the hilt. This could mean that if someone pulls on the end of the sword or there is any bend applied to the sword it is most likely to break in this location unless a higher infill is used.
Resin Jewel Kit
Included in the model set is a small "cup" that can fit the jewel and that can be used to pour in your molding medium. I include these custom mold shells in models that include parts that would look better as a resin cast as a way of allowing for a much easier and cheaper molding process.
Knowing the exact volume, it takes approximately 30mL of Rubber to create the mold and 30 mL of Resin to produce the Jewel. This is essentially the size of the cups that come with cold medicine. This cuts way down on material if you were to try and eyeball a mold out of foam and hot glue, and therefore cuts way down on cost, especially since that casting Rubber can get real expensive.
Minimalist Wall Mount
Some wall mounts were included in the model as well and were designed to accommodate small drywall screws. While the photo above shows the peg mount on the far notch of the sword, I would recommend mounting it to align with the notch of the sword closer to the hilt.
Builds
I am super happy with how this prop ended up coming out, as you can see I was so happy with it, it is mounted front and center underneath my TV.
This prop really helped me refine my post print process and how to get a smooth, mirror like shine after a print. It also is the first time I ever resin cast something. If you would like to avoid some beginner's mistakes I highly recommend you check out my tutorials dedicated to those topics.
For the Jewel I used this resin and this resin dye. For both the blade and the hilt, I used the Rust-Oleum Metallic line of paints. The Metallic paints are much more forgiving when it comes to getting a smooth finish than regular spray paint, so if your prop needs a smooth finish and they have the color, I definitely recommend it.
CAUTION
For my first go around at this prop, my first hilt snapped in two pieces for the reason I gave above. Also when using PVC cement to fasten things together, be aware that
****IT STRIPS PAINT****
This is fine for when you're assembling parts pre-paint, such as the blade, but be careful if deciding to use it to put pieces together after you've painted them, its still usable but you may want to experiment with a strong epoxy or hot glue, super glue, etc..
Shown below is the blade tip guard being used to allow me to clamp the two pieces of fin's sword together without damaging the tip of the sword. Note that the sword was glued together using heavy bond PVC Cement and the seam in the middle is where they connect not the change in color. The change in color is an artifact that I switched filament since I was testing out my printer's ability to switch filaments in the middle of a print. There was actually 5 different switches throughout this print, so i was pretty happy to be able to confirm that the function works as well as completely exhausting several spools of filament.
restin stuff::::::::
What Next?
If you are looking to create you own models like this one feel free to checkout all of my tutorials on 3D modeling and prop making techniques.
If you are looking to purchase the model so that you can print your own you can find it in the store.
Lastly, make sure to check back in every once in a while to see what I've been working on
Thank you for your time