Sword of Hearth and Home (MTG)

At full size the sword measure 761mm from tip to pommel. It is held together by three 8mm dowels, and twelve 3mm pins. The model is pre sectioned into eleven parts so it can be built on smaller printers, an uncut version it also available.

Additional parts

• 2x 8mm diameter 500mm long dowels
• 1x 8mm diameter 168mm long dowel
• 10x 3mm diameter 20mm long pins
• 2x 3mm diameter 15mm long pins

For the dowels I used carbon fiber tubes, as they are straighter and lighter than wood.

Assembly

Clean up all the parts before assembly and test fit all parts before gluing.

Use the two 15mm long pins and two 20mm to glue the pommel, handle, hearth part 1 and home part 1 together around the 168mm long 8mm diameter dowel. Next glue both 500mm long 8mm diameter dowels into hearth part 1 and home part 1, use the center part to keep them straight (but don’t glue it in just yet). Note that the hearth side of the sword is slightly longer, to keep the parts from getting mixed up the alignment pins are offset differently. Glue the center part on make sure to use the pins to get it in the correct orientation. Finally finish assembly buy gluing together part 2, 3, and 4 of hearth and of home.

Finishing

To hide the seams, I used superglue to fill them in and sand paper to smooth them over. Next, I sprayed the sword down with 2 coats of automotive filler primmer. Lastly I carefully sanded it smooth with 320 grit sand paper. 

Painting

I started with a base coating of metallic bronze. Then painted the ends of the blades with white carefully fading it out as it got closer to the knot-work, and getting just a bit all the way down the edges of the blades. I used inks to color the blades in green and orange, this let the metallic look show through. The handle was hand painted in brown, then the pommel and cross guard were weathered. The final step was to coat the sword in a clear gloss enamel.