Lord Of The Rings Sword under construction

[Craftman]

Ok! Time to build my first sword. And I have been warned about it not being easy to build swords in paper!
However, when I found a model of Anduril - the sword used by Aragorn in the third Lord of the Rings-movie I knew I just wanted to own it!

So, starting with the top (when it´s pointing downwards), nice and easy...and I just found something I want to change on the model.

The original pattern have no holes in the top part and the handle parts (where there are holes in the original movie prop), so I added them!
Some quick measurements and then a printout of the extra three small parts. It took two hours extra, but I think the result looks ok!
Am I being picky? YES, but only because I am going to display this on my wall, so a big thank you to the person who made the pattern!
This will be great when finished!

 

[Craftman]

When getting to the handle, I must say that things got a little complicated. To fit all the small pieces straight was hard. Very hard! And there were so many of them!
The handle part took many hours to complete!
After finishing this first part, I understood that the sword is made of three separate parts that are later glued together.
Felt good to put the finished handle to the side and move on the the next part!

 

[Craftman]

So, part nr 2 of 3, the hilt!
After making the difficult handle, the hilt was a joy to assemble!
Even though it looked crooked and strange at times, as more small parts were added it got more stable and actually looked kind of nice!
And by "nice", I mean similar to what it was supposed to look like!
On the hilt I added holes on the outer parts as before with the handle.

I must say that I am still amazed that flat paper can turn into these wonderful shapes when glued together after being bent the right way!

 

[Craftman]

After bending the hilt into impossible (almost) angles I finally reached the end of this part, when there suddenly was a piece to glue that "closed" the hilt part, leaving no space to glue on more pattern parts.
That part was hard to glue in place, but it came together nicely after being persuaded with lots of glue!

 

[Craftman]

Time for the blade! Now, it may have looked pretty easy, but when I realized that besides the last section that was the tip, every other section of the blade (there were four) was supposed to be built by gluing together six different stripes (three on the front and three on the back), I felt that this would be very time consuming!
And also, the middle part of the blade (on both front and back) was supposed to be concave!
Yeah! Concave!
Was that easy to achive? No!
But I love doing this, so I´m not complaining!

 

[Craftman]

A close-up of the concave part, then on with working on the blade (that took many, many hours, even days) until...

 

[Craftman]

...it was time for the last section and the tip section to meet!
Working on both of them from two ends at the same time felt like the right way to go so that´s what I did.
To finish the concave part with the help of 2-3 small parts (see close-up) that were supposed to be bent in the right way was almost impossible. But only almost!
To keep all the parts of the blade in a straight line (so the blade wouldn´t be curved) was hard. I know I am using the word hard a lot about this papercraft, but that´s how I feel. This is a hard one!
And that will make completing it so much nicer!

 

[Craftman]

So, all that is left is to glue shut the tip part (open in the left part of the photo) and the blade is done!

In the right part of the photo, the three main parts, the handle, the hilt and the blade, are now complete!!

All that is left is to glue the finished parts together, and...

 

[Craftman]

... all of a sudden I am the proud owner of a full size paper replica of Anduril, the sword of the mighty KING Aragorn!

Yeah!!
This was a challenging build, but totally worth every minute!
I enjoyed building it (really, I did) and I am very happy it turned out ok!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

It looks SPECTACULAR!!!
You did an OUTSTANDING JOB!!!
That would make for a FINE wall ornament. Are you going to make a plaque for it (so that it can be mounted on the wall)?
KUDOS TO YOU ON A FINE JOB WELL DONE!!!

 

[inky]

Very nice clean build. Swords are difficult but you made it look so easy.

 

[Oliver Bizer]

WOOOW COOL!
Great Job and model!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Revell-Fan]

Excellent! I'm sure it will get together with Rogerio's Sting Sword very well!

 

[Craftman]

To Rhaven Blaack;
Wow! Thanks! I like it too!
And of course I am going to do a plaque for wall mount!
Pictures of that build will be posted here very soon!

To inky;
Thank you very much!
I think it actually WAS difficult to build, so if I made it look easy it is because I really took my time with this build!

To Oliver Bizer;
Thanks a lot!
Wall plaque is soon done too!

To Revell-Fan;
Thank you very much!
For me this is the only sword I will ever build. I think!

 

[Rogerio Silva]

Craftman

Beautiful, realistic build. Way to go! CONGRATS!

 

[Craftman]

The time has come to build a plaque so I can display the sword mounted on the wall.
There are so many different plaques out there that some of the swords get mixed up sometimes and it took me along time with lots of research to figure out the correct plaque for each sword.
I finally put together this picture to show all the correct plaques!

And now...on with the build of the plaque!

 

[Craftman]

First I designed a plaque based on the various pictures I found (first version I made looked very bad, the second version turned out fine), then I started working on some kind of stable holder for the actual sword on the plaque. I made two holders that went through the plaque and were then glued to the part they went through. I cut out the exact angles of the hilt in these holders to make the sword rest stable on them. The parts that went through the plaque were also exactly as deep as the plaque so that they could be glued to the (never visable) back cover.

The result was two stable "hooks" that could hold the sword permanently!

 

[Craftman]

Here is the final result!

The plaque, with the sword on it, now has a prime spot on my wall!

 

[Revell-Fan]

This is absolutely gorgeous! Like the real prop! Again, a very fine CRAFTMANship! :thumb::thumb::thumb:

 

[Heckler]

Wow hats off, that looks fantastic. It was definitely worth the effort to put the hole in the hilt, otherwise you'd always be looking at it wishing you'd put the hole in.