From Dec 21 – Jan 21 www.epicweapons.com ran a WOW weapon smithing contest.  I knew I had to enter, but couldn’t decide on which fantastic weapon to make.

At first I wanted to go big, Zin’Rokh

Alice kind of toned me down so I scaled back to Kalimdor’s Revenge

But alas even this was a bit to grand of a project for a limited budget after a great Christmas. A good friend Jenny who runs Fiendle.com wanted to make an Arcanite Reaper for an upcoming costume.  I asked if i could make it for her as both a free commission and an entry in to the weapon smithing contest.

After some talking about size and dimensions we settled on just over 4 foot long by 2 1/2 wide.

I used WOW model viewer to create an image of the weapon and enlarged it the size that i wanted.  Printed it out on my home printer and assembled an image that would serve as a template for the process.

I had originally decided that I wanted to make it able to be disassembled into several pieces and it needed to be light enough to be carried by a woman of small stature and needed to be used at a convention. This limited the options for useable materials. Foam and wood would serve as the majority of the weapon.

I cut the wooden dowel at a point in the image where I would be able hide the joint. In this image I have already cut the handle in half.

I used a 1/2 inch drill bit to open a hole in the bottom where I would be able to glue a nut to form the joint. I repeated this on the other half and placed a threaded steel rod. Using 5 min Epoxy resin I held both pieces straight until they set up.

Alignment is very critical on this part, take your time a make sure all parts fit before you apply any resin.

Next I needed to start working on the ax head itself. Because we opted for foam it made this process very quick and easy. I started with 1″ thick insulation foam from Home Depot and made a trace from the template I had printed out earlier.

I use an Oscillating power tool from Harbor freight to make quick work of the foam, this tool is a must have for working with insulation foam. It has a sanding pad that will be used later on. It does generate a lot of dust so make sure to use proper safety gear. A dust mask and hearing protection are a must.

After I had one cut out, I made 3 copies and created both ax heads by gluing the pieces together.

I use 3m general purpose spray adhesive to bond the foam sheets to each other.

I will continue the construction of the Arcanite Reaper in my part 2 post.