The Liquid Blade of the Three Deserts

Be sure to vote for me in the Epilog contest. Cutting shapes out of card is pain, so I need a laser to do it for me!

I have owned a set of samurai swords for a short while now. They sit nicely on my shelf, and are a great display piece. I however wanted something unique. There are two ways to get unique-

1. Spend alot of money on getting a custom item built.
2. Build one yourself.

I opted for the latter.

I have never done any metal work in my life, so I chose to buy a cheap blade, then recycle that into my own sword. I faced a problem here, as I wanted my sword to be purely decoration, something someone can pick up and enjoy its aesthetics, but unable to cause major harm, I purchased the sword of ebay, but i struggled to find a listing with a 'non sharp' blade, most buyers ignored my questions.

Finally i found one, a shortish sword, straight, one sided, pretty much what i was looking for.

Video

Epilog
The Liquid Blade of the Three Deserts is made up from a poly-bicubit liquid metal held in place with gravitational magnetic fields. Based on the 'Melon sword' concept, the magnets hold the liquid in an impossibly thin alignment, spanning only a few atoms wide on the sharp edge. A small reserve of liquid metal in the handle allows loss and healing of the blade.

The blade is given extra functionality with the spear tip located on the scabbard. When sheathed the sword can be used as a lunging spear. It also then doubles up as a two handed weapon, sword in one hand, spear tipped scabbard in the other.

Located in the handle is a gravity modifier, this has several purposes, the first is regulate the blade, and hold it in place. Second is to provide a perfect balanced blade no matter what stance, or how the blade is held. Finally, it can be clocked into over drive to deliver a 37 fold blow.

The name of the blade comes from when the overclock feature was first tested, the sword was ramped up to full power, and one brave individual strode out into the test zone, a swift swing brought the sword down onto the desert floor, only to crack the entire coastal region into three, creating The Three Deserts.

Step 1: Materials and Tools (greeness)

Most of my projects are based around reclaimed materials. Before you go and buy loads of thick cardboard or leather, use your brain, ask around. Most places are happy to let you have a little card, even if they recycle it!

Materials (greeness)

• An old sword (green if you recycle one)
• Cardboard (no matter what type you use waste card is everywhere, I got mine from a Print works)
• Leather (ask your local leather/furniture workers, no doubt they will have 'unusable' scraps)
• Metal (all my metal bits came from my 'metal junk draw', a must for any recycler)
• PVA glue
• Epoxy Resin

Tools

• A dremel esque tool, mine is a parkside from my local lidl
• Stanley knife, and plenty of blades.

Comments

[youaremyapocalypse]

This thing looks so cool! a especially like the hilt! very nice design. 5 stars!

[Luziviech]

Puttin the leather into warm water before using it, makes it more bendable and lowers the risk to rip it on the bent edges.

Best solution to glue it, imho, is to use the leather workers' glue. After drying (you have to put it on both glueing parts) it sticks like hell, which might make it easer to tear it around edges

[recklesskiba]

by the way sorry for the rant 2 years after you made this weapon. i think it looks awesome and it inspired me to recreate my own hilt and scabbard. but take it a step further and make it out of wood.

[gmjhowe]

Its ok, you are allowed to rant, but did you try googling 'Melon Sword' The entire epilog was made up, using my imagination. Including the fake science.

Like all great science fiction, I made it up to add a false realism to the idea.
Which you managed to fall for in spewing out that rant.

Thanks for the compliments, I would very much like to see your variation if you can spare a few pictures.

Try not to get to het up about things, it is just the internet, its mostly for fun.

[recklesskiba]

lol i know it was all made up. im not trying to say it was based off anything. i was merely stating that fact that you are allowed to have an imagination.

[sonofstone]

i have a katana that's around a half centimetre in width, so i think that the cardboard is'nt a great material here, it is also curved upwards like the traditional ones, so mine requires a lot more work, but still, i love all of your works ive seen so far, especially the steampunk guns

[Xankahr]

I defiantly did my own project based on this, you'res is awesome, i made mine using basswood for the handle

[rwknop]

You do very good work!
Very nice to see such good Craftsmanship.
Get up the good work!

[Neovenetar]

hmm, i have been looking at buying this sword, you say it's good quality? could it be sharpened with a file/grinder? (to a machete kind of sharp or better)

[gmjhowe]

As far as I understand, the metal is not designed to be sharpened, that does not mean it can not be. I have never tried, as I did not want to ruin the finish (you may have to refinish it or something)

[Neovenetar]

did it come with a handgaurd or was just as it is with a wrapped handle?

[Neovenetar]

have you actually used this sword to cut anything, or is it just for show?

[gmjhowe]

I specifically got an unsharpened sword, as I wanted it mainly for show.

[Neovenetar]

hm i guess that explains this: I VILL KILL YOU ALL WIZ MY TINFOIL SPEAR!!!!!

[JamesTB13]

I like the idea of a sword still being deadly while it's in it's sheath, but,.....this thing is essentially just cardboard, with a sword somewhere in the middle of it. Also, I don't know where you got the idea for this thing's backstory, but the 'gravity wheel' makes it look like the blade can fold at the handle.

[JamesTB13]

That is some funny-looking cardboard, what the hell is it? Usually cardboard is two pieces with a zig-zagging piece inside, sooo.........what the hell do you have?

[DehLeprechaun]

love your pics!
what was inspiration?

[N3v3rm0r3]

that's nice :) i'm going to make a filament sword (everybody who had played Arcanum will know what it is)

[Bodygard1117]

that's cool im going to try this soon but first i have to convince my mother to buy me a sword it sucks not being 18 :(

[Articas]

heys yous saids yous woulds nevers makes somethings thats woulds hurts peoples buts cools anys ways ...whats ares thes three desserts anyways

[jamiec53]

lol! What a parody on it. The liquid blade of the three desserts. I can see it now. A jelly blade with a handle made from cake and a pommel stone of biscuit!

[gmjhowe]

If you notice in my description, i had not end of trouble specifically hunting down a blunt blade.

The three deserts is explained in the epilog in the first step!

_{^{Its also an underground group of elite assassins... but i didn't tell you that...}}

[garrett10]

I found out what the little tiny text says! :D Its also an underground group of elite assassins... but i didn't tell you that...

[Camisado]

No matter how blunt the blade is, you can still split someone's head open if you swing it at full force, heck, at the very least, you can even bludgeon people to death using it.....

[gmjhowe]

But at that point, the same could be said for any long metal object. Everything is a weapon.

[Camisado]

Well, that's true, I'm just trying to say that no matter how blunt your blade is, you can at the very least use it as a bludgeon. (Which, IMO, is a good thing :-P)

[learntodostuff]

where do you find thick vellum cardboard? And also how do you cut the cardboard?

[sharlston]

is this like ferro fluids?

[gmjhowe]

Yeah, that kind of idea!

[sharlston]

so where are the ferro fluids?

[mettaurlover]

my ROOM is my metal junk drawer...you could probably make a functioning steel crossbow if you took some of the random parts i have lying around...

[Virtuous]

Lol hey gmjhowe...me again....looks like I'm always looking at your work, heh. Well anyways this projects pretty neat. I like the concept to it. I make swords all the time and if you ever wanted to make your own design of blade without having to go buy other blades and recycle them, you could use aluminum. I have made aluminum swords before and they have good weight to em. As for how to shape the aluminum I've always been stuck with grinders.

[starlightcheese]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this already, but you could probably purchase "practice" swords. Or swords that are meant for use in theatre and stuntwork and even just stage-combat practice. I work in the theatre, and have done several shows where sword combat was present, and all of those blades were "practice" blades. Unsharpened, but could still cause a pretty good gash if hit hard enough with . . . I know from experience :P but otherwise pretty harmless. An Ex of mine had about a dozen or so practice blades he purchased from E-Bay . . . not sure what key-words he used. Hope that helps some, and that I'm not being redundant. :)

[gmjhowe]

No, thats a great suggestion, eBay has always been a good source of swords, but they have since banned the selling of swords in the UK on eBay. So looking into a theatre supplies place would be a good next step to try.

[WurdBendur]

"Based on the 'Melon sword' concept, the magnets hold the liquid in an impossibly thin alignment, spanning only a few atoms wide on the sharp edge." Actually, a well-sharpened blade is often only an atom or so wide at the edge. Still it's a nice sword, and I especially like the spear point.

[gmjhowe]

Actually, a well-sharpened blade is several thousand atoms wide at the edge. You can never actually get a one atom cutting edge due to the weak force. The single atoms simple fall into a more stable position onto the atoms below.

[WurdBendur]

Ah, I guess you're right, but a few atoms wide is still not impossibly sharp.

[gmjhowe]

With todays technology it is.

[smurfsahoy]

Edits: 1) The 70 atoms thing is obviously not strictly correct, since the atoms are not lined up in a row, but it's a good rough guess. 2) I have no problem with whimsical creativity or fantasy swords or whatever. But I think that you should either just say it's magic and be done with it, OR you should actually have the science make sense. Pretending something is completely grounded in real world science, but then making claims that don't add up, seems contradictory?

[smurfsahoy]

First of all, edges tend to be rounded, so saying how thick they are doesn't make much sense. Thick where? How far back are you measuring? I could have a blade about as sharp as a basketball, and technically, if I measure in the right place, the edge will be about 1 atom thick... That's not a useful means of quantification. What is used instead usually is edge radius. And diamond blades are made with a radius of about 10 nanometers. Given that a CC bond length is about 150 pm, that would be approximately 70 atoms. I'm sure experimental ones have been made smaller than that, and this is a radius, remember, not the width of the absolute tip of anything. It gradually ramps up from 1 or 2 to 70 over the course of the edge's roundness. I have no idea how that translates to your pretend sword, because you're not using standard measurements. Also, no matter how sharp your sword is, it wouldn't be that much more useful than normal sharp sword, because you still have to have the strength to wedge two sides of an object apart up to the WIDEST part of your sword. If I want to cleave a boulder, I have to have the striking strength to peel apart the rock the entire width of the BACK of the sword. Which would be hard enough with just inertia to overcome, but add in the fact that the front of the boulder is still intact, and now we are talking about BENDING the boulder outward with just my arm muscles. Not going to happen. Sharpness doesn't really do that much for you after a point. Much more problematic, however, is your whole "overclocking" thing. Overclocking a field that holds material in a certain shape would do nothing more than hold the material in that shape even more securely... It would not in any way lend extra force to any blow.