Kenpachi's Sword

By The Doctor. 22/03/11, 12:50 pm

I'm making a wooden replica to Kenpachi's sword form Bleach. Unfortunately, I am only having trouble with a certain piece of it. The guard piece is really starting to tick me off. I have absolutely no idea how to make it.....

Kenpachi's Sword AAAADNSanBwAAAAAACu4lw

If anyone has any idea as to how to make it, they will be much appreciated...

By Cookie Monster. 04/04/11, 07:56 am

All I can think off from top of my head are 2 things but it depends on how exact on you want it to look.

Even though this first method won't give you the exact look, it is by far the easiest...
You can just cut out (an even number of) flange and stick them around where you've marked out the guard on the hilt at oppersite and even intervals.
Similar to a Flanged Mace.
e.g. Flange: Kenpachi's Sword Triang10

Mace:

The other more complicated and fidgety way it to make 2 identical card stock fans (top half and bottom half of the guard) tape each one tightly around a pvc (important) pipe the same size as your grip and fan them out to how wide you want the guard to be. Obviously do this at the near end of each pipe, so you can line up and match the two halves, but leave enough pipe sticking out to reach the top of your "fans". Then give the fans a coat of hairspray to "waterproof" for the next stage and the pvc pipe a wipe of WD-40.

You then fill up the fans with PVA glue (it's cheaper than resin!). Do this in tiny amounts at a time (split the fan up into 5 or 6 sections); That way the glue won't take days or even weeks to dry, and your distortion when the glue shrinks will be minimal. To finish just pull out the pvc pipe and trim down the ends where you taped so you can put a ring on it - the glue will obviously stick to the card so don't pull the card off, in my opinon it makes it look better as it will give "sharper" edges then casting, so just paint over the card and then slide gaurds over your grip and glue them to your zanpakuto.