Introduction: Gladius Roman Sword

About: To learn is to live!

The following was made for a project prop.

Materials

  • 6mm plywood
  • 3D printer filament
  • Glue
  • Spray paint

Tools

  • 3D Printer
  • CO2 laser cutter

Software

Step 1: The Blade

Using LibreCAD I designed the basic shape. This was then exported to an SVG and edited in Inkscape so as to get the curves that I wanted, as well as to set the colours for the laser cutter.

Step 2: The Handle

The handle was created in FreeCAD. The attached file needs to be renamed without the TXT part and it will then open in FreeCAD.

Once in the 3D Slicing software, I changed the length of the handle so that it was 10cm long.

Step 3: Putting It All Together

Because I shortend the handle, I needed to cut some of the bottom notch off of the blade.

The handle unfortunately snapped when I was removing the printing supports and so I stuck it together (the glue line is visible in the picture but with a little more effort I can sand this out out and cover with paint).

The wooden blade was spray painted gold and the top and bottom parts of the handle painted white.

Once the paint was dry, glue was applied to the blade notch which was then slotted into the handle.

This was a projected that needed to be done quickly, hence some of the hacks done when designing and putting it together.