Hello, I'm Odin, and today I'm going to make a
video game prop that was almost center stage and a big part of the marketing. What I mean by
that is it was in the trailers for the game, right? It was in a lot of the videos they
released early, it was in production stills or marketing pictures they put out. They made
a giveaway they gave to the press. There's fan creations of it all over the place, but as
of right now, it's not actually in the game. It's the Arasaka Thermal Katana from Cyberpunk
2077. I made my own template by tracing the outline of the katana from a video still. I used
Adobe Acrobat to print out the file full size on many sheets of paper. After the printout was taped
together, I cut out my template for the sword. Everything I looked up online,
what little bit I could find, everything said 1.2 meters. This is exactly 1.2
meters. This is a pretty long sword! Okay. Now, I'm going to make the katana in layers of plastic
because that's the sort of crazy stuff that I do. Yeah, this needs to be down-- So what I'm looking
at doing with this is building it up in layers. This separate piece? That's going to be the
heated blade element. This is the only part that's going to glow. I'm going to make
this from some fluorescent red plastic. This next piece here, I'm going to have five
layers total, and the middle is going to be clear acrylic because there's a portion in between
the heated blade and the handle that's supposed to be open. It's going to be a lot easier to build
and wield if I make it solid but transparent, so I'm going to use clear acrylic and I'm
going to cut out my acrylic parts first. It's going to take some time to set up before I
can cut these. This would be a good time for a quick game of War Robots! War Robots is a fun six
versus six tactical shooter where you're the pilot of your own towering mech stomping around the
battlefield, customized just the way you like it: small and fast or huge and strong. The goal of the
game is to get control over all the beacons of the battlefield by changing them to your team's color,
or you can destroy all of your enemies robots. The advantage of this game is it's all about
tactics. It's not just a fast reactionary run and gun chaotic melee. Don't get me wrong, War
Robots has some of that element as well. You can customize your robot in your pilot's hanger with
unique abilities and more than 60 custom weapons including flamethrowers. There's over 60 different
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that simply destroys your enemy. Now, this is a weapon in the game War Robots, you're not getting
a real flamethrower sent to you in the mail. Some of you may remember that I've had War Robots
on my channel before, and this is one of the few games that I've continued to play after my video
was finished. And remember: the game is constantly being updated. There's a New Year's event
happening right now! Help support my channel: download War Robots using my special link! You'll
get a ton of really cool stuff for the game, and if you're quick to click, you'll
get a super cool flame thrower! I carefully trace the heated blade
pattern onto some 6 millimeter fluorescent red acrylic plastic. The thin
paper template will move pretty easily, so I need to be careful not to warp it, and I
only need to trace the pattern once because after I roughly cut it out on the band saw, I can tape
that piece back on top of the rest of the acrylic, and then I can carefully cut out two copies of
the exact same part while following the pattern line just once. And after this is done, I can cut
into the clear acrylic which I only need one of. Next, I cut four pieces of black foamed PVC sheet
into 2-inch strips. Now, these will make the back of the blade, the section behind the cutting
edge. PVC sheet is 3 millimeters thick. I need it to be 6 millimeters, so I'm going to glue
two sheets together with PVC pipe glue from the hardware store. It's going to take some time
for the glue to set up before I can cut these. Like I said, I'm building this in layers. I've
removed what the transparent area is, so I need to cut this next out of some black plastic, I'm
going to do some from some foam to PVC sheet, and that'll glue on over the transparent
plastic. It'll be, you know, fairly thick, but that'll actually start to be the
katana blade. This is the part that's supposed to be invisible and not really
there, but I want that so I can glue on my blade, which this will be the
blade, I just need to sharpen it still. I cut a pair of black PVC sheets that I had glued
together. These are longer than just the back of the blade, and they're the full grip as well. To
make it easier for cutting, I used some double sided tape and stick both of them together. Now I
only need to make one cut and I'll get two parts. So, I used double back sticky carpet tape to
put the two halves of the sword together so I could cut it out all at once in the band
saw. Seemed like a great idea. Carpet tape isn't designed to come up easy. I've
been doing this for about an hour. I had also stuck the halves of the glowing blade
together with the same tape because I still have to run them through a router to cut the groove
that I need for the LEDs to hide in. The cutting edge of this router bit is slightly larger than
the bearing guide that rides on top. When the plastic is set up against the bit, It'll cut a
groove deeper where the blade is and it won't cut at all where the bearing touches the plastic.
The router bits spin crazy fast, so I need to be careful not to hurt myself, but also not to launch
the plastic if I accidentally let go. This is kind of true for most power tools. I got the cuts
that I needed, now I need to separate the parts. Acrylic isn't that flexible. It would
be very easy with pieces this thin to break them by stressing them too much trying
to pull them apart, so I need to not do that. It became easier to just peel the protective paper
from the plastic and let the tape just be stuck to the paper. The paper is there on new plastic
sheets to protect the sides from scratches because acrylic is pretty easy to scratch. I set the two
halves back on top of each other, now with the cut groove on the inside so I have tiny little 1.5
millimeter tall walls on the outside edge of this piece. Then I use a solvent glue called Weld-On
4. It's made for gluing together acrylic plastic and is often used for making display cases. I had
to cut the two parts and then glue them together like this because this particular color and type
of acrylic plastic isn't sold thicker than a 6 millimeter sheet, at least not that I know of.
After the glue was fully set, I sanded the front edge to be smoother. It was cut by hand on the
band saw so you can see kind of a wavy edge on the front, and after a little bit of sanding, I have
a leading edge of the blade that's pretty smooth. I removed all the subtle wavy cuts from
the band saw. Back to the router table, and this time I have a 45-degree bit in the
router with a guide bearing on top again. I'm not cutting the edges down to a sharp
point, I'm just cutting the corner away a little bit on both sides giving a good hint of
a blade, but the prop won't actually be sharp. Then I sand down the sides with my 1-inch belt
sander. This removes the little corners from the 45-degree router bit and fogs up the plastic
so you won't be able to see the LED strip. So I put a lot of work into making the blade,
right? It needs to be a glowing thermal blade, not a lightsaber, but it needs to glow. So, I've
got my transparent plastic and the whole reason for this bit in the back is, of course, LED
lights. I cut off a small strip of just four. So that's about what I'm
gonna get. I'm okay with that. It's got hot spots. I cut thin strips of black
ABS plastic. This will be a back for the LED strip. And I start doing like an accordion fold
on the LEDs, moving them closer to each other. I have just enough space to make all of this fit
inside of the cut on the blade, and I continue making these folds, I have enough LEDs, but
all it takes is just one little mistake-- I creased it I think too close to the LED and
I think I broke the connection at the LED. I have enough, but what I'm tempted to do
after folding it down to this point and having creased it too hard is let the end be
brighter and the rest it just can be a strip. It took a little while to get the folds made, and
I wasn't going to risk another break right when I get to the end, so I cut off the bad section and
I'm going to just let the rest of it be flat. I squeeze the thin ABS into the curve on the
end of the blade. Weld-On 4 will cement ABS plastic to acrylic, It just takes a few minutes
to set. I start using spring clamps to hold the plastic in place and get the rest of the strip
glued down. I let the glue sit for about an hour and then I use a rotary tool to sand the
extra ABS plastic from the sides of the blade. And I give the blade another sanding on
the surface. All this sanding acts like a diffuser and it'll help to spread the light
around and hide what's inside. I have a USB power bank that I plan to use to power the LED
strip. It's nice to see that they still work after being glued into the blade. Perfect. That's
what I want. Getting very close to gluing this all together, which is pretty exciting because
that means I'm getting pretty close to the end. What I want, at least I think I am, how much
time is left in the video? You can get an idea of my actual plan now. See, there's one black side
with a clear center placed on top. The blade will attach here. I need to trim it just a little bit.
I got this middle section, and I got another half. But then on top of all of that, there's the
two halves of the grip, they go together to bolt the grip up a little bit. So this power bank could barely fit inside
the handle, but that's only if I keep the plastic housing on the power pack. If you take
the power pack apart and you don't want to use the plastic box, you end up with an 18/650
battery and a fairly small little circuit. So this is what comes inside of one of these.
This little circuit board has three big functions: if you use the micro USB, that's how
you're gonna charge the battery back up. If you use the USB-A plug, that's how you're going
to power whatever you're sending power out to. An 18/650 battery is 3.7 volt. This actually
puts out 5.1 volt so it can charge your phone or whatever you want to plug it into, so it has a
little flyback converter "black magic" that makes it go from 3.7 volt to 5.1 volt, and all that's
contained in this one little card here, which is really cool. By removing the bulk of the plastic
box, this will fit with room to spare inside the handle. Let's push that down so you can kind of
actually see it. I've got about a layer left over, so that's going to be fine. So what I want to do
with this is figure out a spot towards the back where I can put it and I'll start cutting through
all the layers except for these outermost two, and that's where this guy is going to go. Then
I need to make a line that goes to my piece of CAT5 cable that I want to use to actually
power. Let's see, is this going to just work? Yes, there it is. So the CAT5 cable will actually
power the LED, and in between the two I'm going to put in a switch. So, the switch will be just
like if you unplugged it from the port, it'll stop running, right? I cut a hole just big enough
for the power bank in the center grip piece. I copy the hole onto one of the thicker sides
and cut it out, and then I also cut it out on the other thick side, and then I stack the parts
together again. This should fit inside of it. The battery is slightly taller
than the five layers of plastic. I mash the next layer against the
battery to mark where it touches and cut out a smaller hole that just fits around
the battery. I cut some trim pieces from textured ABS plastic, and the trim piece will hide
the last piece of battery that's exposed. It totally fits within that. That's great!
Okay, so that's all the holes I need to cut. I cut a notch in some of the layers
to allow the micro USB to plug in, and I cut a small notch for the end of the
LED strip to fit inside of the grip. At last, I start gluing the blade to the rest of the sword.
The ABS backing glues really easily to the foamed PVC sheet. Now I know where I want my power switch
to go so I can solder it into the positive wire. I set the clear acrylic center layer next. Now,
it's cut to touch the back of the glowing blade, so I can glue it all the way down the back
of the blade, and I use a series of clamps to hold the clear acrylic to the back of the
blade while the glue sets. I remove the clamps and start gluing down the other thick layer of
foamed PVC. With all the layers mostly glued on, I solder the wires to the back of the USB plug,
directly connecting the LEDs to the battery pack. Come on, just-- Thank you. That's all I wanted.
Of course, the big question also is, once I get all done: Is it going to charge? Or is it going to
hold the charge once and be dead Jim. Oh, so the blue light does come on. Oh, that's interesting.
Oh, but it goes off, so it's on while it's on. Yes, good. Okay. Good, that means it
won't permanently drain it. Okay, now, I add a tiny piece of PVC to
hold the circuit board still because it's gonna be a lot easier to plug the
USB cable in if it doesn't move around inside. Then I glue the extra grip layer over the battery
sealing everything in place. The wiring is in. I sand the edges of the grip. The layers didn't
match up too well. And then I use a very small round over bit on the router to curve the edges of
the grip that make them slightly more comfortable. And I can glue the textured ABS panels that I had
cut to both fully cover the battery and add some details to the grip. Before I make the tsuba, I
carefully drill some circle marks into the blade and on the grip. To clean up the back of the
blade, I glue on a thin strip of styrene plastic which means I'm gonna have to paint it now. I cut
a tsuba from a piece of 6 millimeter foamed PVC. I sand the edges that are not quite as sharp,
and I glue it in place with sprinkler glue. I put tape over the blade, the clear plastic,
and the switch so I can spray paint the sword black. And when the paint dries, I'll peel the
tape and super glue in some tiny detail screws, just enough to make the sword
look like it was manufactured. Most of the materials I used for
this project I picked up locally. I put a list in the description. I've completed my Thermal Katana
as almost seen in Cyberpunk 2077. This was a bit more challenging than expected
to build, and as far as a prop goes, I think this is probably a better one to 3D print, I
just happen to like to make things by hand, and since I'm not machining it, there's a certain
few details that became a bit more challenging. I don't think there's going to be a much better
way to light up the blade. You can get an LED strip that has more LEDs per meter, basically.
You can get one that has LEDs right next to each other, but from what I can see up here, you're
probably still going to see the individual LEDs, so I'm not too worried about that. This, the
battery will last longer because there's less draw off the battery, and the battery was a fun
challenge as well because there's no real obvious easy place to put it. I mean, there's an obvious
one, it has to go in the handle, but there's no easy place to put it, and I think I solved that
okay. Part of that also was not actually putting the holes in the handle, and there's supposed
to be a couple more. I'm going to acknowledge that because all of you are going to say that in
the comments. This was intentional because Sintra is a fairly soft plastic and I had a concern that
if it was honeycombed like it's supposed to be, or holes, it's not honeycombed, the Sintra could
bend and give out if you were to carry it around at a con, because there's quite a bit of weight
going on here for just down on the handle. Keeping it solid, it's going to do a whole lot better
and it's not going to provide a failure point, so it was very much an intentional choice, partly
because of materials, to do this without the hole, and I think it's okay. I think it's fine.
Cyberpunk is all about customization, and uniqueness, right? I mean this is probably
a unique weapon, anyway, but still, I'm fine with modifying it slightly. Now, this was a really
cool prop from, well, almost from the game. Since the game's come out there's been a whole lot more
fun and interesting and humorous things that have been released, and there's one that definitely
I think would be a very funny video to make, but to be honest you're not going to see a whole
lot if I was to actually bother to make it, so unfortunately I think Sir Phallustiff is
gonna have to wait 'till maybe almost never. I'm not sure if this will ever be made as a
YouTube video because you'll never see it, it's always going to be a pixelated
mess. But thermal katanas and a lot of other fun things from Cyberpunk 2077? We
can make those, and This is how Odin Makes. I know a lot of you were wondering: I
didn't actually make Sir Phallustiff, it's just a piece of rolled pink foam
on a wooden dowel so it'd be funny for a joke. There's no point in actually making it,
I would have to pixelate it for the whole video. HAHA! Flamethrower! I want to thank Nicole king, Nick
Ingram, and all of my Patreon supporters. My Patreon support is the number one
thing that makes this show possible. If you like the video, don't forget to subscribe!
Have an idea for something for me to make? Please leave a comment below! And if you make
any of these projects, you can send me a picture!
