Hello, I'm Odin, and today I'm going to make another requested prop! It's the Bifrost sword, or Heimdall's sword, or Hofund. It's the one that activates the Rainbow Bridge, the Bifrost. Hofund is a huge two-handed sword. One Wiki page says it's 5 feet long, and the smith who made the first prop said it was five and a half feet long. I found a really clear picture of the sword from Thor: the Dark World and enlarged it to five and a half feet, and that's what I'm going to use for my pattern. I'm gonna make the blade from foam so I need a core to keep the blade stiff. How wide is this? I have a graphite tube that's just over 9 millimeters in diameter. Wow, that's nine all on it's own. Alright. The body of the blade will be 10 millimeters thick foam with a layer of 4 millimeter to hide the core and I'm going to use 10 millimeter triangular dowels for the sharp blade edges. Now that I have a plan for the blade, I'll make the grip. For the grip, I'm gonna try doing wood. and I've already kind of cut it down to about the block that I need, so I'm gonna sand the sides and start getting this kind of shape and I think I'm just going to make the hilt out of wood. After getting the sides sanded smooth, I mark the center and set the piece up in my drill press and I drilled a 9 and a half millimeter hole for the graphite rod. Then I setup my 1-inch belt sander. I remove the plates that keep things square, and I just rolled the wood around until I got the shape that I wanted. I started with using of 40 grit belt and then smoothed it out with 120 grit belt. Once I had the shape I wanted, I started to draw that knot work that runs along the grip. I felt pretty confident about knot work after doing the Valhalla axe. The truth is, I ran out of pencil eraser before I was finished. After the pattern was drawn, I etched it into the wood with a grinding stone on my rotary tool. Alright, that took longer than I care to admit, but I've got the knot work pretty much finished on the wooden handle and I'm able to remind myself why I typically work with foam: it's a lot faster to get things done. But the grip of this sword needs to be wood because it would just deteriorate with the length that it's going to be if it wasn't solid. What I'm going to do now is stain it. I quickly stain the old pine wood with some dark walnut, and once it was dry I stained it again with some brown shoe polish. The walnut was just not rea enough for what I wanted. I could just use a redder stain, but I didn't have any so I just worked with what I already had. Next, I start the cross guard which I cut from 10 millimeter HD foam. I grind the edges to be smooth. These smaller radius curves make it really difficult to get a clean cut with a hobby knife. There are raised details on the cross guard, so for the first layer there's gonna be some 4 millimeter HD foam and the second layer is going to be all knot work, so I cut a pattern from some cardstock and then cut four copies from some 2 millimeter HD foam. Now, this particular pattern doesn't really have any crossovers, so I'm not really sure if it's technically knot work. Before I applied contact cement to the 4 millimeter pieces I traced down the pattern again in pencil so when I did glue the 2 millimeter layer over it I had a guide to help keep things correct. Then glue the panels back to the cross guard. I'll use my rotary tool again to smooth out the edges that didn't line up. Now, the graphite rod needs to run through the cross guard, and it's gonna be easier to just cut it in half and grind out the center. I'll glue it back together over the rod once the blade is done. The seam that this makes is easily hidden behind the center knot work, which I cut out just like the sides with a 4 millimeter layer but this time, I round the edges of 4 millimeter layer and I'm also going to apply a 2 millimeter detail layer with the knot work design, and this one actually has crossover in it. Like I did with the Valhalla axe build, I use a wedge tip on my wood burner to suggest that the strands of the knot work is weaved over it under itself. Sweet! Once fully assembled, the cross guard will look like this. The pommel is made from layers as well. The center 6 millimeter layer has the wing shape, then there's a middle layer, also 6 millimeters topped with a 2 millimeter knot work layer. The wood burning tool set at 50 percent power, and this works really well. It's easy to use and it doesn't just simply disintegrate the foam. I also use the wood burner to add details to the wings. This time I thought ahead and added them before I glued everything together. I also removed a section so the pommel can fit over the threaded rod that I plan to use to attach the grip and everything fits, so I glue the rod in place now: more time for that glue to dry. I was amused that there was a small hole in the woods= that the glue could escape from. Well, I filled that little hole in! Okay! [laughing] The pommel is starting to come together. These two 6 millimeter layers have the top edges rounded over just like I did in the middle of the cross guard and then the two millimeter knot work as laid over the top on each side. I'll trim off the extra that hangs over on the base. [music] Oh yeah, that's fine. [music] It is a little bit smaller. I could grind down the sides a little bit and I can put a band on it if I wanted to, but I think I'm okay with it. So, I've got the pommel, then. Now get to make a 4 foot long blade! [music] Because the blade is so long, and a pattern is so long, I put a bunch of tape on the back side to help strengthen it up a little bit Let's go ahead and cut this out! I cut down the paper to be just the blade [music] and mark the center line of the blade. So, the sword blade is going to be interesting. I'm going to cut it into four pieces. I'm going to have 2 halves that are 10 millimeter each, that's going to go on either side of the core piece, and I want it to go all the way to the tip because Heimdall's usually putting the sword point down whenever he's posing with it, or activating the Bifrost so I want to make sure the core goes all the way to the tip so you can actually do that and pose with it at a con. It's going to be fun, right? So I only need that little sliver, more or less, all the way down. All right. Now, to cover all the seam, I'm going to be putting on bits of poster board and then on top of that some 4 millimeter because it's got the the raised flutes in the middle so that'll be done with the with 4 millimeter, but yeah, alright. I cut off 9 millimeters from the side because I plan to use triangular dowels for the cutting edges. So, the graphic is the full blade, right? The full width of it all the way down to the actual cutting edge. By moving in just a little bit and cutting off, this portion is what I'm going to cut out of a flat edge foam and I'll replace the cutting edge with some triangular dowel piece. By gluing this piece onto the blade, I'll get the full width back. I line up the factory edge with some 10 millimeter foam to where the core will be. I trace my pattern and cut both halves of the blade. Then I cut down the pattern to be just the fuller line and trace that onto some 4 millimeter foam. I just use one side and flip it over that way I can keep all the lines symmetrical. When I cut them out, I cut it on an angle. These should be sloping down to the blade and not just flat stacked on top of it. To make the fuller groove down the blade I tape my foam onto a 3/4 inch dowel, keeping the center line straight and then grind the top flat, almost all the way through the foam, but not all the way because I don't want holes. Then I untape the foam and lay it out flat again, and I get a near-perfect fuller right down the center of my blade. The angle cuts tear a little on this thin foam, so I clean up all the marks and then clean up the flat edges on the main blade. To assemble the blade, I start with a poster board copy of the 4 millimeter layer and I have lines marked on it to show where I need to glue the 10 millimeter foam. It's slightly off-center which gives me room for the graphite rod core. Keeping the blade from curling at this stage is very difficult. [music] And then I add the second half of the main blade-- this is a little easier-- and cap the top with another poster board copy. The poster board helps to stiffen the blade and keeps the four millimeter layer from caving into the void that's around the core. Then I place the 4 millimeter layer. I have pieces of paper to keep most of the contact cement from sticking because I can just pull out one piece and make sure that area is on correctly before moving on to the next section of the blade. [music] So, I've managed to keep the blade straight, which makes me really happy but when I was gluing it together I pulled one side a little more than the other so the points don't line up which is actually very disappointing so I'm going to grind them down and correct them as much as I can. A little bit of sanding with a belt sander and I can start applying contact cement to the edges. I want to stick the triangular dowel to the side to look like the sharp cutting edge and I get to cut it to a point that each of the bumps, so I've got decorative seams to hide when I glue new pieces on which is good because these dowels are only 36 inches long and the blade is a little over 44. I start trimming the shoulder of the blade to fit the cross guard. They're close, but they're supposed to be close. [music] The only thing I need to do is I need to add a piece. There's a piece that-- Oh, I'll just do that. Alright. I need an extra filler layer on the center knot work piece because of the 4 millimeter fuller strip of the blade, so I cut the tip off the filler layer. Then when the cross guard is glued on the knot work piece can span from the filler layer to the fuller layer. I dry fit the wooden grip and see how much graphite tube I need to cut off. Just about 4 centimeters. [music] And I grind down the ends to where the foam meets the wood because I want them to be a pretty close size. [music] Alrighty! I can paint it! First, I paint the entire blade with a layer of contact cement. That really helps to fill in the small holes and smoothes out all the fuzz from the sanding then I sprayed all the foam with two coats of black PlastiDip. I use some bright metallic spray paints to cover the blade, the cross guard, and the pommel. After I glue the three pieces together with 5-minute epoxy, I weather the blade just a little with some thin acrylic paint. And I just want some definition on the blade, I don't want it to be loaded up with rust. [music] Most of the materials I used are available for order and you can have them shipped right to you. I put a list and some links in description. And so I've completed Hofund, or the Bifrost sword. It's Heimdall's two-handed weapon. This thing is really cool, and I'm really very happy with how incredibly light it is. This thing doesn't weigh anything which, you know, makes sense because I built the whole thing out of foam and it's got a pine grip, right? Now, the one thing I noticed while building it: the end here, just the way it's got all the shapes going on, it really kind of reminded me of something... It reminded me of my car keys, which I suppose makes sense, it is kind of a key to Asgard, right? You put it into the slot, and you twist it, and it activates the Bifrost, and off you go. Well, I know there's going to be lots of different ways that you can make a two-handed weapon, but This is how Odin Makes. I want to thank Ryan Mooresky, retrosherman, 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!
