In this part of the tutorial we finish off the dagger by making the guard and the handle then assembling things together.

Part 4: The Handle and the Guard

If you haven't done it already, cut out from the template the handle and guard pieces.

And trace them onto one inch thick pieces of foam. One of each. We will actually slice each of them in half to get the opposing halves of the pieces.

And draw some lines on the handle and guard piece so you can carve it. Look at the template at the picture of the dagger to see how things will go. This is tricky to describe in pictures!

This picture gives you a sense of how the carving is coming along. It isn't too complicated. Just a bit of carving. Looking at the picture of the finished dagger will give you a good idea of how to cut these two pieces.

This picture shows the carving of the guard underway.

Use sandpaper too. It is a great tool for carving and shaping foam.

Ok, once you have the guard and pommel carved you go ahead and slice them in half. Use a sharp knife. But if you have a hot wire foam cutter then you do it this way. It makes a beautiful and clean slice right down the middle.

Now you can see how we can put the halves on the dagger and it makes sense.

Next we are going to carve out a channel in those pieces so they fit snugly on the dagger piece. So, lay one half of the handle piece under the dagger and mark lines for the handle.

If this seems a little confusing it will clear up as you look through the next few pictures.

Then carve out that channel. This picture shows the channel about half carved.

Do the same thing for the two guard pieces.

Cutting the channel in the guard.

OK! LEt's Paint this stuff up

Painting these four pieces is a very easy two step process. First paint everything black.

And the second step is easy too. We dry brush gold color paint onto it. Dry brushing is where you get paint on the brush then wipe most of it off on a rag or cloth. Then lightly brush over the black paint. This puts only partial gold paint on.

Do all four pieces with this black then dry brush gold technique.

Then apply glue to the pieces and glue them together. They meet right around the glass dagger. Nice! This picture shows the two halves of the guard being glued together.

Then glue the handle halves together over the glass handle.

Ok, those halves are glued on. Put rubber bands on them too to hold them in place while the glue dries.

Now, there is one more piece to make. Well, two (one on each side of the dagger). It is a pointy spine. Carve that out of foam and glue it to the dagger right over all the ridges.

There you go. It looks great. The white line on that spike is glue. It will dry clear.

That's It! Your Glass Dagger is done! Yay!

MORE SKYRIM PROJECTS

Do you like making projects and exploring a variety of hobbies?

Sign up for my free newsletter. I give you regular updates on hobbies and projects you can make. it is totally free and I don't share your email with anybody.