Queadlunn- Here’s another practice build!
Since things had gone well with my polycarbonate carving in the recent past (Gem, Arc Sword, Glass Knife), I though I’d try a more complex shape.
I sketched the shape of a simple dagger out on some masking tape stuck to the PC plate (~30cm x 30cm x 1cm) to make sure it’d fit, then transferred that to paper to fully draw the design out.
To cut the initial work piece out I used a small drill bit and perforated along the outer edge of the dagger. I then used a saw blade on my Dremel (a bit dangerous, like this one) and cut the dagger free. Then it was a good couple hours with the bench sander getting it into shape. Check the Glass Knife build for more details on the shaping.
I used the same tinted future finish as I had before (~100ml Future, 4 drops blue food coloring, 1 drop green), and in about 4 good coats it was looking great. I used a sheet of ABS to make the two side plates, then red oak for the grip sides and brass plate for the decorative bits. The rivets are bronze rod that I had on hand. The carving on the guard was done with a ball engraving bit (like this) burnished clean with a bit of ABS rod and painted with some gold paint (link).
For the grips, after they were sanded into shape, I used the same tinted future again (~100ml, 3 drops red, 2 drops blue) and got to that shade after 5 coats.
The brass plates on the blade were dremeled into shape, cleaned up and then I used a dangerous [REDACTED]. Once that was done, I used some brass blackener to highlight the etching on the plates. I polished them up a bit and added them to the dagger.
Overall, this took about 3 weeks of work (less, really, not much hobby time right now). Polycarbonate is a great material. At some point I might use this same technique to make something like an ebony blade from Skyrim.
