Tenchi's sword hilt
june 2008
Tenchi Muyo! is an anime and manga series about an ordinary boy living in Tokyo and the alien girls who arrive and pursue him romantically.
Tenchi Muyo! is an anime and manga series about an ordinary boy living in Tokyo and the alien girls who arrive and pursue him romantically.
I was commissioned to create the hilt of Tenchi sword from the anime series Tenchi Muyo! This weapon creates a lightsaber-like blade (which I will not be building!)
After sizing my template to fit the wielder’s hand, I cut it out of 3/4″ MDF.
With a combination of exacto blade and Dremel, I carved the pattern into the MDF.
I didn’t have any reference for the back so I extrapolated the front pattern to wrap around the other side.
Once it was cleaned up I painted my base colors with acrylic paint.
The wood grain on the pommel was hand-painted to preserve an organic look.
I then took the base color and dusted back the lines.
I added 11mm ruby acrylic gems to each side and applied a wash to bring out the details of the carving.
The final front view
The final back view.
The prop in action!
A few years later, I was commissioned to make a custom hilt for a wooden martial arts practice sword. I was able to get my original Tenchi hilt on loan from the original client to make the new one.
I cut off the guard and shaved down the hilt to reveal the tang.
Since the tang didn’t extend all the way through the hilt, I reinforced the grip with pieces of cherry.
In order to make the hilt fit around the wood, I had to make the hilt thicker. I glued 1/8” basswood to each side to make the hilt 1/4” thicker.
I finished the edge, blending the basswood with the resin.
After clamping the sides together, I rescribed the lines that crossed over from one side to the other.
I also carved the wood grain into the pommel rather than just painting it on.
The blade had some distortion and damage from use, so I sanded a fresh edge and filled any nicks.
After the resin halves were completed, I placed them in a mold box and applied a thinned coat of Smooth-On MoldMax Stroke to capture detail. Once that cured, I applied a thick coat of Stoke to build the mold walls.
The demolded masters!
I used the cutting attachment on my Dremel as a router to carve a slot in both halves.
I used two-part epoxy to glue the blade inside the two halves.
A fresh coat of primer on both hilts in preparation for final painting.
The new Tenchi hilt (left) compared to the original. The new grip is 1” thick and feels like a proper sword grip.
The other side.
Detail to better show the thickness difference.
Detail view.
The blade in the final Tenchi grip.