The Finn Sword – Case Study (Part 2)

In part 1 the master for the Finn sword was created and prepped for molding. In this section I will cover the molding and casting process along with the finishing of the sword.

I first started by building a mold box out of laminated fiber board. The lamination is nice because nothing sticks to it. This took a while to figure out how to build due to all the angles but in the end saved material so proved to be worth it.

I put some insulation foam in the bottom to save on the amount of clay I needed, and then began by surrounding the bottom half of the blade in clay. I used medium harness sulphur free clay, although I would probably recommend soft clay instead because the medium stuff was still too hard. I ended up having to microwave it for a few seconds making it more malleable. Once the clay was nice and smooth, I put registration marks in by using a wire sculpting tool to create the wavy lines and the back of a paint brush for the dots.

I was then ready to pour. I used Mold Max 40 from Smooth-on.

Because the gem was the highest point on the sword, I built inserts to save on material. Keeping this in mind I poured the silicone up to the gem. After curing I rested the inserts on top and then poured the rest. This was time consuming but saved me a ton of material.

After curing I flipped it and did the same to the other side. I also added a pour spout out of clay so I could fill it with resin later. After the whole thing was cured I demolded it and I am pretty proud of how it turned out.

I applied mold release on both sides of the mold, then ratchet strapped the mold in between two boards and poured the resin. I used smooth cast 321 also from smooth-on.

There were a few imperfections that I had to fix, but nothing bondo and sanding couldn’t fix. I then primed and added a base coat of silver, then gloss white, followed by a pearl white. I also masked off the gem portion and painted it silver as a base and then metalic blue on top. Finally I wrapped the handle with paracord.

I’m really happy with how this project turned out comparing it to my last attempt shows how much I’ve grown as a prop maker. Check out a few more pictures on my portfolio, here.

Thank you everyone for your support and thanks for reading!

If you want to buy a fisnished version of this sword or a blank kit you can check out my Etsy here.