Angel of Verdun Sword - Edge of Tomorrow Prop

I've wanted to try my hand at prop/model making for a while now and I finally took the dip with a full scale replica of the helicopter rotor sword that Emily Blunt's character wields in Edge of Tomorrow (or whatever they ended up naming that marketing disaster). I've always thought it was a pretty cool bit of prop making, both though a character/world building lens and just as a neat piece of kit.

Materials

• Wood Plank, 8"x.75"x48" - You want the lightest wood possible. At most hardware stores that will be pine (as mine is).
• Wood Dowel Rod, 1.25" Dia X 10" L - This on the other hand should be straight, smooth, and as dense as possible. I managed to find one made of oak.
• 3D Printer Material - Any of your typical plastics will do but strength is probably the more important property. I used PETG. You probably want it to be white or grey.
• Electrical Tape
• Flat Black Spray Paint - The flattest you can find, short of chalkboard paint. Mine was labeled as being intended for camouflaging boats and other hunting equipment.
• Red, White, Grey, Black, Clear, and Metallic Spray Paints - Just standard stuff here, probably satin finish if possible.
• Aluminum Tape, 1.125" width min. - Often found in the HVAC section of the hardware store, or online.
• Wax Metallic Finish, Pewter - The most common brand is Rub 'n Buff. This stuff is magic.
• Acrylic Paints - You'll need earth tones (browns, yellows, oranges) for weathering.
• Cyanoacrylate (CA) Glue - A strong, gap filling, fast dry glue.
• Wood Filler - Potentially optional, but helpful to have on hand if you over work the blade when shaping or need to fill natural blemishes.

Tools

• 3D Printer - If you don't have one you can also use a service or local makerspace to get your parts produced.
• Jig Saw
• Wood Shaping Equipment - At a minimum this is sandpaper and a sanding block but I also used a palm sander and a hand plane.
• Chip Brushes - These are very cheap to get in bulk and their rough bristles work well for weathering and applying the metallic wax.
• Steel Wool
• Sponge w/ Pan Scrubber - It might seem odd but I used both sides of this sponge extensively to wear and buff the paint.

I started by modeling the entire prop in CAD (Fusion360, model attached below) which gives several advantages moving forward.

First is scaling, using images and known dimensions to reverse engineer the proper sizes of all the components. Luckily for me I was able to find an auction listing for the actual prop that included high quality photos and some dimensions as a starting point. This allowed me to load the top down image directly into Fusion and set its size to the prescribed 122mm. From there it was a simple matter of using the other reference photos and the scale image to recreate each part of the prop. In the end the final scale was determined by the size dowel I was able to find for the handle and having the whole project modeled together made adjusting to this marginal change in scale a breeze.

The next advantage is there are several components perfect for 3D printing so they will need modeled eventually anyways.

Finally by making CAD drawings of the modeled blade I was able to create cutting and shaping templates for when it came time to create the blade.

The three parts that I printed were the hilt where the blade and handle attach, the guard that goes near the top of the handle, and the pommel which goes on the end of the handle.

I printed in white (for paint-ability) PETG (for strength). I also wanted to be able to beat these pieces up a bit as part of the weathering process so I used a solid fill to increase their durability.

Printing Parameters

• Printer: Ender 3 Pro
• Material: GEEETECH White PETG 1.75mm
• Fill: Solid
• Extruder Temp: 235 °C
• Bed Temp: 77 °C
• FILES

Start by cutting the dowel to length, 8.5", then, before moving on, do fit checks on all three printed parts. You may need to sand/file either the grip (in the case of issues with the pommel and hilt) or the inside of the parts (best for the guard).

Once everything is fitting nicely (but not too snug on the hilt and guard in particular) you can coat the entire grip in your regular black paint, not the flat stuff. You can also apply some metallic wax at this point to give the paint a worn-through look but keep it light for now if you do. You can make adjustments later when all the pieces are together.

Each part needs to go through three stages to be completed: surface prep, paint, and weather.

Surface Prep

You're looking to accomplish two things in this step: sanding away print layer lines and adding in physical "damage" to really sells that the pieces have seen some wear and tear.

Completely removing layer lines with sandpaper isn't really possible but if you can soften them and make them shallower then the paint should be able to do the rest. For the "damage" I used a hammer (carefully), file, and utility knife to dent, gouge, scrape, and otherwise rough up the surface of the parts in ways that you'd expect metal that had seen some rough treatment to look.

Paint

For "metal" parts I start with a base layer of metallic spray paint with a light layer of grey on top of it while it's still wet to cut some of the shine. For parts where the raw metal color will show through more I misted the wet grey with just a touch more of the metallic.

Once the spray base is dry everything gets a rough coat of black acrylic, applied with the end of a coarse brush.

Weathering

Now that you've got all that beautiful paint on there it's time to "ruin" it. Start be using something mildly abrasive, the scrubbing side of a dishwashing sponge worked really well for me, to take the sheen off all the black paint in areas that would theoretically see wear. In general any high spots, sharp edges, and large faces are good places to start. Through this whole process try to think about how the object would really be used and logically what places would see the most wear and tear. You're telling a story with your weathering and having justifiable details helps make that story compelling.

Next use water to dilute some acrylics that look like rust and grime (red and ochre for me) and do what's known as a wash. Just spread the thinned paint over the entire part and, after letting it sit for just a moment, roughly wipe away the excess. The idea is the wash will get into the crevices and corners where dirt and grime would naturally accumulate, while you clean it off of the high touch surfaces. It will probably take a couple washes to get it right so don't be afraid to get back in there. It's little details like this that sell the reality of the prop.

Finally to really make the exposed metal areas pop I used a metallic wax paint (pewter Rub-n-Buff) to highlight those spots. Using a coarse brush (or my finger in some spots) and lots of restraint, a little bit goes a long way, apply the wax to the sharp edges and other high wear details.

Once the individual components are weathered it's time to assemble the handle but before I glued anything in place I did a final test fit and used that opportunity to apply some metallic wax to the grip, bringing its level of wear more inline with the other pieces.

Using CA glue, or any strong multi-material glue, simply stick the hilt, guard, and pommel in place on the grip. It's not entirely necessary but I used a little painters tape to mark the position along the grip where the bottom of the guard should sit. Be aware that the guard also needs to be properly clocked to the hilt, with the extending piece parallel to the hilts slot.

Once the glue is set you can wrap the electrical tape on the grip, against the bottom of the guard and top of the pommel.

Finally, you'll want to rough up the tape a little, as having a well "used" handle with pristine tape will break the illusion pretty quick. I also added a little metallic wax right around the edge of the tape. It's not necessary but in my mind it helps give a reason as to why the tape was put on in the first place and as I already said, weathering with a story in mind rather than just trying to be "random" is always going to look better.

Typically a prop like this would have a foam blade, which has several advantages on a movie set, but I didn't have any of the tools or materials needed for foam molding and only planned on using the piece as a one-off display so instead I opted for a wood blade. In retrospect it's possible I could have found a piece of balsa wood that would have made for a more wield-able prop. Something to consider if you also don't want to work with foam.

Starting with templates printed at scale from the 3D model (attached below), I first cut the profile using a jig saw. I also had templates for the two ends which you can use to determine the angle and area that needs to be cut away for the blade edge. Again I used the jig saw, this time with the blade set at the angle from the templates.

Now you'll have a rough shape but it's going to need some sanding and shaping to bring everything in line. Using a palm sander and sanding blocks I straitened the blade edge, shaped the taper at the base (making sure to test the fit with the printed hilt), and worked a slight roundness into the whole blade to help sell the illusion of it being a rotor blade.

Don't be too afraid of over-working either, as a little wood filler will get everything back on track, and in fact I wish I had applied a thin layer of filler over the entire piece to help cover the wood grain.

To give the blade edge a really nice metallic look we'll use an aluminum tape. You can decide how wide you'd like the "sharpened" edge to be but mine is around 1-1/8" based off my scaling. Using a sharp knife I first cut the tape to width but left a little excess on the ends. Next I laid the strips on the blade and creased the tip end to match the end of the blade and marked the angle I wanted on the handle end with a pen. Cut off the excess and then you can stick the tape tape down to the edge.

Note: It really helps if you don't pull all of the backing paper off at once and keep a little on one end as you're applying it, otherwise it likes to coil up and stick to itself.

Once the tape is firmly in place you can spray the entire blade, tape included, in the flattest black paint you can find. Once the paint is dry, take a bit of steel wool to the tape to bring back your exposed metal edge. Think of it as sharpening the edge and do your brushing motions accordingly. This will give a slight texture to the tape like you would expect to see on a real metal blade and is one of those small details that has a big impact on the final look. I also didn't clean the paint off completely to the edge of the tape, which is a small difference from the actual prop, because I think the rough painted edge looks more realistic than the clean line you get if you take all the paint off, or apply it after painting.

There are two additional details that need to be painted on the blade: a red stripe near the tip and the ID number in the middle.

The stripe is pretty simple, just start your spray well off the blade and follow-thru past the edge before releasing the spray. It might take a couple of passes to get the right intensity.

For the lettering I created a one sheet stencil using a die cutter and some card stock but you can use normal stencil sheets if a die cutter isn't something you have on hand. For those that do I've attached the the .studio3 file (below) and the image of the text so you can make your own bespoke stencil.

This is also a good time to do some weathering and distressing on the blade. Scrubbing some of the stenciled letters to fade them, metallic wax paint on sharp edges around the end and near where the hilt joins, and buffing the entire thing with the same sponge scrubby as before.

Two final things to do on the build portion of the project. One is to add the UDF tolerance block sticker near the hilt. (There is an .svg I recreated of the decal attached below.)

The sticker on the real prop is clearly one of those heavy metallic ones which presented a bit of a problem. The highest accuracy would be to order a custom one-off on the correct material but that would be slow and relatively expensive. On the other end would be to just print it on regular paper and live with the hit to the aesthetics, but save time and money. In the end I found a middle ground solution that I'm pretty happy with.

By placing a strip of the aluminum tape that I used for the blade edge on a sheet of paper where the label would print out and then running it through a laser printer I was able to get the nice metallic sticker I was looking for. There was also a surprise upside in that because the toner doesn't stick to the metal very well I was able to rub off some of the label to match the distressed look of the real prop. This did mean it needed a quick clearcoat spray to lock the toner down before I cut it out and stuck it to the blade with spray adhesive.

The other is to attach the handle to the blade, using the same CA glue as before. For a display piece this glue is definitely strong enough and it dries fast but given the weight of the wooden blade you are not going to want to wave it around much without using a stronger bonding solution or even mechanically fastening it.

Once everything is assembled it's time for one last weathering pass. I did a brown wash on the entire thing with a little extra attention for the sticker since it hadn't seen any weathering yet. It's also a good idea to look for any blemishes in the materials, or your work, that can be hidden with weathering techniques. I had a natural pit in the wood grain of my blade that I missed when I was doing the filler. A little metallic wax and, unless you inspect it closely, it just looks like a gouge in the metal.

Overall I'm pretty blown away with how well this turned out. The completed handle may be my favorite, and the most fulfilling, thing I've ever made as a creative endeavor. There are certainly some things I would do different if I was starting over but overall it came out pretty close to my vision.

Improvements/Lessons

• The wood blade causes a few problems. Up close you can detect the grain and the weight makes this purely a show piece (although it certainly gives a decent representation of how unwieldy this would be as real weapon without a power suit to assist you). Given how much I enjoyed prop making I'd probably invest in foam casting as my first choice moving forward but for anyone that doesn't want to/can't go that route I'd suggest looking for a block of balsa wood or exploring options for other lightweight materials.
• When working with 3D printed parts that need aggressive physical weathering, don't skimp on time and material, print them solid. I broke my first hilt print trying to ding it up because I probably went too hard but, critically, I had used a 50% infill and it just wasn't strong enough.
• I said it once but I'll say it again: Use a light hand with the metallic wax. It can do miracles but it can be unforgiving as far as: once it's on, it's on.
• The aluminum-tape-laser-printer solution for the sticker was probably making things a little harder on myself than necessary. I suspect craft stores sell a metallic looking paper that would take a lot of the work out of this step. Something probably worth looking for if you do this yourself.

As always, thank you for reading and please hit up the comments with any questions or prop building advice!

I love seeing other peoples take on my projects, so if you attempt your own version throw a pic or two in the comments, or my DMs, and I'll reward you with a code for a few months of PRO membership.