Sora's Kingdom Keyblade from Kingdom Hearts

One of my favorite games of all time is Kingom Hearts, and I always wanted a good replica of the main weapon of the game, the Keyblade. I chose Sora's Kingdom Key as a good starter project to learn from, and despite being a simple design, it was my favorite version.

I did some research to see what others had made online and found NO good tutorials, most of what I found was paper mache, cardboard, and duct tape. This is my first build of completely my own design. I first drew the pattern for the handguards by hand onto some cardstock and cut them out, then I traced them onto some plywood and cut them out with a jigsaw. I coated the handguards in resin to seal them and hide the woodgrain, giving me a better surface to finish.  I sanded the 2 guards together so they would be perfect twins.

I took a coupling piece for the inch and a half pvc I was going to use and wrapped in sand paper to give a curve to the inside of the guards so they would fit nicely against the couplings in the final assembly

For the main shaft, I used inch and a half pvc, 2 couplings, a large wooden dowel, and 2 endplugs, one of the endplugs was sanded down to fit inside of the coupling and was used on the handle end.

The wooden dowel fits perfectly inside of the recess in the encaps and gives the entire Keyblade rigidity.

I made the handle length just right so that the guards would mount evenly on the couplings when assembled

Once I test fitted the Handle onto the dowel, I cut the piece of pvc  for the shaft to the length I needed, taking the end plug into consideration. After that I drilled a hole all the way through both couplings so I could run a wooden dowel through for the attachment of the hand guards, taking care to make sure my holes were drilled straight and parallel .

I struggled a while with how to do the ornamental blue part where the handle meets the key shaft, I finally took a 1 1/4" plastic sink tailpiece and fit it into the end of the coupling. The lg wooden dowel fit perfectly inside of it too, then I shaped the conical part with bondo and spot putty. I then could slide the 1 1/2"  key shaft perfectly over the sink tailpiece.

I cut the "key" part out of Sintra after hand drawing a pattern  and cut a groove the right length in the end of the shaft to hold the Sintra in place with the help of some epoxy, I put the endplug in and filled in the joint and irregularities with spot putty and sanded it smooth for painting "stainless steel" silver

Everything was assembled temporarily to make sure all was good before painting

I really didn't weigh as much as I expected, It could easily be carried around a theme park or convention all day.

I collect Disney Trading Pins and lucky me I had an extra Mickey shaped metal lanyard weight that was perfect for the "keychain"

I then finished all my painting, using average spray paint over fine-sanded automotive primer and finished my project !

My next write up with be my Predator bio mask with dreads, and then my Iron Man arc reactor !