Rake Tine Sword(s)

Last Spring or so, when Chicago still had plants, I broke the head off of one of the grass rakes. I was annoyed for about two minutes, until I realized that I just had found 18 or so doll-sized sword blades. (I bought one sword from Dollmore and it was expensive, if beautiful; and as it turns out, even historically accurate.) If only the rake tines had a bit of a curve to them..but anyway, today I finally got around to putting a hilt on one for 2nd Lieutenant William Keppel.

Never mind that poor Keppel ( a Granado Guilem) does not even own a pair of trousers, he's going to have a sword first. This was hilt attempt number two--the first hilt was both too large and the LaDoll did not want to dry smoothly around the wire armature I made for it--it cracked and fell off. It is cold in here.

So I pulled out the toaster oven and the gold sculpey and made a second, smaller hilt. The animal on the pommel is supposed to be a lion, but instead looks a bit like a toothless walrus, or perhaps a shaved sasquatch. He does have sparkling green eyes, because I put just a dab of glitter glue there. Beads or rhinestones would have been much too large. Here is the full sword, with a LaDoll safety tip over the ragged end that used to be embedded in the rake's plastic:

It's a bit short, but that might be fine for daily wear. After I looked at the photo I realized that I could have made that hilt a lot cooler, like this:

And that maybe all the warrant officers could have personalized fantasy hilts. I have a lot of rake tines, and for another 7 dollars I could get 20 more from Home Depot. :D