The armor has been coming along great. There have been some delays (some valid, some me just getting caught up in other things). The delays have not been without their benefits though. Delays mean I’m thinking and if I’m thinking, I’m planning. That’s led to refinements for the things I originally intended to build, and also some side quests as I’ve thought of other things to build.
For some reason it started bothering me that I didn’t have a melee weapon designed for this kit. Like… really bothering me.
An idea started formulating and at some point the dam burst and I started building.
You reap what you Krow
For full disclosure, my first thought for a melee weapon was to make a functional vibro-blade prop. Does everyone know the lore on the vibro-blades? Just in case you don’t, in Star Wars, one of the precursors to the lightsaber were vibro-weapons. The premise is that the blade vibrates at such an intense frequency that it becomes sharp enough to cut through nearly anything. Wonder why Din Djarin was able to drop the mudhorn with his knife? Oscillations!
I had a good plan for it too. Buy a cheap razor handle that has a vibrating head and affix a plastic blade to it. Then I learned that a company in Seattle has literally made a vibro-knife. I’m not kidding. Here it is. As an aside, if any Good Samaritan wants to buy me one for Wingin’ It, I’m happy to share my Venmo. Back on track, I can’t compete with that. I needed another angle. Something Krow-riffic.
I’ll be candid again. When the idea dam burst I was thinking I was making a prototype. It started off way chonkier than what you see above. I grabbed some extra plastic and cut it into five strips. One for the blade and four for the handle. It was a flawed sheet, with a warp in the middle. I used it anyway because I wanted to test if I could make a folding blade on this that locked. Turns out, the answer was “yes.”
Once I had the chonky version I noticed something. Those warps created a natural swell in the handle that made it very comfortable and helped balance it by placing a little extra weight in the middle. So I started shaping the handle like what you just saw.
Then I started refining the shape.
And it was clear that those warps were here to stay. My test build turned into the final build surprisingly easily. All that was left was paint.
It’s not perfect. I could have sanded some things better. I could have buffed out the scrape I added in accidentally. That said, the imperfections match the rest of the armor’s “found” look. Now fans of the show might immediately consider me a blasphemer. Din Djarin acquires a beskar spear and when The Armorer sees it (spoiler alert), she insists it be melted down.
Why? A beskar weapon is a threat to beskar armor and it could “fall into the wrong hands” and be used against a Mandalorian. Well I say “screw that” for two reasons.
- The Armorer makes whistling birds for Din Djarin which require beskar. Has anyone read the lore on those? They’re armor piercing micro-missiles that target carotid arteries and detonate. That’s right, they’re horrifying. Tiny assassin missiles that could wipe out a squad of Mandalorians with the push of a button but Din Djarin can’t have a spear? Riiiiiiiiiight
- You know what else works well against a Mandalorian set of armor? Explosions. You see it in the first season of the show. Din Djarin nearly dies due to head injury inflicted through his helmet thanks to explosions around him. You know who has access to explosions? Literally everyone. So guess what, I’m making a beskar sickle.
There’s a good look at the full build, locking mechanism, middle swell, imperfections, and all. You might have noticed that the blade has some copper in it. A fun fact I dug up while researching Mandalorian customs is that most armor is actually beskar alloy which got my brain thinking.
The spear Din Djarin used was fairly rigid, as is the armor. I wonder if it’s not a flexible steel. That doesn’t work well for this type of blade so mine is an alloy. There’s a higher “copper” concentration on the spine of the “blade” which should increase overall flexibility while the full beskar edge retains cutting ability. You see what I warned you about at the beginning? I tend to overthink things.
One thing I didn’t need to overthink was which “not a knife” small weapon to use. You might say this was a natural fit.
And if you happened to wonder what the chonky version looked like, here it is in all its glory; co-starring the cat that necessitated the litter that supplied the buckets.
