I'M TOTALLY STALKING YOUR LJ COMMUNITY, MWA HA HA HA HA. B] I'm achtung_baby, for the record. So if any of you get friended by a random stranger, it's not a creeper, it's just me. *...creeps on*
Also! Wayyyyyyy belatedly, Felix, I have no clue where I put my tape measure (ha HA, post-con mess!) but I'm pretty sure the swords are abouuut 18 inches not counting the handles. I used the entire strips for the swords, though -- I just cut the part that would go inside the foam handle smaller than the rest of the blade. I'm pretty sure it was 24" overall. I also got bass wood, not balsa wood, although I think either one will work. They were in exactly the same place in all the stores I checked at, so yeah. And I got four pieces, two for each sword -- gluing them together took longer, but it gave them a lot more structural integrity, which is probably important with such a thin wood.
Since my photoshop isn't cooperating with me at all, I can't make a proper tutorial at the moment, but I'll give you what I have:
1) Draw the basic sword shape on a piece of paper, then cut that out and trace the shape onto the wood. For the handles, I just cut it a little smaller than the blade so that the guard would stop in the proper place.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/thegrimwombat/swords/drawn.jpg <-- like that. It's a terrible picture, but there you go.
2) Grab the box cutter/exacto knife and start cutting! What worked the best for me was going over the cuts a few times -- basically, scoring the wood. Once you've made a few deep cuts, the excess should snap off pretty cleanly... ooor you can just cut the whole thing out properly and not be lazy like me.
3) Once you have them all cut out, they prooobably won't be totally even. I lined up two pieces, then basically just went around the edges with the exacto knife trying to even up the edges. Don't worry about getting it too perfect, just take off the biggest chunks.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/thegrimwombat/swords/swords.jpg Here's what they looked like cut out!
4) Wood glue time! This is pretty self-explanatory. Make sure the pieces don't shift when you're putting weight on them, though. I did that. It was terrible.
5) Once the glue is dry, you can go around the edges with the knife and even up any little pieces you missed before, if necessary.
6) Sand, sand, sand. If you're like me, this will take forever and you'll sneeze, but that's because all I had lying around was the super fine grit sandpaper. DON'T BE LIKE ME! GET GOOD SANDPAPER! Fine or medium grit should do -- the wood really isn't very difficult to work with.
7) Do the same thing for the... I don't know what you call them. Guards? The little semicircle things that go between the blade and the handle. One piece of wood for each of these should do, though -- no need to double up. For the hole, I just traced the end of the part that would become the handle, then made sure it fit after I cut it out. It took a lot of careful poking with the knife.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/thegrimwombat/swords/circle.jpg8 ) Paint paint paint, seal seal seal~ The paint took a million coats because the metallic paint I got is suuuuper thin. But it worked.
9) Shimmy the guards onto the handle! If they don't fit after all the paint, taking the exacto knife to the hole or the base of the handle should work just fine.
10) Thiiis is where you have to figure out what to do for the handle. I don't think my weird method is really able to be replicated, but I trust you to come up with something equally ghetto. XD Even just wrapping the handle in enough layers of fabric would probably work! Or cotton batting? Whatever would give it just a little bit of depth so you're not grabbing onto the thin little chunk of wood. Or do something that ISN'T totally lame, that's cool too.
11) YOU HAVE SWORDS! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE LEVELED UP.
I have no idea if any of that giant wall of text makes sense, since it's almost 4AM now, but if you have any questions just ask! <3
