Making my own weapons

The latest batch of 54mm figures from Bronze Age Miniatures has arrived, so I go right to doing one of my favorite things with these figures: Making nasty little weapons.

These weapons are an amalgam of brass rod, plastic card, thread and braided copper wire (thanks to Dad, who gave a trove of tiny copper wires), and green stuff. I always enjoy hammering blades out of brass, and I feel like I've improved a lot. I've moved the majority of a blade's creation after the actual hammering. Once the brass rod has been hammered flat, I clip off the end (for that Tanto blade look), then I take needle files with which I can more finely shape the blade I want.

I use the thread and copper wire to wrap the handles/hilts. I use copper wire when I want the look to be more cosmetic, and I use the thread when I'm trying to get a weapon handle to better fit into the hand of a figure.

For the shields, I stepped away from the road signs and tried the heavy, dented sheet metal look. I used a pair of pliers to hold each shield, and a lighter to slightly melt the plastic into that dented, roughly shaped look. The third shield is simply flat green stuff with added boss for a classic Norse viking look.

I went heavy on the pole arms this time because I've separated my Qwik teams out of my Apocalators, and that took away a lot of the original heavy weapons from the fighters. That, and it's also slightly easier to make pole arms (they're also easier to secure to figures).

Something I noticed after getting all my new figures armed is that I have enough for another Qwik team (three drivers, a chain and - well, almost enough- I'd need to make another qwik.)