...and the blade and grip. Everything is slightly different from the main hero prop, so they would have to make new tooling for every part. They already did that once for the MC version, so they are not going to do it again.N2darkness wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 7:07 am When you say "tooling" is that the molds for the cast metal parts (hilt and pommel)?
Fullers are milled, but the blades are blanked out of sheet stock. Picture a large steel cookie cutter attached to a 200 ton hammer press, but instead of a flat sheet of cookie dough being blanked out, it's 5 or 6mm thick sheet of steel.N2darkness wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 7:07 am Also, are all the UC blades CNC made? cut, milled or ground? You had mentioned that Anduril's fuller couldn't be made longer due to the capabilities of the machine, which I assume is a mill. If things were done by hand there wouldn't be a limitation, but price of labor would be very expensive. I ask because of the bevels on the Sting blade could go down to the hilt further, but if that is also a limitation it is understandable.
Those blanks are run though a computer controlled grinder that cuts the hollow grinds into the steel. Those grinders have limitations in the grind paths that can be programmed into them, especially how small a radius can be at the end of a hollow grind. That's why they cannot exactly match the radius of the Sting movie prop grinds near the hilt.
The fullers are cut into the blade blanks with CNC milling machines. Those have a limit on the length of blade that can be fit into the machine, but UC can do longer fullers with the machines they have now. After this stage the basic blade shape is there, but the surface needs a lot of work.
The surface polish for the whole blade is done hand-held on a series of different types of belt grinders. Same with the cutting edge grinds. Some minor blade shaping is done in this stage as well, but its mostly the final surface finish that is done by hand like that.
That's basically how most of the LOTR blades are made. The new MC Anduril will be slightly different because those blades will be made in UC's forging factory, but there is still a lot of machine grinding done.