Cardboard Props: How to Make a Viking Hammer / Thors Hammer- Mjolnir

Another Gangshow 2012 prop, this year i  was required to make a cardboard Thor's hammer or Mjölnir  ... This instructable is made mostly of cardboard, glue and pure dumb luck...

If you like it rate it , if you make it show me

Biggsy

What you'll need:

• Cardboard
• Glue gun
• Cardboard tube
• Ruler
• pen/ pencil
• Scissors/ craft knife
• Paint (brown & silver)
• Paint brushes

Optional extra:

• Leather thonging

I wasn't exactly sure how to start this instructable, i think i started building the hammer in the worst place... I should have started with perhaps the hammer head, and the handle, instead of starting with the hammer face. But, it's easier to start from where i started from... so apologies...

Hammer facings.

I googled an image of the Mjolnir used in the most recent Thor movies, and decided to make it look a little like that, so instead of the hammer being a simple box on a stick, it has these 3d faces that protrude outwards... This is how i made them

To try and get the 3d shape, i cut out a square of card 16cm's by 16cm's, and marked it out like in picture one. (giving me 4 rectangles that are 4cm by 8cm, a square that is 8cm by 8cm and 8 triangles)  I then cut it out.

glue the 4cm by 8cm rectangles to the 8cm by 8cm square on an angle so that you will end up eventually with a 'half hexagon' shape.

This can be a little tricky, but with a little bit of manual negotiation whilst the glue is drying you should get there.

Using one of the little triangles that was cut out in step 2, glue the triangles into the gaps between the rectangles and trim off any excess as in pictures 3 and 4

You need to make two of these half hexagon shapes... It was at this point that i also decided to round the edges, by squeezing the triangles we glued in the last step (see picture 2)... if you look at picture 1, the half hexagon on the left hasn't got rounded edges, but the one on the right has.

to close in the hexagon shape, and to form an end piece for the hammer i cut out a square and glued it to the back of my half hexagon, mine turned out to be 13cm by 12cm... not sure how that happened but it all worked out in the end

Picture two shows the end pieces when glued

We need to now strengthen our cardboard tube (mines from the interior roll of some wrapping paper) ... cut two strips of card that are the width of the diameter of the tube, and the length of the tube. Like in picture three, cut half way down the middle of the strip on both strips, this will make a 3d x shape to fit inside your tube (as in pictures 1 and 2) when put together glue your x shape or re-enforce with duct tape, and slide inside your tube. 

You will then need to make two end caps for the tube. All i did was draw round the circular ends, cut them out and just glued them in place inside the tube.

Clear as mud? Sorry i can't explain it very well but the pictures should help.

Now is the time to cutout the side piecesand the top and bottom... when cutout just put to one side.

To make the whole object more rigid, and to last for the whole performance, i decided to run the hammer handle up through the hammer itself to protrude out from the top of the hammer head.

To do this i found the mid point of the top and bottom hammer rectangles, and drew a cross... i then lined up my handle and cut out a circle in both the top and bottom, so that the handle could pass through. ( see pictures)

To make sure that my hammer head didn't go on all wonky, i measured all the way round the tube a series of lines, so that when i glued the top and the bottom of the hammer to the handle they went on straight.

This next step is an easy one, glue your side pieces and end pieces onto your hammer and leave the glue to dry before going onto your next step

now comes the job of painting the hammer... i used silver for the head and brown for the wooden shaft, I'm not going to tell you how to paint it or what colours, these were just logical to its end use :)

As my optional extra i hot glue gunned on some leather thonging to make it look a little fancy, but you may want to put on some runes or an inscription, what ever floats your boat

Okay so it doesn't look EXACTLY like Thors hammer in the recent movie... but it will do.

If you like it rate it, and if you make it show me :)

Cheerio

Jay