**Weta Workshop: The Artisans Behind Marvelous Movie Magic**

As I stood in front of the Weta Workshop's impressive collection, I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and wonder. These master craftsmen had brought to life some of the most iconic movie characters and scenes, and it was clear that their attention to detail was unparalleled. From the intricately designed scabbards to the beautifully crafted swords, every piece in this collection told a story.

**The Scabbard: A Masterclass in Design**

One of the first pieces I reached for was a scabbard, which appeared to be a metal cap with a wrapped shaft and a leather-wrapped hilt. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was actually a single piece of monolithic casting, expertly crafted to create a seamless look. The designers had chosen to use polyurea as the material, giving it a durable and lightweight finish. What struck me most about this scabbard was its attention to detail – every little nut and bolt seemed to have been carefully placed to tell a story.

**The Story Behind the Sword**

Next, I picked up a sword that had been used in Prince Caspian, another film from Weta Workshop's impressive portfolio. At first glance, it appeared to be made of multiple materials – a wooden grip, metal pummel, and even what looked like leather wrapping on the blade itself. However, upon closer inspection, I discovered that it was actually made of flexible plastic, with a metal rod inside to provide stability. This clever design allowed Weta Workshop to create mass-produced replicas without sacrificing quality or detail.

**The Art of Mastermolding**

One of the most fascinating aspects of Weta Workshop's process was their mastermolding technique. I had been told that they used a special method to cast swords and other props without using traditional pouring gates, but I still didn't quite understand how it worked. Luckily, I got to see them making molds for one of their swords during my visit, and while the specifics of their process remain a trade secret, it was clear that Weta Workshop's expertise in this area allowed them to create incredibly detailed and accurate replicas.

**The Power of Detail**

As I delved deeper into the collection, I began to appreciate the importance of even the smallest details. A small crown detail on one sword, or a dent in the blade of another – these tiny elements all contributed to a sense of authenticity and realism that was simply remarkable. Weta Workshop's attention to detail was not just about making things look pretty; it was about creating an immersive experience for the actors, the crew, and ultimately, the audience.

**The Craftsmanship on Display**

Throughout my visit, I couldn't help but be struck by the sheer craftsmanship on display. Every piece in this collection had been lovingly crafted by skilled artisans who had poured their hearts and souls into creating something truly special. From the beautifully patterned leather wrapping to the expertly placed buckles and custom designs, every element of these props told a story about the people who made them.

**The Weight of Perfection**

As I held each piece in my hand, I couldn't help but think about the weight of perfection that Weta Workshop brings to their work. These swords and scabbards were not just beautiful objects; they were also functional pieces that had been designed to withstand the rigors of film production. Whether it was withstanding 20-30 takes for a battle scene or holding up against the demands of an actor's day, every piece in this collection had been carefully crafted to meet these needs.

**The Collection: A Treasure Trove**

As I finished my tour of the Weta Workshop's collection, I couldn't help but feel grateful to have seen such incredible pieces up close. From the beautifully crafted swords to the intricately designed scabbards, every piece told a story about the art and craftsmanship that went into creating these movie magic pieces. Whether you're a film buff, an artist, or simply someone who appreciates beauty and craftsmanship, this collection is truly worth seeing – and I feel privileged to have had the chance to share it with you.

**A Final Note**

As I packed up my things and said goodbye to Weta Workshop's impressive collection, I couldn't help but feel a sense of wonder and awe. The artisans who created these pieces were not just skilled craftsmen; they were also storytellers, each element carefully designed to contribute to the narrative of the film or character being represented. Whether you're an expert in the field or simply someone who appreciates beauty and craftsmanship, this collection is truly a treasure trove of movie magic – and I feel grateful to have had the chance to share it with you.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys adam savage here in my cave good afternoon it's afternoon here i have no idea what time you are watching it um so today's show and tell as you notice from the title is about swords um i love swords i have i have probably 150 swords i have about 30 that are like really special to me um and i have about a dozen that i store in my office at the house because those are like the really special ones and here at the cave is a sort of revolving gallery um it's a habit it's a habit i suffer from and i wanted to cover a specific kind of sword which is swords made by my friends at weta workshop now i went to at a workshop for the first time a few years ago uh and started a lifelong friendship with so many wonderful people there richard taylor peter jackson peter lyon their swordmaster and so many of the crew and people that made so many of my favorite movies possible uh and uh wedda did all of the swords i believe and armor for the chronicles of narnia films there are several i actually don't know off the top of my head how many there are but every now and then on on one of my various avenues of prop collecting it might be ebay or an auction site or etsy i come across a sword from the chronicles of narnia and twice i've been able to purchase them at a reasonable price and i just wanted to show them to you because they're actually really really beautiful works of art uh you know one of the things that people talked about when television went from hd to 4k uh on is that when movies went to 4k prop houses had to double their workload to make things that had details that would hold up under the rigorous uh uh a high resolution frames of a 4k film uh except for what a workshop i don't think they had to do any extra work i think they were already putting in that level of quality i could be this could be apocryphal i i i'm not sure it's 100 true but i'm pretty sure it's totally true i look i know that they worry about how their stuff works looks and feels and works on film and for the actors and for the story uh there is no better prop house in the world i think than what the what the folks at weta do and um i have a couple of pieces to show you one i collected a couple years ago this one and again forgive my ignorance from the movies these are from but this is a stunt sword this is a fighting stunt sword and i'm just gonna let you see the details here um beautiful pummel and handle and guard we see some motifs on the on the scabbard it the scabbard looks like wrapped leather uh we see some silver accents and now upon observing the blade we've got some etching on the blade this is really lovely the reason i know that this is a stunt blade is because along this is the front of the sword that's the guard along the guarded edge it has been well beaten so stunned people are using these swords to smack at each other's swords for battle scenes for a narnia film and this is the kind of this is the kind of sword grinding grinding that peter lyon was teaching me when i got to make my version of aragorn sword this is hand ground at weta out of a piece of aluminum i believe it's 70-75 is their preferred amount um etching is not much of a mystery i think they do this using ferric chloride the thing that i find really fascinating about their stunt swords is um what might not be apparent this is this isn't metal this isn't wire wrapped this is a monolithic piece of i believe polyurea this is effectively a really really hard rubber which means that this thing can take all sorts of crazy abuse and not break and be ready for filming in fact i mean whatever weathering it does get just helps to add to the look of it and the scabbard is no different while this looks like a metal cap with a wrapped uh with a wrapped shaft and then down to the shape down here this is all one piece this is actually also i believe polyurea i could be wrong about the material but this is just monolithic it's a one piece casting now there is some beautiful leather work going on here actually uh the leather work on my other sort is even more is particularly awesome um but again even just like a simple piece of leather made by wetas you know got a real hand-hewn quality to it they story tell they tell stories with every little nut and bolt i think i'm not sure if this is vacuum metallized or if it's a metallic paint finish but even as it's wearing even as it's wearing it continues to look right and that that's not a bug that's not a happenstance that's like designed in they they understand this kind of thing at weta and they they build it they bake it right in it's very light i mean this weighs maybe three pounds ideal in every way as a stunt weapon now the other piece i have is also a stunt weapon but perhaps not for as much uh rigorous fighting this comes from prince caspian um am i right about that pretty sure i'm right about that um and i picked it up more recently and again we see like multiple materials like a wooden grip metal pummel and again none of this is actually that this is all flexible plastic in fact the entire sword here is a single piece of flexible plastic i believe it has a metal rod inside to give it some stability so it won't you know slowly creep so this means that instead of being ground for the film a master was ground and then a mold was made so that multiples of this could be made the last time i was at wet i saw them making some molds for their swords and they had a method which i still don't quite understand in which they were able to cast their swords without using a pouring gate that like the mold had no input and output i still don't quite know how they do that i might be wrong about the particulars they will write to me and let me know but the ultimate result is just look at the little even little details like this little crown detail down here just small things like that that other people might not consider important um the dents in the blade the the the battle scars uh this has been built to show its battle scars that's part of its narrative and i said the leather work was really spectacular and boy it is um we've got we've got a custom pattern here pressed into the leather we also have some custom buckles and again these match all of the themes you got that crown theme here you've got it down here as well um and again about just as light these these weigh pretty similarly uh when you're making weapons for films they've got to be lightweight uh one it makes people look stronger when they're wielding them right so that you can wield them faster so the actors look better two when you're handling something all day long you might be doing 20 or 30 takes for a battle scene you don't want to be holding on to some big heavy piece of metal it's going to be exhausting more than that heavy costume pieces are going to start to wear on your body and these are always concerns that they're balancing at a shop like weta for a film like this i don't know maybe they make like a hundred of these or more they've got some methodology for turning these out that blows my mind and i'm delighted to have a couple of their pieces in my collection i'll shoot some close-ups of these for you so you can see them in all of their glory ah yeah yeah just love having nice things nice things made by people i love at a quality i find compelling these are beautiful objects i i'm delighted to be their steward for as long as that lasts uh thank you guys for joining me for this quickie quickie show-and-tell sorry i had a one-day build thing here it's actually an s t s t yeah we'll wrap it up there thanks guys stay safe i'll see you next time hey guys adam savage from tested here if you've ever seen the six inch ruler in inches and centimeters on my forearm and wanted one of your own but you didn't want it to be permanent well today's your lucky day you can now buy temporary tattoos of my measuring stick my measuring forearm at tested dash store.com comes like this goes on in about 30 seconds with a little water the instructions are on the back it comes off with rubbing alcohol and hopefully it warms you up to the idea of permanently attaching a measuring device to your body because i use mine every single dayhey guys adam savage here in my cave good afternoon it's afternoon here i have no idea what time you are watching it um so today's show and tell as you notice from the title is about swords um i love swords i have i have probably 150 swords i have about 30 that are like really special to me um and i have about a dozen that i store in my office at the house because those are like the really special ones and here at the cave is a sort of revolving gallery um it's a habit it's a habit i suffer from and i wanted to cover a specific kind of sword which is swords made by my friends at weta workshop now i went to at a workshop for the first time a few years ago uh and started a lifelong friendship with so many wonderful people there richard taylor peter jackson peter lyon their swordmaster and so many of the crew and people that made so many of my favorite movies possible uh and uh wedda did all of the swords i believe and armor for the chronicles of narnia films there are several i actually don't know off the top of my head how many there are but every now and then on on one of my various avenues of prop collecting it might be ebay or an auction site or etsy i come across a sword from the chronicles of narnia and twice i've been able to purchase them at a reasonable price and i just wanted to show them to you because they're actually really really beautiful works of art uh you know one of the things that people talked about when television went from hd to 4k uh on is that when movies went to 4k prop houses had to double their workload to make things that had details that would hold up under the rigorous uh uh a high resolution frames of a 4k film uh except for what a workshop i don't think they had to do any extra work i think they were already putting in that level of quality i could be this could be apocryphal i i i'm not sure it's 100 true but i'm pretty sure it's totally true i look i know that they worry about how their stuff works looks and feels and works on film and for the actors and for the story uh there is no better prop house in the world i think than what the what the folks at weta do and um i have a couple of pieces to show you one i collected a couple years ago this one and again forgive my ignorance from the movies these are from but this is a stunt sword this is a fighting stunt sword and i'm just gonna let you see the details here um beautiful pummel and handle and guard we see some motifs on the on the scabbard it the scabbard looks like wrapped leather uh we see some silver accents and now upon observing the blade we've got some etching on the blade this is really lovely the reason i know that this is a stunt blade is because along this is the front of the sword that's the guard along the guarded edge it has been well beaten so stunned people are using these swords to smack at each other's swords for battle scenes for a narnia film and this is the kind of this is the kind of sword grinding grinding that peter lyon was teaching me when i got to make my version of aragorn sword this is hand ground at weta out of a piece of aluminum i believe it's 70-75 is their preferred amount um etching is not much of a mystery i think they do this using ferric chloride the thing that i find really fascinating about their stunt swords is um what might not be apparent this is this isn't metal this isn't wire wrapped this is a monolithic piece of i believe polyurea this is effectively a really really hard rubber which means that this thing can take all sorts of crazy abuse and not break and be ready for filming in fact i mean whatever weathering it does get just helps to add to the look of it and the scabbard is no different while this looks like a metal cap with a wrapped uh with a wrapped shaft and then down to the shape down here this is all one piece this is actually also i believe polyurea i could be wrong about the material but this is just monolithic it's a one piece casting now there is some beautiful leather work going on here actually uh the leather work on my other sort is even more is particularly awesome um but again even just like a simple piece of leather made by wetas you know got a real hand-hewn quality to it they story tell they tell stories with every little nut and bolt i think i'm not sure if this is vacuum metallized or if it's a metallic paint finish but even as it's wearing even as it's wearing it continues to look right and that that's not a bug that's not a happenstance that's like designed in they they understand this kind of thing at weta and they they build it they bake it right in it's very light i mean this weighs maybe three pounds ideal in every way as a stunt weapon now the other piece i have is also a stunt weapon but perhaps not for as much uh rigorous fighting this comes from prince caspian um am i right about that pretty sure i'm right about that um and i picked it up more recently and again we see like multiple materials like a wooden grip metal pummel and again none of this is actually that this is all flexible plastic in fact the entire sword here is a single piece of flexible plastic i believe it has a metal rod inside to give it some stability so it won't you know slowly creep so this means that instead of being ground for the film a master was ground and then a mold was made so that multiples of this could be made the last time i was at wet i saw them making some molds for their swords and they had a method which i still don't quite understand in which they were able to cast their swords without using a pouring gate that like the mold had no input and output i still don't quite know how they do that i might be wrong about the particulars they will write to me and let me know but the ultimate result is just look at the little even little details like this little crown detail down here just small things like that that other people might not consider important um the dents in the blade the the the battle scars uh this has been built to show its battle scars that's part of its narrative and i said the leather work was really spectacular and boy it is um we've got we've got a custom pattern here pressed into the leather we also have some custom buckles and again these match all of the themes you got that crown theme here you've got it down here as well um and again about just as light these these weigh pretty similarly uh when you're making weapons for films they've got to be lightweight uh one it makes people look stronger when they're wielding them right so that you can wield them faster so the actors look better two when you're handling something all day long you might be doing 20 or 30 takes for a battle scene you don't want to be holding on to some big heavy piece of metal it's going to be exhausting more than that heavy costume pieces are going to start to wear on your body and these are always concerns that they're balancing at a shop like weta for a film like this i don't know maybe they make like a hundred of these or more they've got some methodology for turning these out that blows my mind and i'm delighted to have a couple of their pieces in my collection i'll shoot some close-ups of these for you so you can see them in all of their glory ah yeah yeah just love having nice things nice things made by people i love at a quality i find compelling these are beautiful objects i i'm delighted to be their steward for as long as that lasts uh thank you guys for joining me for this quickie quickie show-and-tell sorry i had a one-day build thing here it's actually an s t s t yeah we'll wrap it up there thanks guys stay safe i'll see you next time hey guys adam savage from tested here if you've ever seen the six inch ruler in inches and centimeters on my forearm and wanted one of your own but you didn't want it to be permanent well today's your lucky day you can now buy temporary tattoos of my measuring stick my measuring forearm at tested dash store.com comes like this goes on in about 30 seconds with a little water the instructions are on the back it comes off with rubbing alcohol and hopefully it warms you up to the idea of permanently attaching a measuring device to your body because i use mine every single day\n"