Awesome Weapons

A number of makers participated in The Viking Challenge. Among them is DiesInEveryFilm, who avoided the more popular bladed weapons and went with a war hammer. He built it using a hollow steel tube, thick steel plates, and a wood handle with brass and leather accents. Check out all of the Viking Challenge videos, then cast your vote for your fave.

After seeing an illustration of a mime wielding an invisible sword, maker Mike Shake was inspired to build one in real life. While his see-through katana isn’t completely invisible, it’s still an incredibly cool and effective weapon. Mike’s opponents will never see what hit them. After considering using a glass blade, he went with a clear and strong polycarbonate.

Typical slingshots fire steel balls. DIY Crossbow built a homebrew version of the elastic-powered weapon that fires deadly ninja stars. The design is simple – wood strips glued together and attached to a handle. A slot down the center of its barrel is just wide enough to hold one of the metal stars, and a guide at the front helps keep the star flat as it exits.

It’s not often we see a truly unique weapon. In this video from maker DiesInEveryFilm, he shows us how he fabricated a custom sling bow from a kid-sized bicycle wheel and steel tubing. It’s held like a pistol and uses elastic tubing like a slingshot but fires full-length arrows. It looks like something that Hawkeye might have in his bag of tricks.

Damascus steel is made by pressing layers of forged metal together. HANS shows how he made a gorgeous dagger using thousands of steel bearing balls. The resulting metal pattern is something he calls Dragon Skin. After making the blade, he fabricated a brass crossguard and a wooden handle. It’s based on a design by Neels Van Den Berg of Black Dragon Forge.

Flasutie shows off an insane toy gun that looks and works like an oversized revolver. It fires plastic projectiles using a high-voltage igniter and oxyhydrogen (HHO) gas as a propellant. Before building the main weapon, he made a single-barrel unit to test its firing system. Despite the TPU bullets being relatively soft, they could still leave a mark on unprotected skin.

Medieval weapon expert Tod’s Workshop happened to have five different types of crossbows in his workshop at the same time, so he thought it would be fun to compare how they work and how effective each is at its job. The collection ranges from a tiny handheld crossbow to massive ballista that requires a time-consuming tensioning process.

You don’t need to be Ranni’s lackey and trek all over The Lands Between to get your hands on this bad boy. Though you may need to farm for its cost and the shipping fee. Panda Studio’s officially licensed life-sized resin replica of the Dark Moon Greatsword from Elden Ring is a crazy 59″ long. Limited to 88 units.

A coil gun is a weapon that uses electromagnets to accelerate a metal projectile through its barrel. It’s possible to build your own, but the high voltage electricity involved can be dangerous. Using the utmost caution, Jamie’s LEGO built a slightly less deadly coil gun using Technic parts, a bunch of 9-volt batteries, and some 100-volt capacitors.

Unless you’re into that sort of thing, you never want to be on the business end of a whip. After learning how to use a bullwhip, YouTuber Mike Shake wanted to know if making one out of stronger, heavier materials would make the whip more powerful. It’s not as easy to wield a chain whip, but it’s definitely more dangerous.

We’ve seen cool toys that look like ray guns but none that fire a ray. After building a Halo-inspired plasma knife, Jay from the Plasma Channel returned to his workbench to create a raygun that shoots powerful bursts of static electricity from its tip. The 120,000-volt, 3D-printed gizmo produces an arc that becomes visible when shorting it directly to ground.

Plasma is created by adding energy to a gas. It’s why stars glow in the sky. On a smaller scale, man-made plasma can be created with high-voltage electricity. The Plasma Channel applied this knowledge to one of the sweetest knives ever, a dual-blade weapon with plasma arcing through its center. He hopes to eventually replicate Halo’s plasma sword.

While best known for his paintings, Leonardo DaVinci also invented many imaginative machines. Among his ideas was a crazy weapon that could fire 16 crossbows in a row. How to Make Everything took DaVinci’s drawings and built a real-world replica of the weapon. It works surprisingly well, but loading the thing seems like a precarious process.

We recently learned that cats are not what they seem. Here’s another unexpected hiding place for a weapon courtesy of snov and nav9 technologies. This garden gnome with a nuclear warhead under his hat should effectively deter annoying neighbors from trespassing on your lawn.

If the internet is to be believed, kitty cats are cute furballs who like to knock things off of tables and star in memes. WVW’s educational video shows us the truth, revealing the never-before-seen inner-workings of a feline. They’ve also posted a How a Bird Works video.

MMA fighter and businessman Conor McGregor asked That Works to create a sword to celebrate his Forged Irish Stout. Matt Stagmer and Steve House from Moonshine Metalworks created this two-handed Irish Claymore, inspired by the sword on the beer can but with many added details. The etched slashes on the blade are the McGregor name in ancient Celtic.

Yokoyama Reimei has been making Japanese archery bows for more than a century. Their artisans use traditional woodworking techniques to craft 6.5-foot tall bows from burnt bamboo and a wax tree core. They shape each bow by hand (and foot) by bending the wood with rope and bamboo wedges. Process X provides a close-up look at their workshop.

Despite only firing rubber bands, we would not want to be on the business end of this wooden minigun. Generic Woodworking shows off the incredible amount of blood, sweat, and tears it took to build this impressive toy weapon. It uses parts from a lawn trimmer and a belt sander to drive its mechanism, and makes an unnerving popping sound as it fires off rounds.

The Mandalorian’s Darksaber is the most sword-like weapon in the Star Wars universe. So, it only makes sense that a blacksmith would build a real-world replica. Black Beard Projects forged his Darksaber’s blade from high-carbon and stainless steel, recreated its handle using 3D printing and sand casting, and machined its guard from steel.

The S is back with another really cool looking cardboard weapon. The laser-cut blaster looks like something straight out of a sci-fi first-person shooter, and fires projectiles by igniting small bursts of butane gas stored in water bottles hidden inside its ringed cardboard cylinders.

A little while back, Mark Rober engineered a tiny NERF gun using a compliant mechanism. The design has spawned numerous other builds, including this neat-looking blaster Matt Esltea made from wood. It’s not made from a single part like Rober’s NERF weapon, but it’s built with a similarly springy launching mechanism. It’s a beautiful build, but will it work?

We love how metal can be used over and over again. After one object has served out its life, it can often be melted down and turned into something new. In this clip by metalsmith Random Hands, he shows us how he took a rusty link from an old piece of ship’s chain and hand-forged it into a beautiful new samurai sword.

Using LEGO Technic components, it’s possible to build a toy weapon that fires ammunition using air pressure. After building some simpler LEGO pneumatic guns, Jamie’s Lego Jams created this impressive bit of kit that uses motors to pressurize air tanks. It fires plastic axles, knitting needles, and other skinny projectiles with a strong burst of air.