Cosplayer Cynaesthetics went to Dragon Con this year and created an impressive transforming scythe from RWBY. The weapon, called Crescent Rose, belongs to Ruby Rose and it’s a hybrid between a scythe and a sniper rifle. Cynaesthetics documented the build in a blog post and discussed it in the below video. She said over the weeks leading to the convention that about 75% of her time went into design with 25% in production. She started with detailed sketches because she had to design something light enough for her to carry around for two days:
The biggest requirement change I made for this version was the weight. Version 2 had to be light enough for me to singlehandedly carry around for 2 days or so. That meant re-evaluating the materials I was making this with, and the size of it.
So first up, I reworked the body extension from the last version. Instead of the steel slides from before, I made my own rail system from Home Depot aluminum pieces. (All the components I used for what I termed the ‘Backbone’ can be found on this Home Depot page.) Much lighter, much cheaper, and if I mess up – very easily replaced.
I had 2 angle bars framing a flat bar, allowing it to slide. Sliding aluminum on aluminum isn’t great, but for the
small distance that I needed it to go, it would suffice.To prep them for the next step, I marked out holes along the clamped angle pieces and drilled them out. Since, to connect these pieces, I was going to use rivets.What are rivets?
Read more at Cynaesthetics’ blog.