The Hammer Of Doom: Building a Gigantic Warhammer

Introducing... The Hammer Of Doom:

Hammer Of Doom

To celebrate Halloween this year, some good friends hosted a LARP & Furries-themed costume party. Just days after the event hit Facebook, a post entitled 'Gigantic Dwarven Hammer' was featured on Instructables:

Gigantic Dwarven Hammer

I'd already been considering ideas for comedically oversized weapons to supplement my LARP/fantasy costume, so the timing couldn't have been better. But the work that went into the original Gigantic Dwarven Hammer was immense - replicating such a masterpiece would require far more time than I had available to devote to the project.

Unperturbed, I decided that I could build a less intricate version, committing less man-hours at the expense of a little visual impact. I initially planned to follow the basic design of the original, using styrofoam sheeting to create first a frame and then the walls of the hammer. But a breakthrough came when discussing places to purchase said styrofoam with my wife, who commented that it was a shame I'd just thrown out the packaging from the oven and dishwasher purchased for our recent kitchen renovation.

Fortunately, I'd only thrown out half of it...:)

Standing in my workshop staring at the random pieces of styrofoam packing, a design began to take shape. I soon realised that if I let the existing shape of the styrofoam dictate the eventual shape of the hammer and not vice versa, my job would be made that much easier.

By simply cutting a single base section of packing in half, shaping it a little and joining the halves together I had the basic shape of a rectangular hammer head. I then added a few embellishments, utilising the existing shape of the styrofoam where possible. I was especially happy with the grooved, reinforced sections that added some nice detail to the base.

Hammerhead Unpainted

For cutting styrofoam the Instructable suggested a hot wire cutter. But the cheapest one that I could find online was $80 so instead I used a small, fine-bladed, single-handed saw that I'd bought to cut plasterboard during the aforementioned kitchen renovation. It did a reasonable job, but weeks later I'm still finding styrofoam particles in far-flung corners of my workshop.

The Gigantic Dwarven Hammer Instructable did provide some other invaluable hints:

  • Glue everything together with Liquid Nails - most other glues will melt styrofoam
  • Constuct a 'T'-shaped handle and frame using PVC pipe and a standard joiner. Use this as the 'skeleton' of the hammer.
  • Paint with acrylic paint - this produces a nice matt finish and also won't melt styrofoam like some other paints.
  • After coating the hammer in gray, drybrush with a lighter gray to really set it off.

Hammer Unpainted

After a few coats of paint, some drybrushing and a wrap of red electrical tap around the handle, the Hammer of Doom was complete!

Hammer Of Doom

Hammer Of Doom

Hammer Of Doom

To add to the LARP-ness of my costume, I made some health and mana potions by filling old plastic test tubes with dyed water and sealing them with wine corks:

Potions

I was really pleased with the result. It wasn't my intention to go dressed as Thor but it kinda turned out that way, which was cool.

Full Costume

The Hammer of Doom was a big hit at the party, even with the Furries...

Mad Furry

Much kudos to JarOfEyeballs for creating the amazing Gigantic Dwarven Hammer and inspiring this project!

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