Props

I was asked to do a quick prop build for our annual Christmas production at my local church.

The character Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor at the time of Christ’s birth, is reclining in opulence eating grapes and decrees that all citizens return to the place of their birth for a census. Of course this was the event that lead the Joseph and the pregnant Mary being in Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus.

My task was to make our Roman Caesar look more Roman!

I had in my mind a shortened batton similar to the one in this image to the right.

First I cut down a bit of curtain rod to a comfortable length and got to work… I found an appropriate eagle from Thingiverse with a good base, 3D printed it, and then hollowed out the base with a hole saw for gluing to the rod.… and yes I know using a diamond tipped drill is a bit overkill but this was far quicker than editing the STL file and reprinting the model.

I had a part that I was not happy with from Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber that I had 3D printed and discarded earlier in the year. Not wanting to waste I had put it aside hoping to repurpose it at a later date. It made the perfect base for the baton.

I glued all the pieces together and used a bit of hot glue to fill in a few of the gaps.

I also used a bit of Gorilla Glue just in case though in hindsight this was overkill considering the way the Hot Glue and timber binded – the 3D print would shatter before coming off the rod!