Star Trek Bat’leth: Plasma Cut Mild Steel Weaponry

Star Trek Bat’leth is a fictional weapon used by the Klingon for combat, I decided to make my own using 1/4″ 6 mm 3 ga plasma cut mild steel at CNCROi.com.

As most people of my generation, I’d stay up late at night to watch my favorite shows, and that of course included Star Trek: The Next Generation, even to this day, I love this show!

At the time, I was also deep into martial arts, having achieved my black belt, so I did have “weapons training” and I was always fascinated by the Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth but never envisioned it being anything more than a prop, with limited REAL WORLD functionality.

I WAS SO WRONG!

This isn’t the first prop I made from my childhood, here’s Lemarchand’s Box from the Hellraiser franchise, unlike this Klingon weapon, this doesn’t actually work.

The process of making my very own Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth starts-off making a prototype using laser cut 1/4″ 6 mm MDF, it’s the same thickness as the actual finished metal version, I wanted to make a design that was optimized to ME!

I had some scrap MDF at CNCROi.com so to get it to fit, I cut it in halves, it’s a better use of material and as I was just looking around for good hand placement, it didn’t really matter if it was a solid piece or not at this point.

The reason for using my laser instead of doing a full sized version right away on my CNC router or even a metal version on my CNC plasma was that I already had the machine set-up and ready to go and there is no point in wasting material if it isn’t needed as I didn’t fully flesh out my design yet at that point.

I guess if you wanted a simpler weapon made into a wall clock, CNCROi.com can make that too, and fiber laser etch it with anything you want.

Unless you are only fighting with a stick, having a weapon, and this Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth, I discovered, is a REAL WEAPON, it should be optimized to your proportions and ideally, even further to your fighting style, are you more offensive or defensive etc… this will all affect the design parameters of the finished weapon.

The Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth needed a few modifications, so after updating the design, I cut the next version full size using my full sheet CNC router on, you guessed it, quarter inch 6 mm thick MDF yet again.

This was going to be the first step towards my childhood dream of having my very own Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth, I used MDF to make the first full scale version because I wanted to make SURE this design was a good one for me at CNCROi.com and it’s cheaper to work with MDF than mild steel or stainless steel.

Here’s a prop I CNC waterjet cut to show how my much smaller tool functioned, it was a fun project to make but nothing compared to this Klingon weapon of combat.

If I wanted a very cheap Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth prop, an MDF version that’s spray painted would be very cost effective and could be “faked” to look like the real thing, as long as it wasn’t held or used for it’s intended purpose.

Again, a few design changes were needed from the MDF version before moving onto the 3 gauge hot rolled mild steel that would then be cut using our CNC plasma cutter at CNCROi.com.

I also use my CNC plasma for a lot of other applications, one of which are custom house number signs, using thinner (more cost-effective) 12 gauge hot rolled mild steel.

I’ve really grown to enjoy CNC plasma cutting, whether it’s a Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth or simple round coasters, I just love the fire, the sparks and the smoke that’s produced vaporizing metal using a plasma that’s hotter than the Sun.

Unlike CNC waterjet cutting, the plasma is FAST, it does have limitations, as does any other CNC machine, but for this specific job, it was the go-to tool with the best production method and results for my Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth.

As you maybe noticed with the CNCROi.com laser, then router and now plasma cutter, the inside parts are cut first before the outside parts, this keeps everything from moving during production as doing things the other way around may cause shifting and thus, a Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth that’s out of spec!

Other wall ornaments can be made by us, regardless, always inside and out while cutting regardless of the machine or process used.

This inside followed by outside cutting is especially important for the CNCROi.com CNC plasma cutter because an arc must be produced, you can see how I clamped the material directly for optimal arc – a small detail that isn’t important for the CNC laser and for the CNC router, it’s more of a vacuum hold down issue.

Now that my Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth is finished being cut, you can already start to see how wonderful this is starting to look, but there is a problem, it’s loaded on both surfaces with hard mill scale, something I must remove (on one side) in order to produce a nice shiny surface.

The mill scale prevents rusting and generally protects the surface of the hot rolled mild steel from the elements, it’s a barrier from the environment and for my purposes, it would have been totally fine to leave this on but for esthetic reasons, I wanted to remove it at CNCROi.com.

CNCROi.com can make solid metal signage as big or small as you want out of anything from scrap mild steel

To live edge Cherry, personalized however you want.

Here’s the backside of the hot rolled 3 gauge mild steel, still plenty of other uses for this material, nothing will go to waste at CNCROi.com!

Here’s what the edge quality is like on my Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth, incredibly consistent and adds another level of esthetics to this, obviously, I didn’t sharpen the edge of this weapon, it would be awesome to do so but it’s already a deadly weapon, I don’t want to chop off my own body parts by accident by making this into a sharpened blade but yeah, in combat, you’d want this like a blade as well.

The first thing I found out when lifting this Klingon weapon was that it’s in perfect balance, I designed it to be symmetrical, so the center point is actually just that, it has the perfect weight ratio as well for it’s intended purpose, not too heavy but not too light either.

Above is before, below is after, angle grinding and and polishing really do transform this Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth into the Sword of Honor it’s intended to become on my shop wall!

CNCROi.com also produces a lot of custom metal stencils, here’s one we made that will be used for label barrels using a propane torch.

Just to show you the flexibility, here’s the same material spec but a totally different design.

Knife and weapons making is an art onto itself, I could have easily spent hours if not days grinding and polishing this weapon to absolute perfection, but for me, this was more than good enough, in the field, there is little to do between combat so probably that’s the best time to further clean this weapon up.

I didn’t have any leather rope in the shop, so I decided to use just regular twine instead at CNCROi.com, it did the job, it gives your hands something “round” to grip and wow, the grip is wonderful compared to the mild steel alternative, though not as form fitting as leather would have been.

If you are wondering how that 316 stainless steel sign was made you see hanging on the wall behind my CNC plasma cutter, here’s how it was made!

And now this Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth is finished and will be hung on my wall, further customization would be to throw this on the laser to etch it, a lot more grinding and polishing to improve the esthetic and absolutely, leather rope instead of twine but that’s all left to another day.

The biggest change I’d probably do on this would be to cut it out of titanium or stainless steel, then no angle grinding would be required, and then of course, sharpening the edge of the Klingon Star Trek Bat’leth would truly make this into an extremely lethal weapon in short order.

Need something made out of anything for anything? Contact CNCROi.com!