- Joined
- Feb 17, 2013
- Messages
- 6,144
My wife wasn't fond of the white wire plan. She brought home a couple shadow boxes yesterday. I need to figure out how to mount the knives and then either hinge the glass front or just make it hang off hooks over the knives.
They are only 12x18" so the 25" siru might not go. Maybe diagonally but it will be close. I like the idea of keeping the dust and stuff off them but I still want to hold them whenever I want without a bunch of hassle. Everything in that room gets dusty, I've tried to do some of the more dusty activities out in the shop but I hate going back and forth fitting and stuff.
I was using shadow boxes and meticulously gluing pegs/shelves to the backs to hold knives. It was a PITA to get them level and in the right place to balance the blades. Changes were seldom accomplished. Then, I stole some ideas from other folks and am in the process to making new boxes using old wood from a barn I'm tearing down.
Theft #1 -add THIN sheet of steel (18/20/24 gauge) to the back of shadow boxes.
Theft #2- cover the steel with an appropriately colored piece of cloth. (to make whichever knife I'm displaying stand out)
Theft #3- use rare earth magnets to hold the knife/knives to the steel. Obviously, one needs more/larger/thicker magnets to hold up Western W49 bowie knives than a Kabar Acheron.
My modification compared to the shadow boxes I've used in the past is to make the front hinged so I can access the knives easier. The shadow boxes I have used in the past screwed shut making the display more permanent and harder to change. The going is slow because my dove-tailing skills draw extremely heavy vacuum. It's a good thing I have 2 barns to tear down and have a lot of 80+ y.o. weathered wood to work with.
This setup makes it real easy to rearrange a display if you need to add a knife or remove one.
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