Finished my Kill Bill Sword Rack... (photos!)

D

DaQo'tah Forge

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I just Finished my Kill Bill Sword Rack...

Why did I make this when I dont own any swords?...

Well, first the reasons I wanted to make this type of rack are many....I had an odd blank area along one wall of my Meditation Room,,,and it seemed like a sword rack might look good there,,

and..

and another reason was that I plan on now spending the rest of this winter useing the Wally Hayes KATANA video as a guide as I make my first Japanese swords...and so I will need a place to put them when they are finished...Just laying them in a pile on the floor seemed to me to be showing a lack of respect for them...

and...

And "IF" I do make a few Katanas, "and" I wish to sell them, "then" a sword rack such as the Kill Bill sword rack is an interesting way to present them to people,,,,the movie showed people the respect the Bride held for such swords, this is a cool thing to remind people of...

and...

It's cool....


Now the photos are only taken with a low power camera, so you have a hard time seeing stuff,,,,but it's the best i can do. The sword rack is along the wall in my meditation room,The colors in the photos are all wrong,,,,the wood of the rack is lighter than the walls, but in the photos it all washes out...,,The design of my rack was as close to the Hattori Hanzo rack as I could get....

the hardest job turned out to be finding the right wood to use,,,it had to be interesting and twisted, yet the twists had to dive back into place and line up so that the swords would be even and not stuck out of the alinement at odd angles....

I hand forged the little steel hangers, and got as close to the Hattori hangers as I could...(Just about wore out the DVD pause button)

The rack now holds just a few of my wood and bamboo swords that I use in Kendo, (one is in a cloth case to protect it from dust)

well....thats enough story,,,lets see em!

http://daqotah.tripod.com/id3.html
 
DaQo'tah,
That worked out quite nicely and fits the room well to boot.
Great job! Don't you just love it when a plan comes together :)
Thanks for sharing,
Greg
 
yes, well the cat helped,,,,,,

you know, backing up and haveing a look at it now,,,I dont see why anyone who owns a few katanas would want any other sword rack....LOL

It was so easy to make,,,it can hold a ton of swords if I had them,,,and it is great art even sitting empty,,,,,

oh by the way,,,I have now started in with the first project that Im baseing on the Katana video by Hayes....its only a shorter sword,,really just a long knife,(total length 20 inches) ,,but its a 1/2 scale of the katana so I can see how they are made, and to a dry-run on that water quench that actually is a bit upsetting if it dont go right....
 
Hey that's nicely done DaQo'tah. Very classy. If I had any wall space it'd be taken up by bookshelves, but if it wasn't I'd build something like that myself. :D That's really well done and I appreciate the homage to that great scene.
 
Terry,,,,

The beauty is that everything holds everything else up....

Notice in the 2nd to the last and last photos how it stays put...
,
http://daqotah.tripod.com/id3.html

I forged one different steel hanger thingy that goes from the top horizontal wood brace to the wall and is covered by leather wrapping....

The design I used is a lot like then supports that hold up my wife's drapes in the liveing room...It has a half round curve part that fits under the top wood brace, I made that by noticeing that the thickness of the top tree limb was about the same as a water pipe I had in the trash, so I heated the hanger steel in my forge and then hit it with the hammer untill it fit around the pipe,,this round part has two holes that allow me to screw in some drywall screws into the top tree limb,,,the other end of the forged hanger bends down at the wall and has holes for two other screws,,,,

Thats all I needed to hold the thing up because there is no weight on the top support wood brace, because it just holds the uprights in place side to side, but does not carry their weight.

The upright wood posts are sitting on the floor,,,so all their weight goes down them to the floor,,,The uprights are just tied at the top with some leather strapping to the top brace to hold them from moveing around....

If I wanted to move the whole sword rack, I would only need unwrap the joints and move things where I want them, then just tie them again....

Now after very close looks at the Kill Bill Sword rack,,I believe it has the top support tree limb just nailed to the wall,,,I think I even see how they needed to bring the sword rack out a bit farther into the room due to the twists of the wood, that they snuck a 2X4 behind the top limb to bring it out a few inches,,

As far as I can tell,,,my design of the way the sword rack stays up is a "good enough" copy of the movie sword rack,,,,,
 
Dave,,,,I agree,,,the part of the movie that had the bride go talk to Hatori was really the best part of that whole two films...

I rented the movie to learn how to make the sword rack,,,and I found myself watching that part of the movie and skipping over most of the stuff that came before it,,,Infact, I would have liked to see Hatori show up in Kill Bill II and fight along side the Bride ....I wish they would have not ended the movie the way they did,,,with a "sit-down" fight with Bill......it seemed like the director of the movie ran out of ideas?...

But still,,,we have the Hatori parts to watch,,,and the sword fight with the Crazy 88s to be happy with....
 
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