I'm planning to buy or build a sword stand/rack to display my swords. I'm thinking something to hang them on the wall. I have a few requirements

It should be reasonably child safe. I don't have any kids but children do visit sometimes. They won't be in the room with the swords unsupervised but the stand/rack should be secure enough that they can't quickly grab one when I'm looking the other way for a moment. Some of the swords are for WMA and are used daily, so I do need to be able to get at them myself without too much hassle.

I also need stands for different kinds of swords. I currently have one longsword and two Dutch antique klewangs (Sabre-like swords. They belonged to my grandfather who was in the Marechaussee). I expect more medieval weapons to follow (more longswords, one-handed swords, axes, etcetera).

I am wondering what kinds of systems you are using? Could you post some pictures? Thanks in advance!

The Search function will yield many results as this topic has been discussed many time before. :)

Okay, but help me out here as a non-native English speaker: What's a sword stand that hangs on a wall called? Because googling for sword stands gives me just loads of things that stand on floors and tables. Knowing which words to search for will probably make this easier for me :-)

Thanks. I have read a lot of old threads but I can't find what I am looking for. I found a lot of nice display stands and ideas, but nothing on locking or clamping systems to prevent grubby little children hands from pulling out swords.

I found a long thread on secure sword displays but that was about keeping burglars out, not kids. The only suggestion I found was some sort of locked cabinet with glass or plexiglass in front of it.

All my swords are blunted (even the antiques) so I don't have any trouble with kids running their fingers along the edge or tips stabbing people. All I need is something to make it not so easy for a kid to take a sword out of the stand while I can still take them out without too much hassle (some swords are used daily for training).

Any suggestions for that? I'd love to see pics of any locks/clamps you use for this.

I thought about that, but I don't really have the space for more cabinets. My girlfriend and I have a very extensive library that takes up a ton of space. Technically it would fit, but our living room would become quite crowded and full. So, I'm more interested in smaller wall-mounted or free standing racks with some kind of clamping mechanism.

If I ever have kids of my own I will probably make some room and get a cabinet I can lock. But this is just to keep other people's kids off my swords :-)

One design I came up with (but have yet to build) is for a wall-mounted hanging rack that captures the sword by its qullions.

There are several ways to design this, but so far the simplest one I can think of is to make two L-brackets of wood, and mount them to a backing board so that they straddle the blade root and cradle the quillons. Make the longer, up-pointing segment of each hook long enough that you can drill through its top towards the backing board with, say, a 5/16" bit. Drill a 1/4" hole, concentric with the L-bracket hole, partially into or through the backing board. You can now hang your sword and put a short 1//4" dowel pin into the top of each bracket to trap the sword into the hanger. This pattern can be repeated across a wider backing board to accommodate two or more swords.

You can alternately mount the two pins into a bar of wood so you insert and remove both pins with one action. If a friction hold is insufficient, thread the backing board pin holes and the pin ends, and give the pins thumb-screw heads. In any case, remember to leash the pins or pin bar to the backing board with cord, so you never have to curse their loss. :)

My pointy and sharp swords will require a long backing board that extends past the blade tip, so that a shallow open-faced box can be built to guard the edges and tip (which I'll probably enclose.) One might argue that, with this much handwork, one should simply build a hanging cabinet: But this design uses fewer materials than a full-on cabinet, and presents the weapon less as a museum artifact and more in its spirit of being a tool to be kept ready-to-hand.

Rod

There is one easy solution: hang it relatively high on the wall. :)

If the lowest one is at your eye height, then smaller / younger childeren can't reach it.

I think that oIder / taller children should be able to understand that swords are potentially dangerous and shouldn't be swung around etc. Or at least, I hope so...

I keep my swords on a horizontal "rack" that I made myself. It's quite high up the wall and I have never had any problems.

I apologize for always being the downer on these child safety threads. but I have kids, as well as a whole lot of nieces and nephews and neighbor kids etc. and kids are not the only issue - don't underestimate the stupidity of adults - I had an incident involving one of my swords and a kid-sitter's boyfriend!! :evil: bottom line - a sharp is a weapon that is always "loaded" . there is no such thing as safe wall display or "out of reach". if you want absolute safety, then you have to lock up your sharps in a gun safe or a locking cabinet. a locking glass cabinet provides both safety and display but not protection against thievery. gun safe provides safety and protection against theft but not a means of display. you are free to do what you want of course - my point is no matter how creative you get with a wall display, if it is not a cabinet of some sort it will never be totally "safe". tr

[quote="Sander Marechal"]

Thom R. wrote:

Quote: If you want to use the full height of a wall, you could install a tall horizontal rack, and clamp the lowest 2 metres of it. Quick access to your daily-use swords which you keep at the top, secure storage of the others. Good idea. I hadn't considered just clamping the swords I don't use daily. Any suggestions or pictures on how such clamps could work or look like? I found one clamping solution in another thread in this forum but that was for vertical display and it obscured the crossguards of the swords. The only other clamps I have seen are the polearm clamps at the back of that small table-like display.

With a horizontal wall rack of the style sold for Japanese swords, where the vertical pieces are planks with cutouts for the swords, all you'd need would be to put something in front. Hinge at the bottom, some kind of latch at the top. If the top latch is high enough, you don't need a lock there. The piece in front could be clear plastic. If there is a wall on the hilt side stopping the sword from being pulled out sideways, it would be secure enough to stop quick removal.

So far, I've managed with the education/distraction approach. Keep a good supply of foam or inflatable swords for kids to hit each other with, unsharpened sword to own, and supervised handling of sharps.

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Simple sword rack clamp

Thanks. That's a good design. I think I can mount such a rack where it would be impossible to pull the swords out sideways. Some of my walls have sort-of "pillars" at the corners, where the pillar sticks out 15cm from the wall. If I mount it near there it would not be possible to pull he swords out, provided I don't make the rack deeper than 15cm.

A novel idea that I came up with was to use the empty shell of a grandfather or grandmother clock. I found one such empty grandmother clock and am in the process of making the hanging contraption in the inside. Where the pendulum was is where the sword will hang. The front locks, therefore, it's safe enough for younger kids, yet it provides a very attractive display for at least one sword (in my case, an Albion Yeoman).

While I would not recommend this for firearms it is a good solution to your problem. A locking gun cabinet with glass display doors and sides would stop any kind of tampering yet still leave the swords on display while giving the owner easy access. Any kid attempting to get at the swords would have to break the glass or pry open the locked doors. Really, there is little difference between this and a locked china cabinet.

Here in the U.S. These cabinets are readily available but not sure about the Netherlands. Most firearms owners do not use these cabinets to display their firearms anymore but keep them locked securely in a gunsafe nowadays.

I went to a certain "swedish" furniture supliere and bought a cabinet with a glass door, rotated it 90 degrees and mounted it on the wall. But some light in it, and finito...:-)

[ Linked Image ]
sorry for that bad picture

Andreas

http://www.herculesstands.com/guitars/GSP38WB.html

It is meant for guitars. I have one for my guitar and one for my steel waster.

Great idea Andreas, and it looks good even on that photo.

@John: An interesting idea.