Our new weapon rack
We *may* have gone just a little bit overboard with this one :lol:

It's our group's new weapon rack. We got a nice discount on the wood, and the rest was sponsored by one of our supporters/roadies. It's 1 meter high, 1.30m long and 80cm wide at the base. I don't know how much it weighs, but plenty!

It's not entirely finished yet. Tomorrow I am going to file notches in the beam so that the spears will not fall to the sides. After that, it will be stained to a dark oak colour.

We based the design off this photo I found on Flickr. It's big and solid, just like we wanted. We didn't want a flimsy looking rack that resembles a cheapo trestle from the DIY store. Like I said, we may have gone a bit overboard. I think it will easily hold several hunderd kilos in weapons :lol:

Oh, and of course we can break it down so it will fit in my car.


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Sander, you and your friends did a nice clean job, congratulations. You're right, you did overbuild it a wee bit, if you had three more of them they'd probably support a car!
Looks nice! what kind wood is it made out of? pine?
Personal I like the look of pine after it ages without any stain or just a clear coat, but that's just a personal preference.
Yes, it's pine. European spruce to be exactly (Vurenhout in Dutch). One of the reasons we're staining it is because there are various marks on it. We got the top 8"x4" beam for free (it was a leftover at the timber store), but it has some permanent marker on it. The wood of the legs has some ink stamps on it from the lumberyard. I don't think we can sand those down far enough to leave the wood blank. So, we're going to sand it down enough to make the dark stain hide our sins :)
I like it - looks robust which it probably needs to be if you are going to load a bunch of polearms on it. Have you thought about short moveable dowels on the top beam because my one worry would be toppling from side to side once it is fully loaded with stuff. :?: looks good!
I don't quite understand what you mean with moveable dowels. What side-to-side movement do you mean? The rack itself? Or the polearms? The rack itself is very solid. We sat on it (160kg total) and it didn't move a millimeter. As for polearms sliding, tomorrow I am going to add slots/notches/slits in the sides of the top beam where the shafts of the polearms will fit into.
Sander Marechal wrote:
I don't quite understand what you mean with moveable dowels. What side-to-side movement do you mean? The rack itself? Or the polearms? The rack itself is very solid. We sat on it (160kg total) and it didn't move a millimeter. As for polearms sliding, tomorrow I am going to add slots/notches/slits in the sides of the top beam where the shafts of the polearms will fit into.


That sounds like a plan, something to prevent the weapons sliding and doing the domino thing. we have moveable / adjustable pegs on our rack instead of slots. BTW I also like the angle of the stand as you built it.


Last edited by Thom R. on Sat 19 Feb, 2011 5:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
Any thoughts about a shelf to get the end of the weapons off the ground? That way it could be used outside without worry of getting weapons dirtier or wetter than necessary.

Looks good!
Chad Arnow wrote:
Any thoughts about a shelf to get the end of the weapons off the ground? That way it could be used outside without worry of getting weapons dirtier or wetter than necessary.

Looks good!


We use a very similar "rack" for our "period weapons" ( ML/BP, long arms & pointy weapons"
We have a "shelf on the bottom ( both sides) & removable dowels, Has worked great for over 10 years.
Re: Our new weapon rack
Sander Marechal wrote:
We *may* have gone just a little bit overboard with this one :lol:


Nonsense. You simply need more weapons, and larger weapons, to justify the thing. ;)
Chad Arnow wrote:
Any thoughts about a shelf to get the end of the weapons off the ground? That way it could be used outside without worry of getting weapons dirtier or wetter than necessary.


At first we thought about making a bottom shelf like the the original but we thought that when it's standing outside on a windy day, a polearm might too easily slide out of it and topple over, so we went with a bottom beam instead. We decided that this rack is pretty much just for spears and polearms, not for swords, and it doesn't matter too much if their butt end gets a bit dirty (most have proper buttcaps anyway).

But if we someday decide to make a bottom shelf like the original then we can add that easily in place of the current beam.

The entire "not-for-swords" thing was an interesting discussion when we started designing this rack. We searched everywhere for an example of a medieval sword rack that could hold swords of various length with a scabbard and without looking like a japanese katana rack. In the end we figured that most of our members would wear their swords anyway and that the only swords lying around in the camp are one or two spare swords that we show off to the audience. I'm also starting to think that sword racks for a camp are a bit of a reenactorism since I have been unable to find a single example in books or paintings. I figure that historic knights and soldiers would keep their weapons safely in their own tent when they did not wear them.

Quote:
Nonsense. You simply need more weapons, and larger weapons, to justify the thing. ;)


One of our members has a really nice, really big glaive that will do it justice :D
Updates! I spent the entire day finishing the rack. I added notches to prevent the spears from falling to the sides. There's room for 18 spears on the rack. I also made two slats that we can wedge in between the legs in front of the spears. The women in our group asked for something like this. They wanted some way to make sure the audience doesn't take spears out of the rack when the soldiers are out and they are running the camp with only a few people. When there are 50-100 people walking around and only 3-4 of our group, it's hard to keep an eye on *everything*.


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Notches added

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Slats wedged in to secure the spears

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Broken down, to fit into my car.
Great rack! I hadn't understood that it could be broken down for easy transportation... That makes it (for me) much, much more interesting. I also like its looks.

I'm currently finishing a (smaller, flimsier) dismountable rack. I'll try to post photos when done. But I'm already thinking of stealing your design, Sander, when and if I need a bigger, sturdier rack.

Good job, thanks for sharing!
Re: Our new weapon rack
Sander Marechal wrote:
We *may* have gone just a little bit overboard with this one :lol:


If it's worth building, it's worth overbuilding. :D Nice rack!
Wow that is one nice rack!
Thanks all! Someone else from our reenactment group is putting the finish on. When it's done, I'll post more pictures.
Great! Then it will look less like it came from Ikea, and more like ... Wisby! :D

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