I often get asked “What's your favourite sword?”

Here's my answer:

How can one possibly choose amongst so many lovely options?

And in other news, I finished my sword rack, at last! It's in cherry, with acrylic supports, and carved finials:

And it's rather over-loaded:

Because how on earth could I leave any one of these in the bag? They'd feel left-out, unloved, lonely.

The rack is not primarily about display. It's about keeping my most-used swords easily to hand, lowering the barriers to picking them up and practising.

That it looks good too is a bonus. I am pleasantly surprised by the acrylic: I've never used plastic in a design before. I chose it to minimise the visual intrusion of the rack, and I think it works really well.

And yes, I am sourcing more attractive screws. Those horrid chrome posidrive things must go.

For the woodworkers out there, the mantelpiece is made of oak, and finished straight from the plane (no sanding) with linseed oil. The brackets are also straight from the blade, including the screw hole cover. The mantel fits into the brackets with sliding dovetails.

I cut the sliding tail entirely by hand, eyeballing the angle, because some fool designer (also me) made the clip end such that there was no way to get the tail onto a machine, or even use a plane on it. Because the most fun bit of woodwork is making difficult things that are completely invisible.