Prologue:

Since releasing my scabbard design, I've been wanting to design a mounting solution that could display the sword and scabbard together. After about a dozen iterations, I've finally designed a wall mount I'm proud of.

The plaque is in the shape of the legendary Hylian Shield, and has been modeled to appear like real wood. With a bit of finishing work, this appearance can be made even more convincing. I'll give a quick explanation of how I finished my mount at the end of this description. Spoiler Alert: It was super easy!

Printing Suggestions:

The Main Body of the wall mount has been designed to print flat on the print bed. If your printer is large enough, print the default one piece version of the Main Body, but I've also included a two piece version for more average sized printers, including the Prusa Mk3S and Mk4. This part will likely print fine without supports, but just to ensure a clean print, I would suggest creating a print enforcer box and using it to fill the upper void of the Main Body, where the Wall Anchor goes. You could just autogenerate supports everywhere for this part, but you'd be stuck digging supports out of the holes where the Belt Pins go, where supports aren't needed anyway. Warning: Don't use organic supports on this part.

The 3 Front Panels print vertically, and like all the other STL files for this project, they've already been properly oriented for optimal printing. The top and middle panels will need supports for the top edge of the windows, organic supports worked like a charm for these. I would also recommend creating a support enforcer for these supports as well just to avoid any other unnecessary supports being generated.

The rest of the pieces are very straightforward to print. The only other piece that needs any support material is the Belt Buckle, just to support the small piece in the center that is inserted into the Belt. I printed the Belt and Belt Pins at 100% infill. This was probably unnecessary, but they are supporting a fair amount of weight, so I figured it couldn't hurt.

Assembly:

Now that all of your parts are printed, it's time to assemble your wall mount which is super easy. If you've printed the two piece Main Body, after test fitting the pieces with the Body Joiners, glue the pieces together using a strong adhesive, I used Gorilla Super Glue Gel on all the parts for this mount. Make sure the halves are clamped together tightly to ensure a strong bond, and make sure they stay flat so there's no bend in the middle where the two halves meet. Next step is to glue the 3 panels onto the front of the Main Body. Use clamps or weights on these as well to ensure good adhesion. Now glue the Belt Buckle onto the Belt, and once your glue dries, your wall mount is fully assembled. All that's left is to mount it to your wall.

Mounting Procedure:

Mounting your Master Sword Wall Mount is a simple process. The mount is hung from the wall using the Wall Anchor you've already printed. The Wall Anchor itself is adhered to the wall using medium sized Command Refill Adhesive Strips. I'm talking specifically about their adhesive foam strips, they're sold as refills so you can reuse their removable wall hooks, do not use their adhesive Velcro strips. These strips are perfect for mounting items to your wall semi-permanently. They'll hold strong for as long as you want, and can be removed at any time without damaging the wall. Each strip has a recommended weight limit of 8 pounds, so with two of them, they'll be more than strong enough to mount your sword. Just be sure to leave the tab sticking out as shown in a picture above so you can remove them cleanly if and when you need to.

Once you pick out a spot for your sword, peel the backings off of two Command Strips and adhere them to your Wall Anchor with the pull tabs sticking out enough that you'll be able to get a good grip on them in the future.

Then, slide the Wall Anchor into its void in the wall mount, and use a small piece of Scotch Tape to keep it from sliding down, make sure the tape is just barely holding it in place because we'll need it to break away once we have the mount in position. Now wash the area of the wall with a wet washcloth and allow it to dry.

This next step will work best if you first mount the scabbard to the wall mount. It will give us a clear indication when the wall mount is straight so we can mount the sword properly without the need for a level. Now peel the backing off of the other sides of the Command Strips and hold the wall mount up to the wall. Once you're happy with the position, and sure you have the scabbard straight, press the wall mount firmly against the wall. You can now push the wall mount upward, dislodging the scotch tape, and leaving the Wall Anchor in place on the wall. Put the wall mount to the side and press the Wall Anchor firmly against the wall for about 30 seconds to ensure it is strongly bonded to the wall. The directions on the Command Strips recommend not hanging anything from their hooks for at least an hour, so I waited an hour before remounting my sword back on the wall. That's it! Your Master Sword is now mounted! Or at least the scabbard is, don't forget to put the sword back in the scabbard at some point.

Faux Wood Finishing Process:

Okay, this description is entirely too long, so I'll make this quick. I printed my mount using a matte tan PLA, specifically, Kraft Brown Spidermaker Matte PLA, which I'm constantly recommending. I have no clue if this technique will work as well on a non-matte filament, so proceed at your own risk. After all of my parts were printed, I fully sanded my Main Body and Front Panels with fairly coarse grain sandpaper. I think it was 220 or 300. I then washed the pieces to get rid of any dust, and then brushed on some wood stain using a paper towel and wiped away most of the excess. Keep in mind, this is plastic, not wood, so the stain won't really absorb into the material well, so don't apply it in a thick layer and expect it to dry. After 24 hours, the stain was mostly dry, but still kind of stuck to my fingers if I held the parts for too long. I sprayed the parts with a matte clearcoat at this point, and the next day, they were totally dry to the touch. I then assembled the mount as I described above, and was left with a pretty convincing wood look! It was a really easy process, and I'm super happy with how it turned out! I'll definitely be using this technique in the future.

Conclusion:

I hope y'all enjoy this print. This won't be my last Zelda inspired design by any means, but it feels like I'm wrapping up a trilogy of sorts now that I've designed the sword, the scabbard, and now the mount. Stay tuned for more cool designs soon! Okay, I'm tired of typing now, bye!

Legend of Zelda Master Sword and Scabbard Wall Mount Display

0.2mm layer, 2 walls, 15% infill