Most wall mounts for displaying a sword are flat bar or off-the-shelf hooks, so a full sand casting is a refreshing way to go about it. White Squirrel Enterprises sawed a peaked, house-shaped pattern from oriented strand board, glued metal trim around its edges, and set it into a two-part flask packed with red Petrobond sand. Scrap aluminum melted in a crucible inside a tank-style propane foundry, got poured into the mold, and the rough casting was quenched in a bucket of water before being cut down with an angle grinder and deburred with a pneumatic wire brush.
What stands out is the surface work. A hobby knife cut an Imperial Aquila double-headed eagle stencil, green painter's tape masked the flat face, and the maker mixed Windsor table salt into water, then rubbed the solution over the design with a soaked cotton swab while a 12V power supply and alligator clips drove the etch. The finished face carries a hammered, foiled silver texture with darker trim framing it, and thin black cords hang the plaque from above. Up close it pairs nicely with the ornate silver-toned cast fittings on the sword's pommel and guard and the polished reddish-brown scabbard.
The casting itself is the honest weak point. The maker states the pour did not go the best, that a properly sized cope and drag was not made, and that an additional riser might have helped. The etching, in contrast, came out very well, and the maker plans to try muriatic acid next, where a soak is said to cut roughly 1/32 of an inch in about half a minute.
Project by White Squirrel Enterprises. Watch it on their YouTube channel: