It was movie night in the Vintage house and I picked up “Desperado” as the movie of choice. This 1995 throwback features an unknown Mexican running around shooting up towns and bars with a guitar case full of guns Best scene: first 9 min. Now I’m no gun collector, but I am a fencer, so I thought it would be pretty sweet to make a sword-carrying case as homage.

This was a fun, if long, project. The first issue I ran into was that there are no known guitar cases large enough to house as many swords as I need when I go to tournaments. I had to go big. The largest guitar-shaped case I could think of was for the 4-4 cello, which is the largest of the cello family.
It took nearly three hours to rip all the felt guts out to get down to the bare vinyl. From there it was all about picking the right materials, like glue and fabric, to cover the inside.  I cut a thick piece of wood with four trenches to hold swords during transport to keep them from being damaged while traveling.  Also, to keep the retrofit theme, it resembles the bridge from a real cello. The collar at the neck of the case also keeps the swords from banging against each other during transport. The back of the case serves as room for all my equipment: mask, clothing, and shoes that I need in order to perform in tournaments, and tools to tune up weapons.

What's in that Cello Case?