I'm having a friend build one for me, but I can't seem to find any dimensions on the internet. Not for the one-sword stand, at least. Info or useful links greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Here's the pic of what I'm looking for:

I would assume somewhere around 1/3-1/2 the length of the katana.

if you already have a katana, lay it down and just look to see what's good.

Mine is about 12"-13" in length.

When I was building my double blade stand, I browsed the net for some usual sizes, and found out they vary a lot. But those for a single katana were smaller like Page said, anything from 10 to 15 inches, 25-40 cm. Those for two katanas were always larger with widths of 12-20 inches, 30-50 cm.

I ended up building mine 49 cm, 19.3 inches wide. Although it doesn't matter for you with a single katana stand, but with a double blade stand my 49 cm might be a bit much if I ever buy a wakizashi to accompany the katana... But with just this 100 cm katana it looks good at least in my eyes.

Lassev: is that a wall hanger or live steel?

Mine came from Cheness.

It's a Paul Chen practical katana. So, it's a real thing, although one of the cheapest hand-made ones you can find... Well, it was still expensive enough, but I didn't want to buy a sword that wouldn't function as a sword. It seems you shared that same noble sentiment, based on what I see on that site behind your link.

Paul chen blades are pretty good.

Mine is the Ichi Maru model offered by Cheness. These guys are cool because they ship most stuff for free, and since they're down in San diego I could drive down there if I wanted to. Like yours, it is fully functional and can take some moderate use with ease, but it isn't as tough as some of their more expensive models. To me, that's fine, I didn't feel like I needed top of the line since i rarely do cutting.

The main problem with these things is that they have to be kept oiled or they'll rust overnight. Strangely, I've had good results with olive oil. It's thick enough to stay on the blade between oilings and keeps it well protected.

Heh. I bought my katana locally and the shopkeeper told me about the oil thing, and mentioned even those foodstuff oils, although he recommended sewing-machine oil. The sewing-machine oil is about as pure oil as you can get easily and from a store selling regular stuff (and not some laboratory stuff). It's very fluid, though, not thick at all. But on the other hand, you don't actually need a thick layer of oil.

The most important thing is, according to the shopkeeper, that if some people you show the sword touch the blade with bare hands, you need to wipe the fingerprints off preferably sooner than later, and oil after that. Moisture, grease and salts from fingers will otherwise corrode the blade quickly.

Such is the pain and beauty of carbon steel as opposed to stainless steel...

This thread needs a link to that video of the salesman banging an extremely cheap display-only katana on the table repeatedly until the blade snaps, flies back at him, and cuts his arm. It was just... beautiful.

But yeah, these are great to have for when the zombies attack.

The problem with stainless (even high carbon stainless) is that it will not hold a sharp edge for very long. Therefore, all decent katanas use carbon steel.

Also, I presume that the shopkeeper alaso told you to never clean the tang no matter how rusty it gets?

It really depends on what you want a sword to do.

Not all are designed to outright cut, some were used to inflinct a crushing blow.

Exactly. If you try to hack away at european armor with a katana, I guarantee that you're going to end up with a broken katana. It's far too delicate for such a task; if you want to crush something you would be better off using a club or a mace. european swords were designed for hacking away at things, so a razor-sharp edge is not always necessary.

Katana were designed to be effective against lightly armored or unarmored combatants and were designed to cut unprotected flesh rather than to penertrate heavy armor.

Which I don't think would be nearly as fun as crushing someone's arm.

This kind of makes katanas more modern swords because few people nowadays walk around with those bothersome metal armors... Hmm... On the other hand, would it be better to hack or cut a kevlar vest?

Cut. Kevlar is very impact resistent. Only a cut with an edge fine enough to seperate individual fibers is going to be effective against it. However, smacking someone in a kevlar vest with a sword is still going to knock them down. It might stop you from slicing them open, but it doesn't stop the force of the blow. And unless it's a full body kevlar suit, there are other parts to cut.

I have several swords, both japanese and european. Some are good, some are not. A couple would even be considered 'cheap'. You can get some good deals from BudK, but you have to be real careful: You usually get what you're paying for with them, so if the sword is cheap, it's going to be cheap. Occasionally they'll have something that's actually nice. You just have to watch for it.

My brother's got a BudK katana (I myself have a few knives and was going to look for more later today) and it's closer to the "cheap" end. Not a fine edge, meant for hacking, but the blade itself is pretty sturdy.

How about stabbing with the tip of the katana? Armor piercing munitions usually have a sharpened tip which helps them get through kevlar and other types of armor (by more effectively utilizing pressure) , and the tip of a good katana is far sharper than that. I think it's only a matter of the katana user being strong enough and the katana being able to stand enough flex without permanently bending.

I don't think anyone is strong enough to cut through kevlar by hand.

They did it on "Battle Royale"