Kendama is a traditional Japanese game that is very similar to the ball and cup game. My friend Alex is a Kendama professional and his collection has been getting a bit out of hand. For this, I wanted to make him I device that would be able to hold all of his Kendamas.

Step 1: Get Materials

For this project, you are able to use any type of wood or plastic., just make sure you have a thick enough material for a french cleat. I would recommend using half inch plywood, or something thicker. Other materials are listed below.

White PLA 3D Printer Filament

Small 1/2" Nails

Wood Glue

1 X Minwax Wood Finish (optional)

Tools:

Rockwell Circular Saw

Black & Decker Hand Sander

Step 2: Download Fusion 360

This along with all my other design projects are designed in Autodesk Fusion 360. It is a free cloud based modeling software that enables you to develop ideas and into physical products. Click the link below to download a free trial of the software. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Download Fusion 360 for Free!

Step 3: Sketch Side of Wall Mount

Here, I will use the sketch interphase to create a side view of what the mount will look like. Since I will be making it out of .45" thick sections, I will make the total piece 1.35" thick. The backing piece will be 7.75" tall, and will provide a nice look to the piece. I will cut a french cleat into the front two boards to ensure the kendamas hang properly.

I will then modify my design to be 16" long. This will hold roughly 6 kendamas at max capacity.

Step 4: Create Bracket

To attach the board to the wall, I 3D printed a custom attachment to fit around a wall screw. This can be replaced by a simple wall bracket if necessary.

I started with a sketch of the general shape of the bracket. I then added in a hole for the screw, and a slot that it would be able to fit through while in the mounting process. I then modified this sketch to make it less than a quarter inch thick.

Step 5: Render (optional)

Rendering allows you to get a better visual understanding of a model by overlaying a material or texture on it. For this project, I used 3d Unfinished maple and white ABS plastic A full tutorial of the rendering workspace can be found here.

Step 6: Make!

My desktop machine of choice is BoXZY CNC. It is a versatile 3 in 1 tool that gives you a new level of possibility that didn't exist before in a 3d printer or desktop CNC machine. I used the Boxzy Lab at Techshop Pittsburgh to produce my parts.

Get free shipping on your Boxzy machine by using code "shelf" at checkout --> https://boxzy.com/

Other than BoXZY, for this project I used two primary pieces of equipment being a table saw, and chop saw. I would have been able to use just the table saw if in a pinch. A smaller, space saving option would be a circular saw.
Once the pieces are cut to size, angle your saw blade to make the french cleat. Once glued and sanded, you get a truly beautiful result.

Step 7: Enjoy!

Kendama is a great way to relive stress and simply get your mind off things for a while. Hope you liked this project, and let me know what to make next in the comments below.