The Realm of the Dark Blade

A while back, there was an interesting discussion on the Exotic Automatic Forums (http://exoticautomatic.com) about a rather cool weapon, or set of weapons, called Emeici or Emei Piercers (aka Emei Daggers). they are basically a set of steel rods, with sharp broadhead-like points on each end and a finger ring on a pivot attached at the center. Looky here:

Emei Piercers

Emeici are a traditional Chinese martial arts weapon, most notably practiced in Wu-Shu. The primary purpose of these weapons is obviously to speedily inflict deep puncture wounds, and in that regard, they are excellently designed.  The rods are of an extremely efficient design, in my opinion, very strong, but still extremely light and quick. I cannot fault that aspects of the design.

I’ve known of these weapons for a long time, and between the mechanical aspects of it’s design, and the rather visually impressive techniques typically used when wielding them, I cannot, argue they aren’t really, really cool. However in typical DarkBlader fashion, I cannot help but ask myself… What percentage of this kind of this “second kind” of cool is actually useful?

I have a lot of respect of traditional martial arts, the vast majority of my experience has been in TMAs, and so I see value in many of the traditional ways of doing things. *However* I have always found TMAs to have a rather unfortunate tendency towards the retention of outdated techniques and ideologies, and this weapon seems to be no exception.

Besides the obvious snafu of having an overenthusiastic martial artist pretty much admitting, on a nationally syndicated television series, that he is prone to the colloquial *bloodrage*,   my point of contention is this: Does allowing the weapon to spin actually add any useful value to the use of the weapon besides the cool or intimidation factor? Or is it just for show?

If you ask a TMA what the practical benefits of being able to spin emeici around are, they will tell you it is helpful for confusing your opponent. They will argue that it allows quick switch ups, changes in direction, etc. And to some degree, this is true of most knives. The grip, the position of the edge or edges, the orientation of the point, etc. tell you things about how and where your opponent might strike.

But while the quick change-up explanation has merit, there are really only two grips that you can use with a set of emeici, between which you can perform any strike, to any target. So while this all sounds good in theory, I wouldn’t be looking predominantly at the position of the weapon to try and figure out where the next attack was going.

For spinning, double-ended stabbing weapons, since the spinning, by itself, does not really change any of those factors, methinks it would not matter so much. I don’t think I would be any more confused by the spinning than if it were being held still. I have yet to spar an Emeici wielding opponent, so my analysis may turn out to be entirely wrong, but…

What do you think? Anyone feel like weighing in on this one? Spinning Emeici: Mostly Show? Or Absolutely Go?

Emeici – [Chinatown Shop]

I like boot knives. I think they’re cool. They are small, fast, fairly sturdy (usually)  and best of all, easier to carry than most others. All great reasons to love boot knives. Especially if you actually wear boots. Though it is by no means a showstopper if you don’t. Lots of different leg, arm, chest, small of back, and belt carry solutions for these cool little knives.

But here’s something I don’t like; gimmicks. Like unnecessarily compromising a perfectly good blade for the sake of making it look “cool”. Dunno what I’m talking about? Here, let me show you:

Double Edged Combat Boot Knife

Yes, this, ladies and germs is a so called “double edged” combat boot knife. I dunno. Lots of boot knives are double edged. This is more like double pointed. Double the pain? I doubt it. More like double the amount of effort to use this as a thrusting weapon. Ok, so that is a gross exaggeration, but when it comes to dagger points, two are generally *not* better than one.

And then there’s the issue of mechanical strength. Two smaller points, imho, are just two weaker points that will break faster than one larger, thicker point. But that could just be my tenuously understanding of physics at work. Who knows. All I’m sayin’ is, one mans cool is another mans DOH!

Me personally, I thought the design would have looked great without that split point. The all metal grip looks good, and the blade, had it been a single blade, would have had some awesome lines to it. The fork just kinda messes it all up for me.

But then again I don’t design knives for aesthetics over function…

Double Edged Combat Boot knife – [True Swords]

A fellow DarkBlader (Many apologies, I do not recall who) recently turned me on to this absolutely beautiful dark sword from the excellent Kult of Athena Site.

BlackSword

It is quite fittingly called the Blacksword.  And man… What a sword!!  There are few swords that truly capture the both the flash flaire of the many finely mirror polished swords out there today, while still being subtle, dark, understated and, most importantly, evil… and this is one of them.

The Blacksword is made by the outstanding Windlass Steelcrafts, and is an absolute work of art. 32.5″ of slim, dark, hyper blued, sinister steel, with a simple fuller running down it’s center, into a simple diamond flare at the ricasso. The hilt is equally charismatic, with a simple elegant, upward curving cross guard rising from the simple center shield-like emblem.

The spiral leather wrapped wood grip presents us with yet more sinister but oh so tempting darkness, bordered at each end by silver studded bands, and finishing at another equally simple pommel.  A simple, beautiful, dark, sinister but breathtakingly magnificent sword.

When I look at this sword, I think of the Drow, The dark elves of the Underdark. If your average, highly polished sword were a fair-skinned forest elf, this sword would be the light haired, dark skinned Drow equivalent.  I’ve probably said this before, but I wonder what it would be like to have a dark, beautiful Drow girlfriend. A dark irresistible beauty whom you knew could turn and plunge a knife through your heart at any moment, for any reason, but who was just too stunning to say no to.

Probably 7 circles of hell all wrapped up in a single Evil Drow Beauty…

Man… Evil can be soo tempting… o_O

The BlackSword by Windlass Steelcrafts – [Kult of Athena]

Not too long ago I posted about of my favorite Ninja tool, the Tekko-Kagi, (or Tekagi), featuring an outstanding example of workmanship by one of my readers, Matthew Wright (who posts here as Mangetsu) of NineDirections.com. I have always been particularly impressed with the authenticity of his work, however he recently put together a refreshed version of the aforementioned tool, as well as his website, and I thought I’d talk a little about my opinion of his the modifications to the traditional design.

So here it is, The Signature Tekko-Kagi from Nine Directions, which he most appropriately called “Steel Shadow”…

Signature Tekko-Kagi - by Nine Directions

The word Tekagi (which is the abbreviated form of Tekko-Kagi) is, if memory serves, a contraction of two Japanese words, “Te”, which means “Hand”, and “Kagi” (a variation of “Kage”), which means shadow. In other words, this is the “Shadow Hand”. This makes a whole lot of sense when you consider that the Ninja (or Shinobi) were also called “Shadow Warriors”, due to their predominantly clandestine methods.

Their specialty was working from, or in, the shadows. As in, the most efficient way to plant a steel claw upside a marks head from a dark corner while thier back was turned…

But back to the weapon at hand. This ain’t yo grandmas Tekagi! This design, while fundamentally similar to the traditional tekagi design, differs in two very important respects. First, where there used to be a narrow forearm/wrist band, Matthew has extended the band to an almost full forearm-length leather bracer, to which the rear of the claws are riveted.

This, by itself, is perhaps the single most useful and functionally outstanding improvement I have ever seen in a tekko-kagi. It provides some additional much needed support, giving the tool much more strength, and should be significantly more comfortable than the traditional design, allowing for the wielder to use it with a lot more power.

The claws themselves appear to have been extended to the full length of this longer bracer, creating a full forearm cage that drastically increases the defensive capabilities of the weapon. In addition to this, he has shortened the top hoop, the hand grip, our control point, as it were, so that a much more natural, solid, closed-fist grip can be used to manipulate the claws. This is a *massive* improvement over the old large wide grip of the previous design, as your hand muscles are in a more natural and stronger position this way.

I have always said that while adherence to tradition is certainly of value, tradition should never get in the way of improvement. The old school ninjas did things the way they did because that was the best way to do them at the time. However their fundamental methodology was not one of stagnation. They constantly improved and modified their techniques and weapons, and were there not so many more effective tools of the trade to use, they would have upgraded their tekagi in much the same way Matthew has done.

So I say to Matthew, kudos for a job well done! These are perhaps the best designed Tekko-Kagi I have seen in a long time, and I doubt I will see any better. This is outstanding work folks, created with an eye to replicating the look and feel of the traditional design, except much, much better.

This Tekagi has single-handedly made NineDirections.com my next Site of the Month. If you want some truly outstanding replicas of traditional ninja gear, made with an eye for practical use, as well as authentic construction techniques, Nine Directions is the place to go…

You really can’t go wrong.

Signature Tekko-Kagi – [Nine Directions]

I have yet another rifle blade for you today, and it is just a beauty:

Tanegashima Sword

I’d like you to meet the tanegashima rifle blade! Much like the other rifle blades I’ve posted in the past, this one is essentially a non firing replica of an classic, beautiful rifle design, modified to house a sword.

In this case the rifle is based on an old Japanese design, the Tanegashima, a smoothbore muzzle loading matchlock rifle used in Japan in the early 1500s. But even the rifle on it’s own, while quite simple,  I still find to be quite elegant. A study in  simplicity  and practicality of design.

Tanegashima

The smooth, beautifully curving stock, a deceptively simple combination of flat surfaces and mild curves runs gracefully from the butt stock up the almost the tip of the barrel, and just looks beautiful.

But where, back in the old days, lead ball used to travel at high speeds towards unfortunate targets, we now have a shiny blade. A straight blade. A Japanese Ninjato. A rather fitting combination if you ask me.

Tanegashima Ninjato

In fact, I’m willing to bet that if you were to give this to a ninja, they’s figure out  a way to make it shoot stuff. Perhaps bo shuriken. Possibly highly trained ninja rats. Maybe better yet, they could fire small ninjas. Genetically engineered mini-shinobi specially bred for the purpose.

Yeah… That’s it… A mini-ninja firing sword Tanegashima. Awesome!

I think I’m going to have to patent that idea before someone steals it.

Tanegashima Ninjato Sword – [Knives Deal]

So I ran a cross this rather fancy sword not too long ago:

Sword Of The Mighty Warrior

Yes, As you can see it is a scimitar. Of the  “Look at me! Look at me!” variety. The hilt is fairly decent, with a nice looking tear drop pommel, attached to what looks like a cylindrical faux leather wrapped grip. Upwards from that we have a somewhat randomly adorned cheap cast metal guard with a gold and black circular motif emblazoned just below the ricasso area.

Sword Of The Mighty Warrior - Blade and Hilt

The blade has a trademark deep scimitar curve to it, with more random gibberish text written in gold on the deepest part of the blade. A rather simple design, though not quite as pointy as I’d like. In fact, the point on this sword seems rather lazy. I can just hear that point going: “Meh. I’m too bored to be a proper scimitar today. I’m just gonna be a kiddie scimitar. Deal wit it. ”

Which is all well and good, except such unprofessionalism is unbecoming of a scimitar, and this leads me to believe that this is, in fact a cheap video game sword replica.

So am I right or am I right? What anime and or videogame is this from? I know you know that I know you know where this sword is from… So go on. Spill already.

Sword of the Mighty Warrior – [True Swords]

So guess what… I found another Gunblade…

Brevete 22 cal. Knife Revolver

This, my friends, is the Brevete Pinfire .22 cal Knife revolver. Nice eh? Ivory grips on a Revolver  is nothing new. Ivory grips on darn near the whole frame of a revolver, with a blade attached to the front… Now *that* you don’t see every day.

Brevete 22 cal. Knife Revolver - Right

If you’re gonna bring a knife to a gun fight, you might as well do it in style. And this would certainly fit the bill for any particular porpoise. Yes. I said Porpoise. No, it’s not a mistake, bit your tongue for even suggesting it! It’s just that Porpoises tend to be much more discerning about these kinds of things than humans.  So there.

As a side note, for some odd reason, looking at this revolver evokes memories of a funny little poem:

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,

One was blind and the other couldn’t, see
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout “hooray!”
A paralysed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,

A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came to arrest the two dead boys, If you don’t believe this story’s true,
Ask the blind man he saw it too!

Personally, I think this duel would have made  so much more sense if these two dead boys each had a  Brevete Knife Revolver in .38 special, with ebony black grips. I’m sure even the blind man would have been impressed…

But that might just be me.  o_O

Brevette .22 cal Knife Revolver – [Dawes & Co]

A while back I happened to run into a rather cool little weapon on our forum, Exotic Automatic (http://exoticautomatic.com). Thought today would be a good day to share…

Rob Dalton's Dogface

I present to you the Dogface, by Rob Dalton. And an amazing piece of work, I might add. An OTF blade, attached to a unique grip, with integrated finger holes, and some rather evil looking spikes on the top to as well. Just wicked all around.

But the really cool thing I like about this blade is that, depending on how you look at it, it could be a combination of several different weapon designs all mashed into one. Can you guess what they are? Let’s play a little “Where’s Weapon Waldo…”

Dalton's Dogface OTF

The first one should be obvious. It’s an OTF, or “out-the-front” automatic switchblade. It’s a fairly simple blade design, nothing too fancy, but certainly a nice design. OTFs are always cool. What you see next really depends on what kinds of weapons you prefer.

If you are the brawler type, you might see a knuckle duster and a pocket knife. If, on the other hand, you are the knife fighter, you might see a WWII trench styled knife, which combined the knuckle duster design with a fixed blade. Yet another knife design I’ve always liked. It’s all about the options…

Dalton's Dogface - Stainless Steel Finish

Either way, this blade is just way freakin’ cool…

Rob Dalton’s Dogface OTF – [The Knife Auction]

While perusing the endless sea of knives on the internets, I came across this little accoutrement…

Lipstick Knife (Hawkbill II)

Yes indeed. A lipstick knife!  A cool little hawkbill blade,  with a serrated edge, concealed within a rather innocuous looking black and gold lipstick housing. Now hopefully this is a full tang construction, because weapons like these are notorious for losing their blades otherwise. the alternative is to never use it, and keep it only for emergencies, but what fun would that be?

Now being the male member of my species, I would not be caught dead with one of these things, however I could certainly see the appeal this might have for those of the female persuasion. This way, a lady could carry around a knife without making it obvious that she is carrying a blade on her person.

But never you fret guys, there is something here for you too:

Ink Pen Knife - Black Finish

Aha! Here we have an actual pen knife. A pen with a blade. Would you look at that! has a straight blade, as opposed to a hawkbill, but then again you have more room in a pen than a stick of lipstick for a blade. And of course the ladies can use this too. And for the fashion concious among you, this also comes in black and gold, with a serrated edge, just like the lipstick:

Ink Pen Knife Black and Gold - Serrated Edge

Again, the warning against hard use stands. Because most ink pen knives are generally designed to also retain a functional pen, they do usually have an ink tube (albeit a shortened one), and can therefore not usually a full tang construction. Those desgined this way will generally do not hold up to daily use. So again, only use them when necessary.

I only have one other caution. Please don’t get one of these and decide to go James Bond/Emma Frost on anyone. You may not like the consequences.

Trust me.

• Lipstick Knife – Black and gold – Serrated Hawkbill blade – [eBladeStore]
• Ink Pen Knife – Black and Silver – Straight Edge – [eBladeStore]
• Ink Pen Knife – Black and Gold – Serrated Edge – [eBladeStore]
• Ink Pen Knife – Black and Gold – Straight Edge – [eBladeStore]

So today, I’ve got a couple of cool folders to show you:

Meet Mad Maxx, By Darrel Ralph:

Madd Maxx

And here’s his crazy younger brother, Mad Maxx II

Madd Maxx II

Yeah, I think MAXX II has been doing drugs or something… Let this be a lesson to you… Don’t do drugs!

But either way, I like the lines on these folders. I especially like the lines and colors on the original Mad Maxx (this should be no surprise to you )

Only thing is, there’s a 60-90 day lead time, and they are not cheap. Nothing of this high quality ever is. They are probably worth every penny.

Just thought I’d share…

Mad Maxx by Darrel Ralph – [eBladeStore]

Mad Maxx II by Darrel Ralph – [eBladeStore]