The Realm of the Dark Blade

OK so let me pose a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you are a Klingon. Yes, you are a member of a well known warrior race from Star Trek. Got it? Good. Now lets say you get marooned on earth. No, I don’t know how that happened or what you did to deserve it. Stuff happens alright? Deal.

Anyway let’s say you are stuck on Earth. In prehistoric times. Yes, I said prehistoric. Why? Look, you are asking too many questions. I’m trying to set up a scenario here. Ok fine, we’ll say someone tweaked the nav systems and warp core configuration on your Klingon warbird so that the next time you tried to warp somewhere, you got marooned, on Earth, in the past, and the dilithium crystals in your warp core are broken, so you now cannot get back.

OK? Happy now? Can I continue?

Thank you.

So… Now you are stranded in a prehistoric earth jungle, and you need a bladed weapon to survive… Say what? Why no Disruptors? OH, for the love of… *sigh* Look, work with me here. Lets say you’ve been stranded for some time, and you’re all out of power OK? Does that work for you? Any other details you’d like me to cover before I go on? No? Are you sure…? Wait… What? Recrystallize the dilithium crystal lattice? …

…

…

…

…

… *veins popping out of forehead*

YOU @*@&#@! IDIOT!!! THIS IS PREHISTORIC EARTH! THERE ARE NO NUCLEAR REACTORS, SO YOU CAN SAFELY ASSUME THERE ARE NO SAFE AND READILY AVAILABLE SUPPLIES OF GAMMA RADIATION TO CAPTURE AND REPAIR DECRYSTALLIZED DILITHUIM CRYSTALS WITH, YOU #*&$%# INSUFFERABLE DWEEB!!!

Jiminy Christmas, enough already!! OK that’s it. No more questions. You’ve ruined my perfect set up.  I’m just going to show you the blade.

Tactical Golok

This is the tactical Golok. The Golok is a traditional chopping tool, a kind of short machete, originating in southeast Asia, characterized by a wide tipped, top heavy blade. The Tactical Golok is a a Golok on steroids. Or as would be designed by a Klingon, trapped in prehistoric ages, on earth, who had naught but primitive tools. WITH NO USABLE DILITHIUM CRYSTALS. Ok… gotta breath now… Whooosaaaahhh… alrighty then.

In fact the tactical Golok bears a vague resemblance to a traditional Klingon weapon, the MekLeh’ crossed with a traditional golok…

Klingon Mek'Leth

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Golok

OK… Too vague. That didn’t work out quite the way I thought it would. All kinds of evil was supposed to ensue. Hmmm… What to do, what to do… Actually, now that I think about it, this Golok has more in common with Kratos’ Swords of Chaos from the game God of War:

Kratos Sword of Chaos

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Golok

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Tactical Golok

Much better!! Yeah… Now THAT’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout… And you made me go on that Klingon rant, and nearly pop a gasket, all for nothing. Yes, you. It’s all YOUR fault. Yeah, it’s my blog and I can blame who I want to… And today that is… YOU! Put that in your meat grinder and mince it! Bah Humbug!

<Eric Cartman> Man… I really, really hate you guys… </Eric Cartman>

Anyway, this Tactical Golok is the bees knees. Put together by the folks at Szabo Inc., it looks like a mean little chopper, a nice, evil cross between a machete and an axe. With the sweeping curvy edges and dark demeanour to match. My kind of chopper. Darth Vaders golok, if you will. I mean just look at it:

Tactical Golok Demo

What more can I say. Short machete. Wide. Heavy. Evil curves. Double edged.  Integral guard and blade finger choil, possibly for choking up and better control. AND it looks like it comes in black. Which is really just all kinds of WIN.  BUT… It costs and arm and a leg. But if you can afford one, at least you’ll know they’ll be harvesting your limbs in style.

Umm… wait… Was I not supposed to say that out loud?

Tactical Golok – [Szabo Inc]

When I think of Feng Shui, the Chinese system of organizing your environment in order to maximize positive Chi (aka Qi/Chakra/Energy) flow, the last thing that comes to mind is an axe. However, I suppose, from my admittedly limited knowledge of how it works, there doesn’t seem to be anything in the rulebooks that says Feng Shui cannot work through an axe.

In fact, it seems kind of implicit that an axe should affect the feng shui of any environment, it is in, depending on it’s placement. But now I’m just rambling…

The topic of this post, obviously, is an interesting little axe I ran into a while back. Ostensibly called the Chinese Feng Shui Axe:

Chinese Feng Shui Axe

As you can see, it’s an unusual little, all metal axe, fairly simple in design, with a relatively small (as axes go) crescent shaped head, a contoured gourd shaped pommel, and a spike on top. And, or course, the requisite red hair tassel to redirect the blood that might result from employing a little “Feng Shui” reorganization of someones face with said axe..

Hey, I kid, I kid… For the record, I do not condone the arbitrary reorganization of other peoples faces with axes, or, for that matter, any other kind of weapon. Except scalpels. In which case you must be a plastic surgeon, and the person must have been absolutely hideous to start with. But I digress.

This axe actually looks kinda cool, and seems like it would be a little heavy, but fairly effective. But it is, in fact, supposed to frighten bad Chi away. At least according to the website I found it on. Me personally, I think I’d employ a much larger, quite a lot more intimidating axe for that particular task.

I mean seriously. Have you seen the sheer amount of bad Chi floating around nowadays?

Chinese Feng Shui Axe – [Online Oriental]

Ok, So I will readily admit that the title of todays post was highly influenced by thoughts of thanksgiving turkey…Light meat or dark meat… It’s all good… But I digress.

You may recall a few posts I’ve done in the past on weapons made of wood. Some of them have been about reproduction, prop or cosplay weapons, weapons you could give to your little rascals, or for cosplay (costume play), designed primarily to be a safe alternative to the real thing.

Macahuitl

However, I’ve also posted about weapon designs that, while made primarily of wood, were still quite lethal as edged weapons. The Macahuitl was one such weapon, using flint or obsidian blades, embedded in a wood frame shaped like a club, or a large broadsword. And then there was the Leiomano, which accomplished the same thing, using shark teeth, but packaged in a small axe form factor.

Leiomano

But I recently ran across an even more beautiful design, yet another based on the small axe form factor, but without any kind of hard blade material whatsoever… Just wood. Really hard wood… Have a gander at this:

Samoan War Axe

Now chances are, the edge would be nowhere as keen as that of a macahuitl, so this would be more likely used freehand as a club, or to break or dislocate bones than an actual cleaving device,  (unless you had a hard surface to chop against and were willing to keep whacking away until the job was done :/ )  However,  it is just a beautiful piece of work.

I just love this thing. Between the smooth and highly polished finish on the weapon, the Samoan patterns on the blade, and the absolutely evil lines on this axe, I just love it to death. Ok, maybe not to death, since I kind of like being alive, but you get the point.

The points on this thing are amazing. The deep bevel of the edge is accentuated by the light colored patterning of the blade area, making it look almost like a thick slab of dark steel. The patterning runs all the way down the shaft, stopping just short of the light colored jute or twine wrapped grip. The combination is just sweet.

Truth be told, I think this wooden axe looks more both more beautiful  and sinister than most of the other evil steel axes I’ve posted on this site so far…

And that’s no small feat for a weapon made entirely of wood.

Samoan War Axe – [My Armory]

Yes. That is the question of the day. If old man Grim used and axe instead of a scythe, what would it look like? To be honest I have no clue. I just can’t imagine my O’l buddy Grim using anything other than a scythe. He’s really quite attached to that thing. They have some symbolic history together, something about harvesting souls or some other sappy poetic schmaltz.

Not my cup of tea, really, but he’s all about it. For a guy who spends a lot of time snatching the life right out of unsuspecting peeps at the drop of a hat, he always comes across as a bit of a tragic emo/goth. The perpetually covered face, the dark clothes, the endless angst, always carrying that blasted scythe around regardless of whether he’s actually on the clock or not… Meh. But I apologize. I ramble.

Back to the question at hand. If Mr. G. Reaper were to use an axe, what would it look like? Well, I still can’t say. I admit it. I have no imagination. Sue me. So instead I’m going to show you what some one else thinks it might look like. Allow me present the Grim Reaper Battle Axe:

Grim Reaper Battle Axe

Now this is an evil axe. Just the kind of thing I like. Big, crude, heavy, evil edges and lots of points and hooks and barbs and such, with but a token attempt at finesse. Just look at it. Not that Mr R. would ever use it, but you cannot possibly argue that this isn’t a an axe worthy of a reaper-type entity. Heck I’d use it, and reaping is just a hobby I indulge in part time when I’m bored.

What we have here is a huge, 51″ slab of solid, polished stainless steel. On one end a large almost medieval glaive-like double bladed axe head, complete with center spike. Coming down from the head, we have a leather wrapped grip, and then a short, but particularly nasty looking section of serrated blade. below that, we have another leather wrapped grip section, and below that we have a triple barbed hook, ending in a sharp, rather unforgiving looking, talon like point.

Now truth be told, I think the mechanics of this weapon are horrific. I mean, ergonomically speaking, you’d have to be a Klingon, or Vulcan, or have trained using a Bathleth or a Lirpa, or some similarly esoteric weapon, in order for this weapon to make sense. And that void/spike in the center really violates my sense of mechanical aesthetics. Why the huge void cut out of the center of the the Axe head? For weight reduction maybe?

And even then, why attach that point just above that by two really thin looking stems. It’s certainly a cool design feature, but it seems like it would be the first thing to break if subjected to any bending forces. And then, as if those weren’t enough, there’s a serrated blade in the very section of the weapon that your hand would be likely to slide into? I dunno ’bout all that. I would rather think most folks would like to keep their fingers. But that’s just my opinion.

It just seems to me that a person wielding this weapon would be cruisin’ for a bruisin’… Or didn’t really like their fingers very much. Which would be a shame. BUT on the other hand, every inch of this thing says “I mean business.” And by “business”, I mean “Bringing the pain”. Big time. So I’m on the fence. And unfortunately my old pal Mr. R has remained strangely silent on the issue. No surprise, I suppose, given that none of my concerns regarding self mutilation at the hands of this monstrosity would apply to him.

So what do you think? Is this… Axe Thing… (of ultimate evil) reaper material? Or not?

Grim Reaper Battle Axe – [North Star Collectibles]

I found a rather unusual axe a few days ago. Perhaps it’s not *that* unusual. Especially for a fantasy weapon, since By definition, they really don’t have to adhere to any standardized design specification. However I thought it was an interesting design nonetheless, more or less because its’ designer opted to incorporate some interesting organic touches, and combined them in an unusual way:

Stingray Fantasy Axe

We have what appears to be an axe with a cast metal handle designed to replicate some sort of animal horn. The shaft curves to one side, as it extends down to the grip, which is itself cast to look like it is wrapped in leather. The pommel is capped by a faux gold ring which, in turn, terminates in a rather cool looking little faux gold spike.

The head of the axe is equally interesting, starting with the two copper or brass looking rings that are made to look as though they are screwed into the faux gold plated horn haft. Attached to each of these two bands are the cheeks of the blade, themselves adorned with an almost Incan looking pattern.

The curvy steel blades appear to be embedded in, and extend from the aforementioned axe cheeks, and bear an unusual set of curves, possibly intended to replicate the wings of a great mythical stingray. Not that I’m any expert or anything, but I don’t know of any stingrays have that particular “wing” formation.

And now that I think about it, horns of this nature generally occur on land animals, not aquatic creatures. But then again I’m no expert in horned aquatic creatures either. The narwhal comes to mind, but if memory serves, a narwhals horn is actually a tooth formation, and not an actual horn, like a stag or a deer has.

So we have, in effect, a stingray, with steel “wings”, ostensibly formed of horn, bolts, a stinger of unknown origin, and leather wrap, all, in turn, cast in some unknown alloy, and steel. Yeah. Layers upon layers of artistic metaphor at work here ladies and gents. It boggles the mind. Art. Gotta love it.

Of course this is the beauty of “Fantasy” weapons. The designer gets to pick what level of reality to adhere to. And how deep the rabbit hole goes. But when all is said and done, I think the overall look is actually pretty cool. A fantasy sting ray, complete with steel wings, and a curved, spike equipped tail. A work of organic art. Except made entirely of metal.

I wonder if this stingray is domesticated. Forget piranhas. I’d love to have an aquarium full of these. 

Stingray Fantasy Axe – [Amazon]

I thought I’d post today about another “future axe” that I ran across a while back. Perhaps not as outlandish as the futuristic oval axe I posted about a while back, but still out there:

Futuristic Axe

This is supposedly a futuristic axe. Looks to me like a High Guard force lance with a blade attached to one end. (From the Sci-Fi series “Andromeda” for those who didn’t get the reference ). For some reason I can totally see Romy using this. Actually i’d love to see Romy use something like this. but I digress…

What we have here is a really fancy force lance looking shaft, to which is bolted/riveted a sleeve of some sort, atop which sits a rather flimsy looking slotted plate, to which an interestingly contoured blade has been riveted/bolted. Opposite the blade we have… Spines. Spikes. The guard from a hedge trimmer. I Dunno.

Anyway you probably already have a good idea about what I’m gonna say next. So I’ll summarize. Axe shaft: OK. Axe eye/cheek/sleeve assembly: rivet junk. Spines: Meh. Axe head… Well that I have to give them a little credit for that.

Yes, the way the axe head is attached to the shaft is junk. However the shape of the blade on this axe is another story. i actually found it rather interesting. It is formed of three straight edges on the front, and one curved one on the back, with two trapezoidal voids cut out of the middle of the blade.

The end result I found quite eye pleasing, with a sharp top point, and an inward canting straight blade out front.  Clearly, having no curves on the front edge of the axe, this would make for a bad general purpose axe design, and given the inherent weakness of it’s construction it might not even make a good combat axe, save for poking the playground bully’s eyes out with the spikes on it’s spine.

But from an aesthetic point of view, I kind of like it. What saddens me, however is that all of these so called futuristic axes have one thing in common: Iffy construction. Barring the possibility that the pommel of this weapon is a real live, honest to goodness force lance, If this is what weapon construction is reduced to in a few thousand years, well…

I weep for the future….

Futuristic Axe – [Anime Castle]

Today we have another entry into the “I traveled to the future and all I got was this lousy “I got beat by a wussy futuristic ugly stick” t-shirt…” category:

Futuristic Oval Axe

Yeah. A futuristic axe. Uh huh. And not just a futuristic but a futuristic oval axe… Oooohh, Aaaaahhh… Pthththh… Yep. Where to start… Ah, yes. With the head. Or whatever it is.

As axes go, well… it’s… something. It’s got an “oval” axe head, very much reminiscent of a traditional double bit axe, except with an ovoid blade, some weird cut outs and some funky trim. But despite it’s double edged appearance, it’s hard to tell whether this design was intended to be single or double edged, as the rear edge is shrouded by the pivot arm.

Yes. You read correctly. I said “pivot arm”. Why? because this axe head is mounted not to a shaft, but to a rotating arm, via a single central bolt. Why? Well, so that it can pivot down to one side of the shaft, of course. Why the pivot functionality? Errrmmm… Well… I dunno.

Maybe to enable it to be used as a replacement prosthetic arm for a battle bot? A small Transformer maybe? In fact, now that I think about it, I’d be willing to bet this whole design concept was a Decepticons doing… Sneaky bots, them… But I digress.

So this pivot arm is then mounted to the nifty, ergonomic looking grip, via a similar single pivot bolt arrangement. Having not had the pleasure of handling this, I can’t comment as to the efficacy of the locking mechanism, but based on the visible mechanics, I’m not particularly optimistic about it’s mechanical strength.

However not content with that iffyness, this grip has two added ovoid blades (more crescent shaped actually), one at the top, just beneath the head, above the pivot point, and one at the pommel, with the bottom one attached with yet more pivot bolt madness.

I have actually run into this design on several occasions over the years. And I can finally give voice to the thought that ran through my head every time I saw it:

WHAT THE…!!?!?

Why that particular response? Well, here’s my thing. In my admittedly neurotic mind, axes have traditionally been the brawn of the blade world. Big solid heavy heads, strong shafts, strong utility edge grinds, etc. They are not about finesse. When you swing an axe, it’s supposed to be with authority.

With this “futuristic” design, if you were to ever swing it, not only would you have to worry about the pivot locking mechanism holding, but also the fact that the whole thing is held together by two relatively puny bolts.

A locking mechanism and/or bolts that might gain an intense aversion to such treatment and decide to just pack it in and go home. Without the customary two weeks notice. Yeah. With something like this I wouldn’t be comfortable swinging it with any more authority than a chihuahua barking at a hungry Rottweiler.

That’s not to say I entirely dislike it. I like the talon-like shape of the grip blades. And notwithstanding the gimping of the rear edge with the cutouts and shrouding and whatnot, the head has some decent aesthetics.

And though I could do without it, I really don’t mind the over-the-top pseudo futuristic garbage people keep cranking out. (I mean seriously, from these excessively busy designs you’d think the designers think our future generations will all suffer from a serious global epidemic of ADD… Wait… Whut?)

But sometimes the sheer level of functional dysfunction I see in some of these designs really makes me wonder whether it’s really that hard for people to make functionally feasible and mechanically sound art. Perhaps I ask too much. Maybe I’m just an obsessive compulsive pedant who likes to rant about stupid blades. Perhaps I’m just insane.

It’s probably all of the above…

Futuristic Oval Axe thingy – [Anime Castle]

LOL. Yes. The title above is the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this:

Black Ronin Tomahawk

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In keeping with names that make little contextual sense, someone saw fit to call this otherwise quite interesting little axe a Black Ronin Tomahawk. Because clearly, masterless Native American Samurai needed a very specialized weapon for their… Samurai War parties… *cough*.

Just on the off chance you don’t get what I’m ranting about, a tomahawk is a small axe or war hatchet native to early North Americans. A Ronin is a rogue, or masterless, Japanese Samurai warrior. Under normal circumstances, a melding of these two cultures, both continents and worlds apart, might seem unnatural. But not in the knife industry! Here we have Beverly hills ninjas, Spear heads masquerading as fantasy axes, and… Native American Japanese weaponry… It’s all kinds of WIN rolled into one…

Black Ronin Tomahawk

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But back to the identity compromised hatchet at hand. It’s actually not a bad looking piece of steel. Hatchets are generally always useful tools, and this one certainly looks the part, with some sinister to spare. In addition to the prerequisite hatchet bladed head, we have a bladed spike on the rear of the head, which, very reminiscent of the German pick-axe design I blogged about a while back, seems like it would be a very useful multi purpose tool, and an even better weapon, incorporating both a point and a bladed edge.

The cord wrapped grip has a short finger guard protrusion up front, with a similar one in the back, though I can’t for the life of me think of any practical purpose for it. It does however add to the menacing look of the weapon, as does the similar point at the top and at the butt of the grip, giving this think lots of menacing points. All the better to throw this with, though the added point don’t seem like they’d provide any additional stickiness…

But nonetheless, the overall design, with it’s points and the very necessary flat black finish, lends it a kind of no-nonsense air that I kind of like. As I said, lots of sinister to go around… Even if it is a multi-cultural intercontinental hybrid of sorts…

Black Ronin Tomahawk – [Realm Collections]

If a woodchuck could chuck wood? Ah yes, the quintessential question of the nature of a creature that has apparently been inappropriately named. There is no answer… And yes. My whimsical reverie was spawned by an actual weapon. A rather unusual weapon, in that it is made primarily of wood, though this doesn’t make it any less menacing in appearance…

The Leiomano

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Now you might be wondering what this weapon has got to do with wood chucks chucking wood… Well I’ll tell you. There are a number of sites I encountered that listed this weapon as a “Hawaiian Throwing Axe”. Get it? A wooden throwing weapon? So like if a woodchuck could chuck wood, (and this woodchuck also just happened to be a weapons fanatic) this is probably what they would be chucking. Right at your head. Ouch. Except for one thing. This isn’t really a throwing axe.

Yeah, sorry. This is in fact a Hawaiian melee weapon. Seriously, if you look at the design, you can see that it would be ill suited to throwing. Weapons designed for throwing usually use harder materials, as many a throw could end up hitting something hard, like a rock, the ground, etc. This weapon uses wood, cord, and shark teeth. Shark teeth fastened in place with a twine of sorts. And while shark teeth are great for ripping up soft flesh, they would not survive an impact with a hard place, much less the leather thong or twine holding it in place.

Here’s another example:

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As you can see from the pic, the teeth are aligned just right so that any blow from this, glancing, pulling, cleaving, etc would almost certainly draw blood. And while it might not be as effective as a sword, you better believe that a battle with combatants taking repeated hits from this would get torn to shreds and bleed to death.

And if you take into account that the heavy wooden head could probably deliver pretty hefty blows all by itself, even without the benefit of shark teeth, you can see how this would make for a very effective melee weapon. Here’s a closer look at how it’s all put together:

[view full size]

That is one lethal and mean looking weapon. Even if it’s made out of wood. And string. And shark teeth. No self respecting woodchuck would go anywhere near one of these…

Leiomano – [Kumulau.com]

I don’t post a whole lot about spears, not because they aren’t cool, but more because I don’t run into many that I find particularly remarkable. There are a lot of different spear designs, but i keep running into the same old ones I’ve seen before. But then there are those that literally jump up an down saying “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!”:

Warrior Blood Lust Battle Spear

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Now this particular weapon caught my eye for several reasons. First, it’s design is actually somewhat difficult to classify. Calling this a spear… well… it’s quite a bit of a stretch. Actually it’s quite a large stretch. In fact, I highly doubt it’s spear heritage. It seems a little lacking in ex”pear”ience, as it were… (pun intended or not, you choose ) Actually it appears to have more in common with a melee axe than a spear…

I mean for one thing, this is rather short for a spear. At 18″ It’s actually the perfect length for a melee axe. And then look at the head. While there is a large point that could pass for a spear tip, the most dominant design feature appears to be the uncannily axe-like crescent blade affixed to the head, with the double sharpened points aft of that.

And then theres the… *cough* tassels…? Err… Removable tassels actually… yeah… Now in a real spear, the tassels would be made of some lighter material, and would be wrapped directly behind the head of the spear to redirect wayward blood, from your average freshly perforated foe, off the spear head and away from the grip. On this weapon, they have taken up residence on the pommel… More like a dark pom-pom than a spear…

To be totally honest, I think this weapon is really an melee axe with self esteem issues… Hence the tassels. And referring to itself as a “spear” when, in reality it’s a small melee axe… And then there’s the heavily testosterone laden name: “Warrior Blood Lust Battle Spear”… yeah… And the kicker is, I never thought that there was anything wrong with being a simple melee axe. They are pretty lethal in their own right…

Perhaps it’s designer was trying to compensate for other shortcomings? I dunno, I’m just idly speculating here… But I’m just saying… You know…? Or am I being too harsh…?

Naaaaah… Definitely some issues there…

Warrior Blood Lust Battle Spear – [True Swords]