The Realm of the Dark Blade

Wow… It’s 2010 folks… 2010!

2009  just flew away… And didn’t even look back.I, for one, would like to thank the thousands of you that read this blog on a daily basis, believe me, I never thought I was writing anything that interesting. Well at least not to anyone but me… But I can’t say it hasn’t been rewarding. And to my regulars, I say Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu. Thank you very much! I will do my level best to continue to keep you all entertained in 2010!

And 2010 looks like it will be an auspicious year. It’s a nice round number, for one thing. And It has a movie named after it… though somehow I doubt the events in the movie will actually occur in real life… But either way, I think this is going to be an amazing year… I can just feel it in my smoldering bones. I’ve got some interesting projects planned, and I think you will all like them.

This will be the year of really, really, cool stuff. And I leave you with one such piece of cool to contemplate:

The Sword Gun

Awesome to 2010 and BEYOND!!!

Best wishes for the new year, from me, your perpetually fiery host, from the Realm of the Dark Blade!

~Phyreblade~

Konnichiwa! So I thought I’d try and come up with some clever title for this post, since both tigers and dragons are subjects, (in a matter of speaking) of this post. But, as you may probably have guessed by now, the only thing that kept popping into my head was  “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” Yes. So I took the easy route. Pathetic isn’t it? I have no imagination. *sigh*

Anyway, today I thought I’d show you more great stuff from the site of NineDirections.com, as Matthew was kind enough to send me more pictures of his work. The first item on the list today are more pics of the Ninja Shuko (Tiger Claws) from the last post on the topic. First we have a really cool pic of the Shuko hand hoop being forged.

Shuko - Forging the Hand Hoop

And here we have a couple of cool shuko just hanging out and acting all cool…

Ninja Shuko (Toger Claws) - Just Hanging Out

A pair of Shuko with their battle faces on… >: (

Shuko - Claws Out!

Enter the Shuko! LOL… OK, ok… I get it. Enough with the Shuko.

So how about… Dragons? Specifically Dragon Tails? Yeah, I thought so… Dragon Tails, also sometimes called Rope Darts or Dragons Tongues, are basically a small blade attached to length of rope anywhere from five to who-know-how-many feet in length.

Dragons Tail

They can be spun at great speeds, and controlled via cord or chain, can be used to cut or penetrate hard targets at distance. A rather intimidating weapon, indeed. I’ve always loved the rustic feel of raw sharpened steel, and Matthew at Nine Directions has, as usual, replicated the look beautifully.

Dragons Tail - Edge

So what we have here, folks, is a heavy slab of steel, with sharp edges, on a rope. You can’t beat that with a baseball bat. Yet another example of some excellent work by NineDirections!

Dragons Tail – [Nine Directions]

Ninja Shuko – [Nine Directions]

Why? Because I have some unique darts I’d like to try out…

Cold Steel Urban Dart

This is the Cold Steel Urban Dart. Now to be honest, the name is a bit of a mystery to me. Why call it a dart? And why an urban dart? I dunno. But it is certainly one cool looking dart. And it’s design has a lot of merit as a concealed tactical bladed weapon.

Sporting a 5.75″ Aus8 blade, attached to a 2.25″ kraton handle with a small lanyard hole, all put together in a trim, slim form factor, this dart has all the makings of an easy to conceal little knife. Could easily be used as a neck knife, though I would not recommend you rely on this for something like outdoor use, since that I think 2.25 grip is waaaaay to small for a good wilderness knife. No, this looks like it would really be best used for things like an easily concealed defensive tool. Perhaps that is where the “Urban” part of it’s name comes from.

The design does have some interesting characteristics. About an inch or so above the kraton grip, on the ricasso of the blade, we see a grroved depression, clearly intended to be used as a thumb grip area. This would suggest the blade would be best held in a form of full handed pinch grip, with the ricasso held between thumb and folded forefinger.

The swell of the kraton base should fit in the closed palm of the hand, giving it a decent grip. And the flat kraton pommel should also allow it to be used as an impromptu punch dagger, with the blade held between the fingers, presuming Cold Steel has put enough Kraton down on that pommel to prevent the steel from pushing through.

And, of course, it is also very nicely shaped for throwing. perhaps where the “dart” part of the name came from, though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you get one of these and start throwing it like you would throw a dart. Certainly not at another human. Unless, of course they started it first.    But either way, it ought to be a rather nimble little defensive blade.

And, funnily enough, I think I have just solved the riddle of why they decided to call it an ‘Urban Dart”.

Very cool idea. I like it.

Urban Dart by Cold Steel – [True Swords]

Ok, so I’ve been looking for a few good all around large wilderness knives, large blades, like machetes and the like, things I could substitute for an axe. My personal philosophy for wilderness excursions is to carry a large blade instead of an axe, because while an axe is really, really good for heavy duty chopping, unless you are doing something really involved, like building a log cabin, you could probably get by with a large knife instead.

And in addition to that, there are a gazillion things you can do with a large machete that an axe would just be too unwieldy for. My personal benchmark, my reference blade, my standard for any large blade that can double as an axe, is the Nepalese Khukuri. And I actually did find a Khukuri to add to my outdoor kit. That blade, however, is the topic of another post.

Today, I’d like to talk about one of the more popular machete type tools I happened to run across during my search: The Woodmans Pal:

Woodmans Pal

Now this is one of the more unique machete designs I’ve happened across during my ramblings across the internet, and for the most part, I like what I see. Good solid construction, no gimmicky features, like some of the other specialized machetes I’ve blogged about in the past. I will admit that in my opinion, this machete does carry a little bit of bloatware on board, depending on how you plan to use this useful not-so-little blade, however this ends up working in it’s favor, which I will talk a little bit about later on.

So, lets start from the bottom. The Woodmans pal comes in two flavors, one with a nice hardwood grip, and the other with the premium, and very nice looking compressed leather grip, with an integrated D shaped knuckle guard, as shown later below. Me personally, I like the leather grip and knuckle guard, but depending on how you plan to use the machete, the wood may be a better choice, for reasons I’ll also get into later.

But perhaps the most distinctive feature of this machete is it’s blade. The woodmans pal features an interesting forward swept design, with the blade getting a little wider, as it gets towards the top. Interestingly the edge is not sharpened all the way to the top, but stops just short of the wide, flat tip. However at the top of the blade, opposite the unsharpened top edge, we have a billhook jutting from the spine.

The billhook sits in a depression stamped into the top of the hook, so as to ensure that, when oriented correctly, the blade of the hook is always lower than the blade of the machete, which should make it easier to catch limbs and brush with. I thought was a very clever design feature, though this is also where my little nitpicks begin.

The Woodmans Pal

Here’s the thing. This design is quite innovative, however it suffers from a few shortcomings. For instance, if you opt for the model with the leather grip and knuckle guard, you may find that your options for using the billhook are actually a little limited. Because as clever as the design is, that depression makes it biased towards one hand over the other, depending on whether you are a southpaw or not, and also depending on how you use a machete.

If you are one of the unfortunate few for whom the placement of the depression for the billhook makes it a little harder to use, you may want to opt for the wood grip, since the knuckle guard will generally only aggravate this problem, and the wood handle is actually much better designed to allow the machete to be used upside down. I also found that, at least based on the way I use machetes, there was only a marginal advantage to having it. A lot of what I might do with the billhook, I could do with just the machete blade alone.

However I will say that the bill hook, in combination with the slight flare of the blade as it rises towards the tip, provides the tool with a top heavy balance that should give it rather khukuri-like qualities in terms of chopping power. Perhaps with not quite the same kind of elegance that the Khukuri carries, but some semblance of it’s chopping ability nonetheless.

Now individually, none of these features are particularly unique. However put together, it makes for one heck of a well balanced, exotic gardening implement! The wood and leather, where used, appear to be of great quality, and the steel is a good quality tempered carbon spring steel, so no demerits in that area either. All in all, a really great machete, if you are in the market for something of this nature.

Equally confidence inspiring is that Pro Tool Industries, the maker of the Woodmans Pal, offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee or your money back. I’m tend to be a bit leery when I see things like that, but based on what I’ve seen of it, I’d be willing to bet few have ever taken advantage of this offer.

So really, apart from the whole billhook thing, I can’t really knock this. And it even comes in black. I wish they made one without the billhook.

But then I guess it just wouldn’t be a Woodmans Pal.

‘Tis a shame really…

The Woodmans Pal – [Pro Tool Industries, Inc]

I have always been a big fan of butterfly knives, aka balisongs or batangas. They are beautiful knives, both in construction and also in the aesthetics of how they are often used. Just the simple act of flipping a balisong open is a thing of beauty. It is one of the very few knives for which the simple act of opening it is an art in and of itself.

Sure, there are martial arts related to drawing and cutting with a sword, like Iaidō, but even the fast flashy draw, or the finishing flourish of the blade before re-sheathing, in Iaidō pales in comparison to the nimble flash of a balisong. Soooo… What do you think the topic of todays’ post is going to be? Yeah, go ahead, guess. You can do it, I’ve given you a rather big hint, so you can’t go wrong! Go for it!

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BZZZZZZT!!!

WRONG AGAIN!!

ROFLMAO… SUCKERS!!!!

You guys… You make it too easy… LOL..

Ok, ok, so I’m being a jerk. You’re not entirely wrong. I’m just messin’ with ya. Sometimes I just gotta. Cause you all are such good sports n all…

Technically the blade I’m going to be talking about today is, in fact, distantly related to butterfly knives, however it is lacking one of the things that make a butterfly knife a butterfly knife. I’ll let you in on what that is a little later in the post. For now, suffice it to say, this blade is sweeet!

Butterfly Commando With Knuckle Guard

This here is the Butterfly Commando. With knuckle guard. Essentially what we have here is a fairly cool looking folding blade, designed so that it’s split grip can fold around the blade. And it is also designed with a unique feature: one of the handles has an extended knuckle guard, which wraps around both the other handle as well as the blade. Pretty nifty.

I generally don’t find such shiny blades anything special, but I really like this one. The ergonomics of the grip are actually quite well thought out, at least from a fixed blade perspective. The side of the handle that goes into your palm has a nice swell, to help fill the hand, while the side with the knuckle guard, features a set of shallow choils where the fingers will rest.

Both should provide a secure grip during use. And the cleverly placed knuckle guard could, in addition to protecting the knuckles, actually also be used like brass knuckles. And everything all folds into a nice compact form factor. Even the contours of the strong clip point blade are fairly impressive. All in all quite a cool tool. For the most part.

I do have some points of concern. First off, there appears to be a slot in the blade. Yeah, I wish people would stop doing that. I’m really getting tired of seeing perfectly good blades defaced in that way…  Really people. You want to shave weight? Use a fuller. In my opinion, a fuller is better in every way. I guess it’s just cheaper and easier to slot the blade than to forge or grind a fuller… Cheap/lazy bastiges… Bah!

And then there’s the whole “butterfly” thing. Honestly, I can’t classify this knife as a true butterfly knife. Why? Because, in spite of the coolness of that “D” shaped handle knuckle guard thingy, it prevents you from doing what Balisongs are made to do. Which is, of course, to flip and spin those suckers open and closed like there was no tomorrow.

No, if you’ve ever used a balisong, it should be clear just from looking at the pic above, how that gul darned knuckle guard will get in the way of everything. Which is a shame really, because this design is really quite cool. Now don’t get me wrong, this is really not a bad knife design. Well… Actually, that slot does grind my gears, but besides that, I love it. It is a great folding design, and a great knife design (apart from that blasted slot, of course).

It’s just that, well… It’s just not a real Balisong. But that could just be me being a persnickety knife snob…

In all honesty, it’s really a great blade, so long as your expectations are not as unreasonable as mine…

Butterfly Commando – [Fortune Sales]

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]

I ran across an interesting set of throwing stars, of a rather counter intuitive design. Yes, I said counter intuitive.  Yes, I know, not exactly the words you’d expect to see in the same sentence as “throwing stars” but that’s just how it is. Let me show you the counter intuitive goods:

Rainbow Batman Batarangs

Yeah… Rainbow Batarangs. Two words you never thought you’d see in the same sentence no? “Rainbow” and “Batarang”? Yeah, me neither. But there it is. A far cry from the rather beautiful, jet black batarangs of The Dark Knight. And entirely out of character. The Bats does not do light colors. I can pretty much guarantee you that.

In fact, I think the day that the Batman uses rainbow finished batarangs is the day he trades in his black (or navy blue, depending on what era you are partial to) superhero costume, and dons a multicolored spandex body suit and cape, complete with a big, bright, rainbow colored clown fro, and big red nose. At which point even the Joker would probably throw in the towel, and give up his life of crime forever. I kid you not.

But don’t hold your breath. It ain’t ever gonna happen. The Bats just ain’t that kind of guy.

Either way, you are hopefully beginning to see why I consider these designs are  counter intuitive. But wait! There’s more! Besides the completely off color scheme, I find the batarang design fundamentally flawed. Yes. I do. I really do.

Oh don’t look at me like that, I idolize the Bats just as much as the next guy, In fact, he is actually my favorite superhero, followed closely by Wolvie. But I still think this batarang design just… Sucks. Yeah. That would be the technical term. Batarang Suckage. And you can quote me on that.

You do know I can hear you right? No reason to yell. “Blasphemy!”, “Sacrilege!”, “How dare I!?” Whatever. Put a sock in it. If you’ll stop frothing at the mouth in rage and anger for a moment, I’ll explain why I feel as I do.

First and foremost, the first and original incarnation of the “Batarang”, as it was called, was never intended to be a shuriken. It was intended to be a custom, Batman designed boomerang. Combining a high tech computer controlled propulsion system, with the traditional Australian throwing weapon design, it was designed for double duty as either a traditional boomerang whose trajectory could be modified, or a simple impact thrower.

That implementation made sense. Even though it was much smaller, the boomerang-like curved shape of  the weapon, (even if it did have uncharacteristically sharp inner contours) and even the name, all made sense: Bat+Boomerang=Batarang!

However with the advent of “Batman Begins” (at least in the movies) the batarang concept was corrupted in homage to his Ninjutsu training. The weapon, which actually became quite a distinctive character, (Yes, I said “character”. Weapons are just as much characters in movies as the actors that wield them. But this is a discussion for a nother post.  ) was recast as a bat styled shuriken.

And that is where they went wrong.

A quick look at any of the many, many traditional Japanese hira shuriken (throwing star) designs, will quickly reveal that they all have one characteristic that the batarang does not. They are generally radially symmetrical in at least 3 axes. And those that aren’t are throwing spikes, or bo-shuriken, which are completely different.

Now this multi axis symmetry has several benefits. It helps make a shuriken’s rotation consistent and predictable in midflight. It also positions the bulk of the mass of the weapon behind each point and as it rotates towards the target, so as to increase the depth of penetration upon impact. And it also increases the chances that a point sticks into the target by giving each point the greatest possible amount ot time pointing to the target for any give number of points, and for any given number of rotations, as it flies to the target.

And therein lies the kicker. The batarang design, violated and heinously pressed into services as a bat shuriken, completely flies in the face of this tried and true conventional wisdom, and is only symmetrical in one axis. Down the center. It’s center of gravity is offset from the line of it’s points, and it is assymety is such that it is only likely to stick at one of two positions.

Now that’s just poor shuriken design if you ask me. I can see the need for the Bats to have some way of marking his work, and a bat shuriken is certainly a cool one, however I don’t really see the point of compromising the design of a weapon in order to do so. He could just as easily have used a symmetrical 4 point shuriken, utilizing a half bat wing for each point. Or even a whole bat.

So long as it was radially symmetrical, it would have worked brilliantly. And it would still have conveyed the whole Bat-thing just as well. But I will admit that the concept of the Bat shuriken is still kinda cool. I Just wish they didn’t have to completely obliterate the effectiveness of the weapon in order to achieve those cool aesthetics…

Rainbow Batman Batarangs – [The Happy Ninja]

So I like multitools as much as anyone else, but I think there is a common sense limit to what they should be able to do. I have a SAK (Swiss Army Knife)  that I bought oh, about 15 or so odd years ago, and in spite of being one of my regular use EDCs for the vast majority of that time, it works today pretty much like it did the day I bought it. I’ve misplaced the pen from the SAK, and signal mirror that used to be stored in the leather case, but besides that, it’s a gem.

Now my SAK has about 17 or 18 different tools on it, not counting what’s in the sheath that it came with, and I have used each and every tool on that thing at one point or another so I can’t really complain about it having too many, however I’ve always wondered if there was such a thing as too much… Like too many tools… or maybe a tool that just makes no sense.

Wenger Giant Swiss Army Knife

Well, I’ve seen the humongous, gazillion tool Swiss Army Knife, so that first question has been answered.

However the answer to the second question came in the form of a rather unique multitool I found a while back… I’ll let you judge for yourself:

Utility Knife & Tool

Now this is certainly an interesting multitool. In addition to having very few tools, at least compared to most other multitools out there, it has a rather… eclectic… selection of tools. By my count I see 6 tools. Which, in an of itself, isn’t bad, if all you need are 6 tools, I’m a fan of economy of tools, and getting only what you need, but, in this case… well, lets go through the list.

First, the staples of any multitool, we have a simple knife. Good to go. Then moving on, we have a can opener. No complaints. Then a set of heavy wire cutters. Cool. The wire cutters are part of a set of pliers. Can’t go wrong there. And what looks like maybe a spring for the handle of the pliers. I dunno. BUT, Then we have, integrated with the head of the pliers… A claw hammer.

Yeah… A claw hammer. Really? A CLAW HAMMER? on a MULTITOOL?!? Now don’t get me wrong, I think the claw part is actually a good idea. You could use that to pull nails, open crates, etc. But the hammer head… This thing would have to be built like a tank in order to handle use as a hammer.

Now I must cede that there may actually be people out there that would find something like this incredibly useful. But even so, that whole claw hammer thing just really kills the portability of this tool. Yes, it comes with a sheath, which I’m guessing would b rather large. And I don’t know how much it weighs, but it would probably feel like a brick hanging from your belt.

And even if it didn’t wouldn’t the hammer just be a pain to use being attached to the swiveling part of the pliers? Keep swinging open on you and stuff? I’m all about innovation and invention, but this thing… I don’t know.

I really don’t know…

Utility Knife and Tool – [True Swords]

Now I could have sworn I had already put together a post for this blade, however my (admittedly hasty) searches seems to turn up nothing. So I thought I’d go ahead and post about this interesting little knife, duplicate post or not!!! Allow me to introduce the Widow Queen.

Widow Queen

It should be fairly obvious where the name of this blade came from, but for the entomological neophytes among you, the spider whose front legs are oh, so possessively surrounding the hilt of this dagger is, in fact, meant to be a female Black Widow Spider, most easily identified by the red hourglass shape on it’s abdomen.

The Black Widows is a highly venomous spider, and envenomation by female black widows has been known to kill humans. I’d be willing to bet that whoever designed this knife probably had a rather personal experience with one… Now in in real life, of course, black widows tend to be black in color, however in this case, I think we can afford to make an exception. Especially since this particular variety of black widow would probably be a heckuvalot lot more deadly in the right hands.

Either way, I certainly like the black widow motif of this blade, even though I think it goes too far in several ways. For instance, do we really need to have a full double sided hand guard (the widows front legs) and a cross guard on the same blade? I would rather have just had the cross guard, and even that is a little overly ornate for my taste.

The same goes for the pommel. You have the little spider limb thing going on, *and* a spike. What’s up with that? In fact, now that i look at it, this dagger would have been just fine entirely without the spider. A simple spiked pommel, the cool black ridged grip, a simpler, not so spikey cross guard, and that absolutly beautiful blade…

Yes… The blade on this thing is the main reason why I really like it. Now don’t get me wrong, the Black Widow was excellently done, and i could see them making replicas of that all by itself, sans the dagger. But for me, the blade is where it’s at on this knife. The swell of the ricasso, the smooth sweep into that almost straight blade, narrowing smoothly down into an absolutely evil point… I just love that profile.

Sometimes I wonder whether the people who design things like this actually realize how beautiful the blades are, all by themselves. No need for themes, motifs, spiders scorpions and whatnot, even though they can sometimes be cool. Because even if this had been a simple dagger, just this blade, a simple cross guard, black smooth grip, maybe with a simpler point on the pommel, it would still have ended up on this page.

Or maybe marketing has no clue… Who knows.

Either way, it’s a real pity…

Widow Queen – [The Collectors Edge]

Every once in a while I come across a knife that, while interesting by itself, is made even more interesting by the creative integration of strategically incorporated props…

Ivory Art Folder by Herbst

Here is an interesting blade, or set of blades. Or whatever. It in fact looks like an ivory scaled, damascus bladed folder, mounted atop a custom designed blade display, strategically designed to make it look like the head of a… Pterodactyl? A cockatiel maybe… I dunno.

Ivory Art Folder - Open

Either way, from the site of Herbst Knife Making Academy we have the quite appropriately named “Ivory Art Folder”. ‘Cause that’s exactly what it is. A work of art. In ivory and damascus steel. Even half closed it looks cool…

Ivory Art Folder - Folding

Quite an interesting piece, incorporating a very unique serration design on the blade, as well as an amazing level of detail on what I’d call the “eye” of the great damascus cockatiel…

Ivory Art Folder - Scales and Eye

Great stuff eh? The back of the grip was also treated to some equally unique styling cues…

Ivory Art Folder - Back

All in all, some really great work here… Though the mounting itself seems evil enough on it’s own to be used as a weapon… A punch dagger or something…

Ivory Art Folder - Head

Gotta love how blade art can be so evil looking and cool at the same time!

Ivory Art Folder – [Herbst Knifemaking Academy]