I study Kung Fu with my two kids. One of the weapons we learn are called crescent knives. According to my instructor, it has been about 10-15 years since he has been able to find them in a catalog. He knows I am into woodworking so a while back he asked me if I could try to make some out of plywood. Well, one of the black belts happened to have some 1/4" aluminum in his garage that he had been planning to take to a scrap yard so he asked if I wanted to try making them out of aluminum.
I pattern routed the aluminum on my shaper table. It is hard to tell in the photos but I polished the aluminum by sanding through 2000 and then buffing. The wooden handles are epoxied to the aluminum. The edges of the wooden handles are rounded over with a thumbnail bit so they fit the shape of the closed hand better and provide a more comfortable grip.
I made two different sizes...a teenage/adult size and a little kid size (because that's what was needed to fit my 7 year old daughter's hands). The first photo shows a set of the teenage/adult size with cocobolo handles. The second photo shows one adult size (laying down) and one of my daughter's (standing up). My daughter's set has dyed, stabilized box elder burl that I bought on ebay. The last picture shows the other girl that I made one of the smaller sets for using her crescent knives at a demonstration.
I have made 11 sets of these so far (9 large sets, 2 little sets). I have two more sets to make (mine and my son's) but I am burned out on them for now (especially the sanding/polishing part :hypnotized
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I pattern routed the aluminum on my shaper table. It is hard to tell in the photos but I polished the aluminum by sanding through 2000 and then buffing. The wooden handles are epoxied to the aluminum. The edges of the wooden handles are rounded over with a thumbnail bit so they fit the shape of the closed hand better and provide a more comfortable grip.
I made two different sizes...a teenage/adult size and a little kid size (because that's what was needed to fit my 7 year old daughter's hands). The first photo shows a set of the teenage/adult size with cocobolo handles. The second photo shows one adult size (laying down) and one of my daughter's (standing up). My daughter's set has dyed, stabilized box elder burl that I bought on ebay. The last picture shows the other girl that I made one of the smaller sets for using her crescent knives at a demonstration.
I have made 11 sets of these so far (9 large sets, 2 little sets). I have two more sets to make (mine and my son's) but I am burned out on them for now (especially the sanding/polishing part :hypnotized
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