Martial arts weapons

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MyKidsDad

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Joined
Nov 27, 2008
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146
Location
Edmond OK
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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My instructor specifically requested dull edges :biggrin:. I have learned the form we do with them and there is certainly potential for injuring one self if the edge was sharpened. I did have one black belt ask me if I could make one set with sharpened edges. I told him I would make them for him if he got approval from our instructor.

From what I have been taught, one of their primary uses is as a form of defense against a sword. If the attacker uses the sword in a thrusting motion, you close your arms like the jaws of a pair of pliers capturing the blade of the sword in between the two knives. They are also used offensively where the curved portion of the blade is thrust into an attackers throat or in an overhead raking motion where you would hit with one point first then follow through in a raking motion with the second point.
 
Very COOL!

Steve, the manager at the Houston Rockler, was telling me he made his bo out of purpleheart...said the other guys at the dojo hate it because it breaks their bo's! :eek:

I think he's a member here but I'm not sure what name he uses...I keep waiting to see his bandsaw sliding table jig! :cool:

Anyway, sorry i got off track...those are very nicely done! Enjoy!
 
KiltedGunn said:
Very COOL!

Steve, the manager at the Houston Rockler, was telling me he made his bo out of purpleheart...said the other guys at the dojo hate it because it breaks their bo's! :eek:

I think he's a member here but I'm not sure what name he uses...I keep waiting to see his bandsaw sliding table jig! :cool:

Anyway, sorry i got off track...those are very nicely done! Enjoy!
Click to expand...

I toyed around with the idea of making my own bo. In the end, I found a wooden weapon maker on the internet and ordered one from him. My bo is ipe. I could've ordered it in a number of different woods and while ipe wasn't the hardest wood available, it was a nice combination of hard and flexible.
 
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