Training Knife for the Credit Crunch!

How to make cheap and resistant training knives

…or why you shouldn’t spend your hard earned cash on some overpriced training knife made in ‘Shmuckistan’

Everyone struggles with purchase of training equipment for reality based self defence training.

Many students of the martials and self defence cannot afford to buy top of the range training suits or a special training knife worth £££s. Although the equipment might be worthy of the great price, many just can’t go to that level (many struggle just to find the fees for training).

Here’s an article that I found on a Lebanon Senshido Instructor’s website that was intended to help the reader make his/her own inexpensive (and relatively durable) training knife. Money is really tight in some foreign countries and this costs about £3 in materials, but for another fiver you can get this great training knife here for about £8 or so:

Sport Aluminium Training Knife

Material needed:

- A wad of A4 printing paper (Cost: quasi-free if you own a printer or fax. Else about £2.50 per pack of 200 sheets, can be used to make other knives or scratch paper)
- A roll of clear scotch adhesive tape that can be used to make two knife trainers. (Cost: £0.50)
- Another roll of brown or darker and larger adhesive tape that can be used to make two knife trainers as well. (Cost: £0.50)
- 50 cm worth of aluminum foil (optional) Can be found in the kitchen!
- Two 7 to 10 cm long stripes of sand paper (optional. Cost: £1 maximum for a folder of different grades from a cheap shop )
- A tube of super glue (optional. Cost: £1 maximum from a cheap shop)
- Small bamboo stick, 20 cm long (optional. A 2 meter long bamboo tube, with a 1 cm diameter costs less than £1)

Tools needed:

1- A Hammer
2- 20 minutes
3- A hard surface

Instructions:

First, take the A4 papers (20 pages should be enough) and roll them, squeezing them as hard as you can.

Then, while maintaining pressure on the roll, start taping the bottom with the dark-colored adhesive tape, also squeezing it to the best of your ability or engage the help of a friend squeezing the roll while you add more pressure and loop tape around it.

After covering the entire roll (pay special attention to the top and bottom ends of the cylinder-shaped object) with the larger (darker) adhesive tape, use the hammer to flatten half the “tube” obtained. Make sure you hammer it forcefully from both sides.

You should now have something looking like a knife. Make sure to reinforce the knife obtained with more dark tape (especially the “blade” or flattened part, that might be subject to bending if you hit something hard like a wall or a skull with it).

It is now time to use the aluminum foil: wrap it around the blade segment, making sure to cover the point or edge. (This will make the blade more life-like) Follow this up by wrapping the aluminum-covered blade and edge with clear “scotch” tape.

Finally, take the two sand paper strips and glue them to the edge of the blade, not forgetting to merge them at the tip of the trainer; this is an optional part, for those who are looking for an even more realistic (and painful) experience.

Acid testing the cheap training knife:

Make sure that the training knife is hard enough by stabbing a brick wall 3 or 4 times: if it doesn’t bend, then you are quasi certain that the point won’t collapse while impacting your training partner. To test the sandpapered blade, select a carton and slash it hard. If it tears through it, you might want to soften up the sandpaper by rubbing it against something you don’t like, for example your neighbour’s fence or your mother in law%u2026′s car.

Seriously, you want your training partner to “feel the burn” – not lose body parts.

The only problem with the knife is that it might bend when grabbed by your TP or yourself during knife defense and/ or knife drills (especially the infamous “Saving Private Ryan” knife drill).

You can either use the bamboo core to prevent this from happening or make another knife when this one gets destroyed.

Take care.Blitz Sport Aluminium Training Knife