Glass Throwing Knives?

Joined
Apr 18, 2002
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2
I'm a newbie so bear with me but I've heard a few people complain that throwing a knife or throwing star at someone just gives them a weapon to use on you. It seems that this risk could be reduced by making the weapons out of glass. The idea is that if you missed your target the blade will break, especially in an urban environment with a lot of cement.

If the weapon lodged into the target it would probably not break, but it would at least hurt him and possibly hurt him even more if he tried to take it out.

Obviously for practice you would want to utilize some sort of soft target or even a tougher type of glass that weighs the same as the knife.

Is there anyone out there who has tried this, and if so, does it work?

Abaddon
 
But awfully expensive to get accurate with...probably so expensive that it would prohibit anyone from bothering.

Another, much cheaper, alternative, is to become proficient with slightly altered 20D spike nails. Having bought a box of 1000+ for around $35 at the local Home Depot, I can attest that, once a decent point is put on them (I like about a 15-20 degree point--takes about 1 minute per spike on the grinder) they penetrate just as well as my Hibben throwers. On the other hand, they take a bit of getting used to, so unless you're up against a chap just as experienced as you (you ARE going to practice every day, AREN'T you?!?) or a natural thrower, they probably won't be able to use them for much anything else than poking at you. Of course, if you're throwing these at an opponent, it implies you have the breathing room to make such attack hopeless.

Finally, the bonus is, if you get pulled over and searched, most officers aren't hip enough to think twice about a bunch of nails in your car. Carry a hammer with them, and not only do you have the perfect cover ("Officer, I'm off to help my Pa mend the fence on our property..."), but you have one of the finest melee weapons made in the last century, short of a Tomahawk (roofing hatchet). Conversely, if you get pulled over with a couple of glass dagger-shaped objects, at worst you get labelled instantly as a dangerous criminal, or at best as a sex freak ("Look, Junior, I don't CARE what you do with 'em...it's WEIRD! Hands on the hood!").

My two coppers.

Kal
 
That's a good idea about the nails, Kalindras, but how do you get them to stick in point first? I always thought that the point had to be heavier for a throwing implement to work right. Point taken about the incrimination factor, however, these are not the types of things I would carry around much, if at all. Just a thought.

Also, my idea to avoid having to constantly replace the knives was for a company to come up with a type of glass that weighs about the same as normal glass but could withstand the abuse. I'm pretty sure they have such things and if they did, it would not necessarily be prohibitively expensive to practice with the heavy duty practice knives on a softer target and avoid damaging the real knives made of more fragile glass.:confused:
 
Objects which are heavier toward the point are somewhat easier to stick, since you don't have a heavy handle that wants to keep rotating and flip the point out of the target. No matter where the knife/nail/whatever balances, however, you have to control the rotation so that it arrives point first at the target - differing balance points don't make this any easier.

I've always thought the danger of "giving your opponent a weapon" by throwing was overrated, since you're generally not going to throw a knife in combat unless you're in a desperate situation; i.e., if your opponent already has a better weapon or otherwise has an immidiate overwhelming advantage.
 
Same way you get to Carnegie Hall...

As for making "glass" weapons more durable, I'm sure it's possible. Basically, you have to figure out what qualities you want from glass, though. Obviously, you won't want ALL of the qualities that glass exhibits, or you'd just use glass--so you have to determine what you're trying to keep, and what to lose. Is it important to you that the weapons be transparent? Plastic at high temperature? Brittle? An insulator, electrically speaking?

As a suggestion, if you're looking for a material that is transparent and similarly workable to glass, but much more durable, you might consider Lexan. I had a set of juggling balls made out of Lexan, once...although they got mighty scratched up, they never did shatter, the many times that I dropped them... :D (of course, heading back to the original post, it seems like you're looking for the weapon to be SPECIFICALLY fragile, so this might not be the way to go for you)

Finally, as Brett said, the whole consternation about "giving away a weapon" is really overrated. I was a fair Heller, growing up, and you know--in none of the many fights that I got into did I ever throw ANYTHING more than a beer bottle. The legal side to it is just too bad, too! In the eyes of the law, I can see where you'd be in a real spot, coming out of that situation:

Attorney: "So, you attacked Mr. Jones, did you not?"
You: "No, he was attacking me!"
Attorney: "But he was so far away, you had to THROW your knife at him, did you not?"
You: "Yes, but he was coming towards me, aggressively."
Attorney: "And instead of choosing to flee the scene, you actively chose to attack him, by throwing a knife at him?"
You: "NO!"
Attorney: "Yet you threw a knife at him! Who, exactly, was the aggressor in this scenario?!?"

See what I mean? Thus, you would probably never throw a knife in a fight. Besides, I always found that bottles did the trick for me--if they ducked to avoid getting hit, I could run (really ANY thrown object is usually used as suppressing fire, to get your opponent's head DOWN so you can move in or run). If they didn't, the sound of breaking glass against a human skull will oftentimes give one a moment's pause, even if the damage done is purely cosmetic. And it's a lot easier to explain to the nice officer that catches you on 6th street, why you're carrying a bottle...

:D :D :D

Kal
 
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