Make a trainer

[Kid Couteau]

Hi All:

I was thinking and there are so many places that sell cheap import balis ( I bought two rostfreis for 3.99 each U.S.) that why couldn't a person make a trainer? Spyderco does it and all it is is a regular knife with the edges and point ground off.

For you guys that consider a bali a self defense knife you could practice with it also.

Just a thought
Knifesmith

BTW The ones I got for 3.99 each was at smoky mountain knife works. A specials catalog.

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I like throwing knives, they're quiet.

 

[Gollnick]

You certainly could. Some people think they can make a trainer by just grinding off the edge on a live blade, and sometimes you can. I make some dandy trainers out these really cheap knives that the local grocery store sells for about $4 each. A bit of grinding with the old Dremel and it's a nice trainer. But, I end up reprofiling the "blade" completely. It's a lot of grinding. What started out as the spine ends up as the "edge". It's possible since these "blades" are made out of such cheap soft metal and are fairly thin. Even so, I can only make about four per grinding wheel on the Dremel. Even the Charming China Cheapie balisongs seem to have reasonably hard steel and are fairly thick. If you have a nice bench grinder, you can probably do it.

A live blade starts out thick at the spine and thins to nothing at the edge. A proper trainer starts out thick and thins only enough to give a suggestion of an edge. Then, it's nicely rounded over. The tip is totally blunt. To make a typical Charming China Cheapie balisong into a trainer, you'd have to remove a lot of material so the blade would end up very narrow.

A better approach would be to remove the blade and very carefully trace the tang onto some appropriately thick aluminum. Then add a suitable blade design and grind it out of the Al stock. You'll need a drill press to very carefully drill the holes for the pins and the tang pin. Add a tang pin and you've just converted your Charming China Cheapie to a Charming Trainer.


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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com