Check out our website

While I am working on the drawings for part II don’t forget to check out our White Shadow Security website for great prices on custom tactical knives and Hanwei swords at http://www.whiteshadowsecurity.com/ The Spartan Blades knives, Vipers and ITACS are terriffic fighting knives and we still have a few Cobras available.

.

On The Edge of Functionality, Part 1

How does a knife cut? I suppose that sounds like a stupid question! OK then explain it to me. How does a knife’s edge sever solid materials and divide atoms? We can attempt to resolve that question later, for right now let’s talk about how differently shaped blades perform.
Reason would suggest that a curved blade will always out-cut a straight one. If that is so, then why will a high quality German longsword with a straight tapered blade cleave targets as cleanly as a gently curved katana? Explain that to me and we’ll be getting somewhere. I go into greater detail about this in my next book but let’s give it some thought. So, I’ll give you three good examples to consider.

Example #1 is a tanto made by a man named Morris. It is a quarter inch thick slab of steel ground to a fine, but absolutely straight, edge. My first impression of this knife was that you could pry open a bank vault with it but it would be a reluctant cutter. By golly it cuts pool noodles cleanly. I have never touched up the edge and it had seen some use prior to my buying it. Another thing about this knife is that the handle is also straight, which makes the knife swing like a tire iron. But it still cuts.

Example #2 is a mini-barong shaped knife that Blackhawk™ calls the Tatang. The Tatang blade is broad but flat ground and given a coarse black coating of some sort. I would rate this as a moderately curved blade. Does it cut? Does Superman wear a cape? This relatively inexpensive, commercially made knife cuts like there’s no tomorrow. It is one of the few knives that I have been able to make clean yoko giri (horizontal cuts) with. The first time I did yoko giri I amazed myself. The handle shape increases the cutting power but that is a topic for another post.
Example #3 illustrates a knife with an extreme curve. While not as extreme as a Derespina karambit or my Laci Szabo Kamaitachi, it still has a very radical curve. This knife is by far the sharpest of the three. It is chisel ground and razor sharp. Made by D.J. Urbanovsky this is one wicked fighter. The interesting thing is, I have a terrible time cutting with it! Yeh, I have a problem cutting pool noodles with this knife. No it is not the knife’s fault.
It all comes down to something, which for a lack of a better term, I call approach angle. This is the angle at which the user delivers the blade relative to the target. I know there are a lot of angles, which one am I talking about. Let’s assume that all of my cuts are at 30 degrees off the vertical, like doing tameshigiri. The approach angle I am talking about is related to the way the knife is positioned in your hand and the angle of your wrist. It’s a bit complicated so I’m going to post this for now and let you think about it. In the meantime I will try to make a drawing that illustrates what I consider the ideal approach angle for different blade shapes. So think about it and we’ll get back to this topic shortly. When we do I’ll also explain how the curvature of the blade on our Cobra is, by happenstance, right at the limits of functionality.

Living in the Age of Fear:

Read this while you still can.

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog about an impending storm. I hoped things would change and I would have no cause to post this. Do you remember my intimation of something amiss? When a storm is approaching I get a tightness in my gut that tells me to beware. Well the clouds over our nation keep getting darker.

"There's something happening here What it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. You step out of line, the man come and take you away"

These Lyrics, from the song "For What Its Worth" by Buffalo Springfield echoed public concerns of a heightening police state in the 1960s. The rising state of paranoia, on both sides of the "street," was in response to civil unrest over the ongoing, and very unpopular, Vietnam War. The military draft and government corruption fanned the fires of discontent. Hard lines were being drawn and radical groups like the SDS (Students for Democratic Society), Weathermen, FSM (Free Speech Movement) and Black Panthers rose in violent opposition to increasing government intrusion into, and control over, our lives. Are there any parallels here? Does any of this sound familiar? There is a subtle difference. Instead of trying to tear the government down from the outside, many of these same people are working inside the government today. They have never given up their crusade and they still want to destroy our government and our way of life.

On a positive note, today our fear has a color chart. What terror threat level are we at today: Yellow, Orange, or Red? As you know, in 2001 a handful of terrorists provided our leaders with the opportunity to create/enlarge the shadow government accountable only to the inner circle of the White House. Wait what’s that sound? This is America! What are we afraid of? We have ICE, DHS, DEA, DEC, FBI, CIA, NSA, NSC, INS, TSA and the list goes on, all dedicated to protecting us. Protecting us from whom or what? Try Googling "government agencies" and see what you find. My short list does not include your local Police, State Police, Air Marshals, Federal Marshals, Sheriffs, Texas Rangers, Park Police, and dozens of other agencies I have overlooked. Yet we are afraid, and we worry that if "You step out of line, the man come and take you away."

The lines of freedom are becoming narrower day by day. When legislators pass bills into law and never wrote or read them, stepping out of line might happen innocently. No one can possibly know all of the laws, regulations, and ordinances that now rule over the very minutiae of our lives. When we go through airports, cross borders, enter government buildings, drive through police road check points, we have no idea what laws we may be breaking or who is watching us, and innocent or not, fear begins to rise up in us like bile. How can this be happening in the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave? Didn’t we win the cold war against dictators and repression? Or did tearing down the Berlin Wall simply allow the contagion of fear and repression to spread around the world?

Are our phones tapped? Is this blog being monitored for anti-American sentiment? Am I on someone’s hit list as an extremist radical? Why should I have cause to ask these questions? Maybe because now there is a public hot line so you can email the White House to report malcontents and misfits like me. It is shameful that promises of free speech, transparency, accountability in government, and bi-partisanship in congress have, within a brief six months, been ground under the heels of Chicago style thugs. But here we are, living in the shadow of fear. Bills like the Bush's Patriot Act were designed to protect us from a handful of Islamic extremists. Now we find ourselves monitored, ruled, and regulated by the Orc-like Czars, advisors, and the minions of the president and the goons of The Department of Homeland Security, who abuse this power to intimidate us.

Storm Clouds are building and there is an electric charge in the air. People are listening, standing in the streets. "What’s that sound?" I pray it is the sound of the American soul awakening. I think we are only beginning to have some small idea of how the Jewish people felt living under the brooding skies of Nazi Germany. "I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down………". My gut tells me there is definitely a storm coming down.