Archive for the ‘Swords’ Category

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 409

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Today, a handful of random.

Skallagrim” discusses “End Him Rightly”, a fighting technique from the Gladiatoria.

Bonus #1: Here’s another video from the good folks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC): “Integrity in the Workplace”. Or, things you shouldn’t do as a Federal employee.

Bonus #2: A little something for FotB RoadRich again. Guy picks up a 1973 Piper Cherokee Cruiser for $9,000 (it needs an overhaul and the owner couldn’t afford it) and does a restoration and rebuild.

Besides putting this up as RoadRich bait, I’m posting this because that’s a really nice looking airplane. I could see myself flying something like that.

Bonus #3: And speaking of the Cherokee, “50th Anniversary of the Piper Cherokee” from the good folks at Piper.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 232

Tuesday, November 17th, 2020

There’s a British gent named Guy Martin who has a YouTube channel. He used to race motorcycles, but more recently he’s become a television personality who seems to specialize in engineering and technical stuff.

I thought I’d do two videos today, one short, one longer. The short one: Mr. Martin goes to Japan and forges a sword with a master sword maker. As you know, Bob, I love hot metal and knives, so this is right in my wheelhouse.

The long: this is the first part of a series, “How Britain Worked”.

…getting stuck into six of the country’s biggest restoration projects, bringing some of the 19th century’s most impressive engineering achievements back to life.

This one covers “The Railway”. The other parts are available on his channel.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 109

Friday, July 17th, 2020

Today, I wanted to combine two themes: hot metal and knives.

This is not actually random. I ran across this while looking at some posts on the Knife Steel Nerds blog.

Our feature: “The Secrets of Wootz Damascus Steel”. Back in the old days, sword blades were made out of a steel known as “Wootz steel“.

Before this technique disappeared, sometime in the 1800s, blades made with wootz were some of the most lethal in the world. Wootz swords, in fact, were the primary weapons that Muslim warriors used in the 11th and 12th centuries to defeat the Crusaders. (According to legends from that time, Muslim soldiers not only sliced up their European opponents but their swords as well.)

A lot of work has been put in to rediscovering how they were made. Among the people involved were Al Pendray, a knifemaker and farrier from Florida, and John Verhoeven, a metallurgist and emeritus engineering professor from Iowa State.

This is a documentary about Mr. Pendray and Mr. Verhoven and two swordsmiths from Jordan working to make Wootz steel from ore mined in Jordan: “a mine that is known to have produced weapons for Saladin himself.” I know this is longer than usual, but the next two are coffee break size.

Bonus video: Al Pendray passed away in 2017. This is a 15 minute tribute to him from The Craftsmanship Initiative.

Related blog post from The Craftsmanship Initiative’s website.

John Verhoeven has also written a book: Damascus Steel Swords: Solving the Mystery of How to Make Them (affiliate link). He also has another book, Steel Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist (affiliate link) which is highly recommended by Knife Steel Nerds. (I’d actually like to have both of these books, but they are kind of expensive.)

Bonus video #2: Holy cow! I did not know this, but apparently the late Anthony Bourdain was doing some sort of tie-in with The Balvenie called “Raw Craft”. In this one (only about 12 minutes) he went up to Washington state “to see firsthand how master bladesmith, Bob Kramer crafts the perfect kitchen knife from melted meteorite”.

The Craftsmanship Initiative also did a long profile of Mr. Kramer, which I’m bookmarking to read later.

The “Raw Craft” playlist from YouTube.

News/!News

Friday, July 21st, 2017

Probably news, at least to some people: Texas A&M has a large science fiction archive.

Possibly news to more people: this includes George R.R. Martin’s stuff.

Probably not news, if you think about it: this includes a lot of “Game of Thrones” related stuff.

And there is plenty of other Martin stuff, including manuscripts for the Wild Card moasic novels he continues to edit and drafts of various “Max Headroom” scripts.

Quote that pushed me into posting this:

But also, there are swords.

(Much like, “And then the murders began“, “But also, there are swords” makes anything better.)

When guns are outlawed…

Tuesday, January 17th, 2017

,,.only outlaws will have ninja swords and daggers.

A local DJ was attacked Friday night in his apartment.

…when he opened the door…who was wearing a ski mask, began attacking him with a Katana sword.
“I didn’t know what else to do, so I just grabbed [the sword] with my hand,” Angel said. “Blood was just dripping down the blade.” Angel said…then pulled out a dagger and stabbed him in the back.

What makes this kind of noteworthy is that the alleged ninja is also the owner of a fairly prominent local bar. (Never been there, but have heard of it: mostly in the context of, “In spite of the name, this has nothing to do with A Clockwork Orange.”)

Intersectionality.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016

At the weird intersection of book collecting and weapons geekery: a facsimile edition of the I.33 manuscript, a legendary 14th century combat manual.

Only £750. And that’s the cheap edition.

I can think of one person whose wheelhouse this would sort of be in: he’d probably buy two copies and resell one, except this is a little outside of his specialty…

(On a totally unrelated note, the Lame Excuse Books web page has been updated, and a new catalog is in progress. Books from Lame Excuse Books make fine presents for the holidays.)

(Hattip on I.33 to Hognose over at Weaponsman.)

At the weird intersection of gun crankery and entertainment history:

There are two things I enjoy doing when Mike the Musicologist and I go to Tulsa (well, three, but the shopping is really the whole point of the trip, so it doesn’t count):

  • Visiting with folks from the Smith and Wesson Collector’s Association.
  • Visiting the NRA Museum table. Especially if Jim Supica is there.

I didn’t see Mr. Supica this time, but we hung around the table for a bit and I picked up a few postcards, one of which contained the following odd bit of history.

I kind of knew Sammy Davis Jr. was a gun owner and collector (probably from reading his Wikipedia entry). What I didn’t know was that Mr. Davis was a serious fast draw practitioner. Serious.

Photo by way of Gabby Franco's blog, linked.

Photo by way of Gabby Franco’s blog, also linked.

That’s one of Mr. Davis’ Colt Single Action Army revolvers. The rig was custom made for him by the great Arvo Ojala, holster maker and consultant to the stars. Mr. Davis was fast enough that he did his own gun work for many of the TV shows he guested on.

Here’s some vintage film of Mr. Davis at work:

Quoting Gabby Franco:

It was said that in a holster-pulling match with fellow enthusiasts Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Davis was easily the odds-on favorite.

Mr. Davis and Mr. Martin apparently were not the only fast draw artists in the Rat Pack: according to the back of the postcard (which, sadly, I’ve dropped in the mail and don’t have in front of me), Mr. Davis and Frank Sinatra had a fast draw competition with a new car as the stakes. And Mr. Davis won.

“I was beaten by my friend Mel Torme, who also collects Colts.” !!!!

(And Dr. Brackett too? The earth was full of giants in those days: or, more likely, a lot of these folks learned fast draw as a way to get roles in the endless parade of TV westerns.)

I’ll leave you with a short NRA “Curator’s Corner” video about the Davis gun.

George Patton probably would have disapproved of the pearl grips, but Mr. Davis does not strike me as someone who was in much need of external validation, even from a WWII general.