Teach Your Daughters To Hit

Teach Your Daughters To Hit Someone Who Touches Them

Assault

I recently read this article on http://www.breachbangclear.com/teach-your-daughters-to-hit-someone/

It’s one of my favorite blog/websites.  I’m reposting because I believe in what it says and I feel it has value to the community.  I do have a few remarks and here they are:

Many of the readers responded that in many school systems it’s a felony to use violence, even in self-defense.  That this record could follow you and prevent you from joining the military, getting clearance or a job.  Others point out that jobs and some schools have policies that require your immediate dismissal.

I believe this is empowers the creeps who know the treat of dismissal or a felony charge will make their victim complacent.  One only has to look at the Hollywood-Harvey Weinstein scandal to understand this.  I can’t change the world, but we can by insisting our schools and place of employment treat self-defense is a right and not an option to be conveniently discarded.

I’m clearly on the kick ‘em in the nuts and break their fingers side and I if I had a daughter (or son for that matter) I’d tell her what David says and that we’ll find a solution for the aftermath later.

David Reeder:

“Teach your daughters, goddaughters, and nieces to fight. If you can’t, then pay someone to, and teach them that violence is acceptable. Teach them to hit people who touch them. Not tell the teacher, not complain to the Human Resources department, to hit them, as viciously as possible, immediately and publicly.

Testicles, throats, eyes — they’re all vulnerable.

Violence may not always be the answer, but when it is the answer, it’s usually the only answer. Including when, perhaps especially when, someone touches them without permission.

Speaking strictly to my nieces and goddaughters, I say: you bring me the scrotum of some dude who grabbed your boob or your butt, girls. I’ll reward you and turn it into a tobacco pouch.  I’d hold forth and talk more about this, but Jeff Rouner of the Houston Press already has, and he did a great job of it.

http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/i-dont-mind-telling-my-daughter-to-fight-back-physically-when-assaulted-9918363

Jeff Rouner:

“I’ve started telling my daughter that if someone touches her chest, her ass or between her legs without her permission, to punch them in the goddamn face. Aim for the nose, Sweetheart. You don’t want to catch their teeth and get a cut. That’s a good way to get an infection. You want nose or eyes, and maybe use that front choke Daddy taught you. Turn your forearms so the bone goes against their carotid and jugular. That’s what makes them pass out.

Can she get in trouble for violence at school? Yes, she can, and should. Violence is illegal. Note: I didn’t say wrong. I said illegal. The two are not synonyms.

[…]

Is violence the ideal answer to sexual harassment? Of course it isn’t. The ideal answer is living in a world where this sort of thing is swiftly dealt with at all levels of authority with a zero-tolerance policy. Anytime y’all want to make that happen, you let me know. Until then, I’m teaching my daughter the proper way to throw a punch, and if you don’t like it, teach your kids the proper way to act.

Answering physical assault with physical assault is perfectly appropriate, and I have long since stopped caring about the concept of polite when it comes to those who feel boundaries are optional….”

David Reeder:

“Fuckin’ A.”

So there you have it.  Personally I suspect that no school or business wants the publicity what would come from institutionalize sexual violence by prohibiting self-defense.  My experience is organizations suddenly go silent when you offer to take it to the press.

Make Some Sparks

Every once and a while a blind hog finds an acorn, so they say… 

 

Tortoise Gear has one product and frankly while it’s useful, but not a world beater. But I think they just found an acorn.

Currently they make several size collapsible water containers from a clear polymer.  It appears the backside is reflective which improves the performance.  It’s a survival tool.  Fill the container with clear water from a lake or stream and exposed it to lots of sunlight.  Between the UV, visible and IR components of sunlight, 6 hours of exposure on a 50% cloudy day is enough to pasteurize the water and make it safe to drink.  (That’s their claim.)

I heard about this several years ago, people in the Mideast and parts of Africa were using coke bottles in a similar way:  Fill ‘em with water and leave ‘em lay on the roof for 2 days and you get biologically safe water to drink.

Cool.

The acorn Tortoise Gear found is the realization that just about every Swiss Army knife has room from a fire starting ferro stick.  Just decide if you need the tweezers or the toothpick more.  The replacement part slips into the vacated compartment.  Of course the knife has plenty of edges to scrape the stick to generate sparks.

They’re in fund raising and have met their goal.  Hell, I even threw a little money at them.  I’s rather have a fire steel than a toothpick. 

If I have a blade I can made a toothpick.

Mule

I promised myself that I would complete the mule I picked up at the Blade Show a couple years ago.

Mules are sharpened, but unfinished knives from Spyderco.  Specifically:

“…Sample knife used for in-house performance testing. Traditionally, they are made to the exact same pattern and specifications, but feature a different blade steel or heat treatment protocol. This keeps all the performance characteristics of the knife identical except for a single variable, allowing an excellent basis for objective, scientific performance-based testing."

It gives prospective knife makers a chance to try their hand at customization.  Spyderco makes several copies of each set of variables.  I suspect that gives them experience in working with that combination of geometries, hardness and steel. 

When I bought my Swick 3, I was told that some of the previous mules came with sheaths, but mine didn’t.  Also I had no choice in steels and frankly, neither do you.  When a specific lot of steel is sold out, they are gone for good!

Stolen from Armslist  but this is a Swick 3

Equally unfortunately, Spyderco currently only offers only one fixed blade pattern.

Here’s a link to this interesting project.

https://www.spyderco.com/edge-u-cation/mule-team-project/

 I wanted synthetic handle material.  Having never tried to make a handle, I opted for pieces of a blue composite material.  While I was thrilled to score two potential nice grips, I was crushed to discover later they might be too small, depending on how clever I was.

I couldn’t get them to work, so the following year I purchased two slabs of exotic hard wood.  I carefully drew pencil lines on the dark brown wood and took it to my bandsaw.  From there it was relatively easy to turn them into scrap wood.

Fortunately I had several pieces of a nice mahogany.  I pressed them into service and after a little bandsaw work (much improved over the first run at this,) I had two blocky potential grips.  I decided not to use pins, but to the epoxy each future grip to the metal frame and a pine wood spacer.  The Swick’s handle is a steel frame and I didn’t want to fill that space with epoxy.

Since this is an on-the-cheap project, I used whatever epoxy I had on hand and that turned out to be J-B Weld 12 hour cure epoxy. I taped the blade to protect myself (Safety First!) and cut the pine spacer out on a jig saw and mixed my epoxy.  I actually prefer the 12 hour cure, as it gives me time to correct mistakes and the longer cure time creates stronger bonds and I’m all about handle strength.

The next day I started sanding with finer and finer grits.  I was inspired by a knife I saw at Shadow Tech Knives.  John used a 2000 grit paper and worked the wood into something wonderful.  It was so smooth and silky, I’m still not sure why I didn’t buy it when I saw it.

http://stknives.com/cub-limited-edition-exotic-wood-handle-with-g10-liner-satin-finished-cts-xhp-stainless-steel-blade/

I like the polished look of the wood, but I wanted some protective coating.  My wife had a special food grade supplement that can also be used to treat wood finishes on wood salad bowls.  It contains flax seed oil which sounds better than linseed oil and a vitamin E component.  Vitamin E contains a group of compounds called tocotrienols, that like flax seed oil, have double bounds between carbon atoms. 

The upshot of this impromptu chemistry lesson is that double bonds can break and reform to form a solid finish.  I wiped the handle down, left it in the shade a little to let the oils soak in and put it in the sun.  Well, those energetic solar photons did their job, opened up the double bonds and the oil formed a nice dry finish.

I’m pretty happy with the results and I think I’ll try this again next year by buying another mule at Spyderco

Tiger, tiger....

Karambits are popular right now for a variety of reasons.  Like so many weapons from South East Asia, they trace their origin to some animal attribute or farm implement.

And why not?  Nature shaped a bears claws for specific purposes, just like the teeth of a shark.  If you need to accomplish a similar purpose, starting with successful examples is not a bad idea. 

It should be self-evident that all invaders strip the conquered of their weapons.  What does the resourceful farmer do?  He learns to defend myself with farm tools and everyday objects. 

I can almost hear the conversation: “Oh no Master, Officer, Governor, Police, that’s not a weapon, but two sticks chained together that I use to thresh grain so I can pay my taxes.  I’d never think of breaking bones and heads with it….”

The karambit or kerambit as it’s known in Indonesia, comes from humble beginnings as well.  It was an agricultural implement used to rake roots, thresh grain and plant rice.  Folklore claims it was inspired by the claws of a tiger.

Slip your little finger in the hole and slash.  Most of the blocks I know work really well with a karambit in one hand! 

Wikipedia has a romantic tale of Indonesian women who would tie a karambit in their hair for self-protection.  I like this tale as a karambit has been described as an instinctual weapon.  More than 15 years ago a self-defense instructor told me “…put your thumb on the back of the blade and simply wipe your thumb on your target.”  He was talking about a classic straight blade; the same applies to the karambit. 

I recently got my hands on a karambit from the We Knife Co.  We is a Chinese company that has been making knives for the last 10 years under the name Wayeahknife.  In 2014 they had the opportunity to expand and changed their name to We Knife Company. 

Their mission statement?  "Building the highest quality knives and tools and giving you plenty of choices in our products."  Sounds pretty good.  They’re using equipment like CNC machines, CNC grinding machines, precision stamping machines, as well as EDM machines to produce high quality knives which they sell in the US and Europe.  These knives aren’t aimed at the Chinese market, as locking blades are illegal.

My karambit is model 708A and the specs are pretty impressive.

The blade has a linear measurement of 2.8 inches, but the curved edge gives you more cutting surface.  The steel used is CPM S35VN with a Rockwell hardness of 59-61.  The blade rolls open on ceramic ball bearings.

We claims the blade is flat grind, but I believe it is better described as a saber grind.  The knife is a frame lock and the locking bar has what appears to be a small steel insert that wedges against the steel blade when open.  Many of the better aluminum and titanium knives utilize a steel insert to protect the softer metal of the locking bar from excessive wear from the back of the blade.  It’s a nice touch.

The handle, metal clip, metal screws and cap are all TI6Al4V.  This alloy is the most commonly used titanium alloy used outside of the aerospace industries.  Wikipedia claims “…. It has a chemical composition of:

• 6% aluminum,
• 4% vanadium,
• 0.25% (maximum) iron,
• 0.2% (maximum) oxygen,
• remainder titanium.  

It is significantly stronger than commercially pure titanium while having the same stiffness and thermal properties.  Among its many advantages, it is heat treatable.  This grade is an excellent combination of strength, corrosion resistance, weld and fabricability.”

I like the flipper on the blade.  It really pops the knife open and serves as guard to prevent you sliding onto the blade.  I would have preferred the flipper to be used as an assist to open the knife as you draw it from your pocket.  I’m also disappointed the clip isn’t reversible.  The knife is set up for right hand, tip up carry.  It’s my favorite carry mode, but in everyday life the karambit might best be, as Doug Marcaida described it, as a “back-up weapon”.  The ability to adjust clip for your carry mode would have made this knife a much better product.

I know very little about fighting with a knife.  Watching someone who knows how to use a knife sends shivers down my spine.  But if you are like so many people who look at a knife and ask “Could I defend myself with that knife?” you should take a look at We’s karambit.  The answer is yes!