For all you PSBN's and up out there. Does anyone have interest in getting some custom fans? I have been considering getting some made. I don't necessarily intend to stick with traditional materials. What I want is removable tips. The tip would either be a small knife, a marker, or a weight. All three tips would be weight matched so that the feel of the fan is not tremendously affected. I don't have a specific time frame in mind. I am just curious if anyone else is interested in something like this. I doubt I would want to spend the money to get just one (or a couple of) pair(s) made. I imagine that they will be quite expensive, at least $500.
Hello, I make custom weapons, and I have a friend who is also very good at it...I dont see it being around $500 at all... What material were you considering? It would be a little labor, but with all of the specs on the table, and something to go by, it would only be more tedious than hard... --josh
Thanks for the reply kidosool. I have already made a cheap pair of good quality fans by modifying some bamboo ones that I bought from a local shop. What I want is something that is more than just functional. I also want it to be very high quality and look very nice. As far as materials go, the only thing I know for sure is that I don't want to use steel for the veins. I like the properities of the bamboo fans; lite, flexible, good memory. I just don't think it is possible to make removable tips on bamboo. It would be possible to make the tips not removable and make 3 seperate fans but I am worried about doing that. The reason is that the fan with the knives on it would get much less use and over time it would probably feel much different than the others. Feel is very important, it is easy to drop one of these things if you are not used to it. By making the tips removable and the same weight for each of the three kinds the feel would not change. I have been working on a project which uses an amazing fiber filled plastic. If I were to use something like that, machining is out of the question, it must be injection molded. Hence the tooling cost is too high to make a single pair. If you have any ideas for a suitable material, I'd love to hear it. For everyone else, I am not looking for responses like "yeah sign me up for a $500 fan that I don't know anything about" Instead I would like to hear something like. 1.) I don't practice fans enough to spend more than $20 dollars for a cheap pair. or 2.) I am guy, that is a girls weapon. or 3.) Sounds interesting, I pracitce mine alot and am tired of buying new ones every three months because they keep falling apart. or 4.) Sounds cool but $500 is way too much. The most I'd ever go is $100. I am not looking for a commitent, just a sense of the general level of interest.
Guessing marker tips for safe use to see if you actually would've cut someone. Like knife drill with marker pens???? Knifes tips to actually cut something in a demo????
The marker is for practicing cuts, and the knives are for cutting. The cutting is for a demonstration I am working on.
I guess that means I'm not perceived as a psycho killer, that's good. :love: To get really fancy it would be cool to have different a color marker for each vein, then you could see which one made contact.
oh, blades for cutting and markers for simulating cuts are obvious. I was wondering about what your target woudl be. Are you planning on putting a human at the end of either one of those?
I think rather than removeable tips, three different fans weighted the same is an easier option. Anywhere tips can be removed is a weak point (so to speak). The idea of the markers is a way cool idea. Those need to resemble something commercially available, so after I've had them for 6 months, if they aren't all broken up, I can replace the tips. (Water based inks, so they wash out of do-boks. I don't think dress dickies are available without buying a whole new general's uniform. Unless you are thinking of just swiping at wood? Maybe you need as a demo partner someone from a MA that wears just white! ) What movie was it that had a MAist with a deadly fan? "The Last Samurai"? (Probably dozens, I know.) It seemed like it was metal, sharpened into knives, but I've heard there is a wood that can be treated so it is as hard as metal. "Traditional" Kuk Sool fans with the feathers on the end are supposed simulate being able to hide knives. I wonder if just something like a pin in the end would be enough to convince someone to back off in a self defence situation. It would be nice to have a demo on just how strong just a regular bamboo fan could be, hitting something (not someone!) hard enough to break something. Hopefully the something that broke would be that which you were trying to break, rather than the fan. I'd have to go with number four. I've seen very manly men use fans, in different ways. I wouldn't insult any of them by EVER suggesting a fan was a "girly" weapon. Manly men get hot too. Manly men might prefer a nice dragon or phoenix on their fans. But... womenly women might like that too. Maybe there are cheaper alternatives. Maybe just little x-acto knives glued to the bamboo ends would work as a fan with knifes. Don't know about the markers. A bit of paint on the tips, EVERY time you used it? I'd love to hear a description of the demo you're thinking over.
Um, no. The knives are for demonstration cutting and I would probably go with something like paper, fabric, or leather (hanging vertically). I don't know which material yet because I don't have a pair of fans with knives on them. I might use the markers in a technique situation to see if I got it right, but unless the fan is dirt cheap, I would not use it in some sort of free sparring. I hope I finish this little project before you get to 3rd, but who knows. The race is on. You are very right, robust removable tips are a big engineering challange. A pain for the user in a sense as well. The other consideration is opening force of the fan itself. With use they become easier to open. That is, just as long as the hinge pin doesn't bend. In which case they become harder to open. I've had lots of experience with the opening force of my fans changing. The probability of dropping the fan goes up dramatically when the opening force changes. Now if I have three seperate fans, the plain one will get the most use, followed by the marker and then the knife. So over time their opening forces will likely be very different from each other. Maybe the hinge could be designed to provide adjustable force? Use a deflection test to set the hinge force. Hold the fan by the end vein and have the fan open a specified amount. One idea I have so far for this is felt which you would dip into ink. Lots of problems though, the felt expands when wet, the colors mix when the fan is closed and the ink might splatter all over when the fan is opened. The break I have seen which is impressive is a mimimal support speed break with the edge of the fan. One amusing way is to have the board resting on two peoples ears who are sitting a few feet apart from each other. Senior Master Jung Oh Lee is awesome at that break. I have a different speed break I am working on, but I suck at it now, so I think I'll just keep it to myself for now. I would like the first time people see it to be a surprise.
I have been on the tough end of bu chai sool. I have found that the bamboo and feathers are MORE than enough for true and complete execution of technique.
as long as there is a war fan thread, I may as well ask: what more is there to the combat side of it besides striking pressure points?
The fan has many uses, for example it is very handy to distract your attacker with the fan while executing a "hidden" tech. It is also great for cooling yourself off after breaking out punishment lol.
I'm not disagreeing with that. My problem with the fluffy pink fans from hell is that they are extremely low quality. The screw eats away the bamboo and in no time at all they are falling apart. The first pair I had lasted a month or so, and the second the same. I tried modifying the hinge on the those to put in a screwpost but to no avail. The bamboo was too brittle. I switched to a different type of bamboo fan which wasn't as brittle and was able to oversize the hinge hole to fit a screwpost in. I've been using my present set of fans quite regularly for over a year now and they are holding up pretty well. I have to replace the screwpost once in a while, but that is small price to pay. With reguards to new fans, my desire for them has nothing to do with making techniques more effective. I want a quality weapon that will last, and I want to try some new things, like cutting, that I can't do with what I've got.
I am very much interested in a set of quality fans as well. However the $500 price is way to high. Espcially when I purchased my old ones from Korea for a fraction of the U.S. prices. I can't see myself paying any more that $75-$100 for custom Quality" fans.
If someone wants to send me the specs I can do a custom pair outa whatever....see how they come out, and how much they would cost... I think somthing out of Cocobolo or purple heart would be nice myself...screw the bamboo! --josh
