Category: Odd Knife News (page 1 of 2)

(Picture: Adam Gerrard)

Meet Edward Pinder. He’s a 10-year-old British boy who does his homework and invites his friends over to hang out. Oh, and he hurls knives at his mother.

No, Edward doesn’t throw knives at his mom out of malice. He’s actually a member of a traveling circus show in the UK and his mother is his assistant.

(Before we proceed with this story, we must give the obligatory don’t-try-this-at-home warning for those who are crazy enough to think it’s a good idea to throw knives at your mother.)

The young boy, who some claim is possibly the youngest knife thrower in Europe, is surprisingly precise at throwing knives dangerously close to his mother. He admits he’s never actually hit his mom but that he’s come close. His mom and dad are also part of the circus, so his developing abilities are not very shocking. But his mother must have a lot of trust in her son to allow him to throw sharp knives near her head.

Here’s an excerpt of his mother from an article:

Following last week’s performance, mother-of-two Mrs Pinder said: “I was a bit nervous, but Edward was really calm and everything was fine – and the audience really enjoyed it.

“It was really, really scary when I was waiting for him to throw his first knife at me.”

She added: “I had seen him practice and knew he could throw in a straight line, but my heart was jumping, I was terrified.”

Don’t think for one second that the boy is using training knives or throwing knives that won’t harm his mother because he uses razor-sharp, professional throwing knives.

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We all know what it’s like to have a favorite a knife. That one piece of steel that conforms perfectly to your grip, never seems to lose its edge and gets you out of any bind. Chances are you also know what it’s like to lose your favorite knife.

That’s what happened to one construction worker 22 years ago, according to KCTV 5. While helping in the construction of St. Luke Hospital’s Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., Bill Wall dropped his knife into a wall and was unable to retrieve it. So, he made a sign saying he dropped his knife and would like it back. Then, he threw it in after the lost knife.

Twenty-two years later, that heart institute is being redone as a new neuroscience institute and one of the construction workers found the lost knife.

While construction worker Greg Dunwoodie sought out Bill Wall, he found his son Alan who explained that Bill had died three years ago.

Still, the fact that Dunwoodie went out of his way to return the knife to its original owner indicates a sort of kindness and appreciation for knives that’s hard to find in this world. By returning the knife, Dunwoodie allowed Alan Wall to reminisce about the humor and love for the absurd his dad embraced.

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The other day I found myself at the famed Coney Island, known for its hot dog eating contests, old rickety rides and the Coney Island Sideshow.

As I entered the freak show, I saw the typical display of talents: a man who can breath fire and hammer nails into his head, a woman who dances with a massive snake, a hilarious man who suffers from ectrodactylyl and, of course, Betty Bloomerz.

Betty Bloomerz, the beautiful female sword swallower, danced around the dim stage with these massive knives all the way down her throat. It was an amazingly impressive display that you should see in person at least once.

Except for Betty—a true professional who has performed around the world—swallowing knives is something you should never try to demonstrate at home.

Unfortunately, one 30-year-old woman from Atlanta didn’t get the memo.

Apparently, she had lost her gag reflex due to a battle with bulimia and was trying to demonstrate her lack of gag reflex to her friends with a butter knife. But, one of her friends made a hilarious comment that caused her to laugh and—gulp!—the knife slide down her esophagus.

She started feeling pain in her chest and vomiting blood, according to the New York Daily News.

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True knife lovers always have a blade nearby, but sometimes those special events like weddings or black tie functions prevent you from carrying your favorite knife. Well, fear not.

According to Geekosystems, there are now cufflinks in the shape of small pocketknives with functioning blades. The small cufflinks are likely more ornamental and novel, akin to Boker’s awesome .44 magnum bullet knife, than practical.

The site that sells them says the blades are as sharp as real knives, and they can be used to slice those pesky loose threads on clothing. However, I can’t imagine possibly using the cufflinks in any way that’s helpful.

Still, these $56.95 miniature stainless steel knives are perfect gifts for the classy knife lover in your family.

Another idea instead of having these overt cufflinks is to make them hidden. That way when your date has some dirt under her nails or needs to cut off a wayward tag in a pinch, you can pull out the tiny blades like a debonair James Bond.

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From the man who brought you the pleasantly absurd machete slingshot comes his latest masterpiece of destruction: the chainsaw made of steak knives.

On his YouTube channel The Slingshot Channel, Jörg Sprave creates a variety of innovative devices, mostly slingshot-related, for fun. Like all of his creations, the steak knife saw is surprisingly simple. He took a power drill purchased through Amazon, attached it to a wheel, which is connected to yet another wheel, and affixed a slew of razor-sharp steak knives around the smaller wheel.

He got the idea for his homemade steak saw after someone suggested he find different ways to weaponize household products. So, he went through his cabinet, saw a steak knife and decided to make this unbelievable device.

Here’s some clever posturing from Gizmodo:

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Sometimes we like to take a walk back in time, traveling down the historical path of men who have simply proven themselves to be more badass than we are. Or could ever hope to be.

Today, we may have hit a dead end. We will never find someone more badass than this.

The story sounds like the beginning of a corny joke. “A man walks into a diner..”

But let’s finish the sentence.

“A man walks into a diner with a 5 inch knife in his chest. He orders a coffee and complains about the cold weather.”

On December 23, 2009, a 911 operator in Warren, Michigan received a phone call from an unidentified 52-year old man. He told the operator, “I’m gonna sit down at Bray’s ’cause they got a chair and it’s cold out here.”

A diner employee reported that the man was calm as he ordered his coffee.

The man had apparently been stabbed in an attempted robbery half a mile away. He, then, walked the distance to a pay phone that was located in the diner’s parking lot. Ambulances arrived at the diner and took him to the hospital, where he recovered.

Sure, we can understand that it was probably pretty chilly in Michigan in late December, and we definitely get the need to warm up in a diner with a hot cup of coffee. But really, shouldn’t you get that knife taken care of first? Guess we’re just not as badass as this guy…

The man with a plaque showing his virtual sword.

What kind of sword would you be willing to dish out $16,000 for? Maybe a well-made katana from the 14^th century or perhaps a ceremonial sword used by the heroes of the Revolutionary War?

One Chinese man decided to buy an epic sword called the “Hook of Departure” for that amount of money. The only catch is that it’s a virtual sword for a video game.

The sword is for a game called the Age of Wulin, which is a huge multiplayer online role-playing game like the World of Warcraft but set in ancient China.

We poked fun at Nicholas Cage a while back for buying a $2,000 knife made with mammoth ivory simply to cut his steak with. The difference between those who buy outrageously expensive things for trivial purposes and this man is that his sword doesn’t exist.

The kicker of the whole thing is that when he bought the sword back in December, the game wasn’t even out yet. It was set to release in China soon with an English version coming our way in spring.

I often fantasize about what I’d do if I won the lottery or acquired a couple thousand dollars. Sure that amount of money is nothing when you have a few million dollars, but it’s hard to imagine spending money on something that only exists in reality for a game that will be outdated in a few years.

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If you’ve ever seen the movies Ghost Rider, Vampire’s Kiss or the truly bizarre remake of Bad Lieutenant, you know actor Nicolas Cage is absolutely out of his mind.

He is known for his wild behavior, questionable antics, unbridled spending and now may even be a vampire as demonstrated by a picture found of him from the 1870s. (As a somewhat related aside, I was an extra in a movie starring Cage and I can honestly say the man is frighteningly insane.) So, what do knives and Nicolas Cage have in common?

According to the entertainment site TMZ, Cage was spotted at a custom knife store in Alaska called Northern Knives. The store sells some pretty awesome knives with handles made out of interesting materials. Check out the amazing blade with a stellar sea cow handle made by Bob Merry below. With these types of knives, it’s not surprising Cage would find himself in the shop.

However, he ended up spending about $2,000 on a great knife there. Here’s what TMZ wrote:

We’re told Cage fell in love with a Don Dezarn original — which featured MAMMOTH IVORY in the handle and a patriotic bald eagle engraved onto the 4-inch blade.

Although it’s not crazy for anyone to spend that much money on a great decorative knife (even though Cage owes millions to the government in taxes), he said he was going to use the knife to cut steak. It’s one thing to buy a great knife to put on display or even use for outdoor activities, but to take this great knife and use it to cut steak seems unnecessary and a disgrace to the knifemaker who put so much care into it.

I guess it’s not that surprising considering we’re talking about the man in these clips below.

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If you weren’t already aware of New York City’s overly staunch dedication to ridding sharp objects from existence, this story of one entertainer’s experience will certainly make you familiar.

An acclaimed Australian sword swallower was arrested on the streets of New York City as he entertained crowds with his unique skills, according to the Northern Star.

The Space Cowboy, whose real name is Chayne Hultgren, was taken to the station for “brandishing a sword in public.”

The man, who holds the unofficial world record of swallowing 27 swords and the official world record of 18, was performing in front of a large crowd when a police officer approached him.

As someone who lives literally across the street from an NYPD station, I feel particularly incredulous at what the Space Cowboy claims the police said to him. He said an officer told him, “I don’t care if you are a sword swallower, you were holding a sword in public and I have every right to shoot you.”

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