Hi,
I'd like to get some advice for material to use for a very specific application. Please bear with me here, because I need to give you a little background first.
I'm a martial artist involved in Japanese sword training.
Most of the time, we don't actually use a real swords. We use a substitute training sword called a "bokken" (BOH-ken) for safety reasons. Traditionally, bokken are made of various kinds of wood. However, there are lots of problems with this approach.
For one, they are prone to splintering and/or breaking. We spend alot of time hitting the bokken with great force. Some wood types can't even stand up to a single session without breaking or splintering to the point of actually being dangerous for attacker or defender.
Another problem is that wood is generally too light in weight. Ideally, it should approximate the weight and balance of a real sword (about 3 lbs).
So, it tends to be a trade-off. Woods that are sturdy enough to be used (like hickory) are too light and woods that are heavy enough (like iron wood) are too brittle. (You could do things like make a light wood bokken very thick to appoximate the weight, but that just gets the student used to holding something _much_ too thick.) Finally, I'm not ruling out _all_ wood as an option. Its just that I've never seen any so far that wasn't prone to one of the shortcommings mentioned.
Why not plastics? Well, plastics tend to conduct the force of impact. Someone using plastics will tend to get a tremendous vibration conducted directly into themselves. (That is, it has been true for all the plastic bokken we've tried so far.)
So the rules are:
1) heavy as steel2) non-splintering
3) non-conducting of vibrations4) can be molded to approximate the length shape of a traditional bokken
5) won't break if violently struck with another bokken of any type.Thanks for your time. :) If you have any ideas, please let me know.
TIA,
-Tennis