Question about Fantasy wrist sheath.

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gerrerd

Joined
May 1, 2012
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I've seen the stuff around this forum regarding spring loaded wrist sheaths. Deemed unsafe, as, essentially shooting a knife into your hand is quite obviously unsafe. What I�m looking for, and have read about in countless fantasy books, is a wrist sheath, that allows you to drop a knife (via gravity) from ones wrist into their hand. Probably a throwing knife, pointy but not super sharp as to avoid cutting yourself. As I've thought about this more and more I've had some ideas and I�d love some feedback from people with more experience than myself. So here's what I'm thinking:

Take a standard throwing knife, find, or make some form of rail (I�m thinking like rack mounting rails for computer equipment) where the knife can slide in and out the ends, but not out of the side. At the bottom of this rail you have some form of latch that stops the knife�s descent. Tied to the latch would be a piece of fishing line with a tiny washer tied to the end of it for weighting and grip purposes. You'd be able to press the little washer to your palm with the fingers of that same hand, flex the wrist outward and release the latch, allowing the blade to slide down the rail (so that it does not spin, or get caught in sleeves) into the hand. No springs, just gravity and a clever little latch. The only concerns at that point are to use a knife that's pointy but not sharp, so it�s less likely to cut you along the way down your palm, since it�s going to drop blade first, and the latching mechanism needs to be secure enough not to fall out randomly, yet sensitive enough to release the blade when you want it to without much trouble.

All in all this is designed to be a subtle device, as cross drawing from sleeves is a very obvious maneuver, as is drawing from belt or pocket. This should be nothing more than a subtle wrist twitch to release and drop the knife. The downside I've just realized is that your arms have to be down at your sides, as there's nothing to force it against gravity if your arms are out to the sides or reaching upwards.

I'm looking for feedback here... Have I overlooked something obvious that scraps this plan before it hits the drawing board? Have I overlooked something that makes this even more awesome?

Thanks in advance!
 
Welcome to Bladeforums.

Ask yourself, if this were a viable project, wouldn't these sheaths be all over the place already? What purpose would a stealthy, rapid deployment sheath serve, to augment fighting skills? Knife fighting is ... not a sensible, effective real world activity.
 
Thanks!
The sheaths might not be all over the place because of the lack of demand. This is merely something I've thought of off and on since reading my first fantasy novel 20 years ago, for some reason I have the desire to puzzle out how to do it, I thought maybe there'd be other knife fans out there that had a similar desire, or at least insight into how this might work better, or how my idea might be terrible in implementation. Sword fighting is not much of a sensible real world activity either, yet someone made the Dragon Slayer sword from the Berserk manga (absolutely impossible to effectively wield due to its size and weight http://youtu.be/uR1gCSO9NB0?t=3m12s ) Call this an exercise in imagination and implementation.
 
That's true. We watch TV / movies, we buy products we see in ads, we date the first pretty face we meet. Fantasy is a way of expanding horizons without having to spend too much time or money doing it.

And sometimes it leads us to an interesting gadget. :)
 
Maybe find a way to ask the prop department how they do it in the movies?

BTW, if you want a subtle way to access a knife, have it mounted upside down at your 3:00. An untucked shirt will hide it, and once you get the height right you can pull it, change your mind and put it away without anyone noticing.

Of course if you live in CA getting caught with the above set up will be a felony - unless you tuck your shirt in. See, who says our laws don't make sense? Just make dang sure that shirt doesn't come untucked!
 
MVF said:
Maybe find a way to ask the prop department how they do it in the movies?

BTW, if you want a subtle way to access a knife, have it mounted upside down at your 3:00. An untucked shirt will hide it, and once you get the height right you can pull it, change your mind and put it away without anyone noticing.

Of course if you live in CA getting caught with the above set up will be a felony - unless you tuck your shirt in. See, who says our laws don't make sense? Just make dang sure that shirt doesn't come untucked!
Click to expand...

Had never actually thought of that positioning. I'd have gone for sideways at the small of the back, but that's only slightly less obvious than cross drawing on the wrists.

Thanks for the input. As far as the sheath i guess i'll just have to mess around and see what i can come up with.
 
gerrerd said:
I've seen the stuff around this forum regarding spring loaded wrist sheaths. Deemed unsafe, as, essentially shooting a knife into your hand is quite obviously unsafe. What I�m looking for, and have read about in countless fantasy books, is a wrist sheath, that allows you to drop a knife (via gravity) from ones wrist into their hand. Probably a throwing knife, pointy but not super sharp as to avoid cutting yourself. As I've thought about this more and more I've had some ideas and I�d love some feedback from people with more experience than myself. So here's what I'm thinking:

Take a standard throwing knife, find, or make some form of rail (I�m thinking like rack mounting rails for computer equipment) where the knife can slide in and out the ends, but not out of the side. At the bottom of this rail you have some form of latch that stops the knife�s descent. Tied to the latch would be a piece of fishing line with a tiny washer tied to the end of it for weighting and grip purposes. You'd be able to press the little washer to your palm with the fingers of that same hand, flex the wrist outward and release the latch, allowing the blade to slide down the rail (so that it does not spin, or get caught in sleeves) into the hand. No springs, just gravity and a clever little latch. The only concerns at that point are to use a knife that's pointy but not sharp, so it�s less likely to cut you along the way down your palm, since it�s going to drop blade first, and the latching mechanism needs to be secure enough not to fall out randomly, yet sensitive enough to release the blade when you want it to without much trouble.

All in all this is designed to be a subtle device, as cross drawing from sleeves is a very obvious maneuver, as is drawing from belt or pocket. This should be nothing more than a subtle wrist twitch to release and drop the knife. The downside I've just realized is that your arms have to be down at your sides, as there's nothing to force it against gravity if your arms are out to the sides or reaching upwards.

I'm looking for feedback here... Have I overlooked something obvious that scraps this plan before it hits the drawing board? Have I overlooked something that makes this even more awesome?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

This would not be difficult to make with some concealex or kytex to make a sheath for the knife that is smooth and would allow it to slid out with little friction or resistance once the "latch was released.

I would say make the "latch" that holds the knife in place a simple ball detent that fits into a recess in the kytex sheath so it will hold the knife but can be overcome by pressure. In the back of the sheath I would put a small light tension spring to keep the knife under pressure against the ball detent (this will allow you to deploy it without having to use gravity while just supplying enough of a push to get the knife out of the sheath and into your hand). When making the sheath make a small rail or even a hinge that when tugged on will give the knife a nudge from behind so as to not interfer with it's movement out the sheath.....Then have a loop that goes over your thumb and to a hinge on the sheath. When you tug your thumb forward with enough pressure it will pull the knife forward a tiny bit and overcome the ball detent.... then the spring in the back takes over and will give the knife a gentle nudge and it will slip into your hand.

Sorta hard to describe but this is the first configuration that came to mind.
 
Such a thing would certainly be possible, yes. It actually wouldn't be that difficult to make either. It would take a bit of smarts to do it because a mechanism is involved. For obvious reasons, it would not be a smart thing to do. You don't see it around much because people who are smart enough to do it are smart enough not to do it.
 
The reasonably-safe approach would be to deliver not a fixed-blade knife, but a closed, one-hand-openable, folding knife.
 
I thought the one used by the bad guy in Last Action Hero was really cool. Not realistic but very cool.

Even better the one used by the Butler in Hudson Hawk would be even cooler.
 
Try browsing a site called Exotic Automatic.
 
I met a man from the Middle East once. He came to speak for a group of youths.

He had a decent sized jambia dagger up his sleeve in a sheath that strapped to his arm. He took his robe off and showed us the sheath and attachment. It was neat, but I did not pay attention to the method of attachment. I want to say it actually went up over the shoulder, like a shoulder holster.

It was a leather rig, and when released the knife could be pulled out, but did not fall right out without a bit of effort.

It made quite an impression.
 
Check out the movie "Taxi Driver." This sheath is there. A movie prop. For the movie world.
 
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