I was just thinking of stupid stuff I did as a kid and this popped up. We used 3 inch long nails to make homemade throwing stars. We started by duct tape two nails togethor at the heads. Then added a third and fourth making a cross shape. We would load it with a lot of tape to give it good weight. The inside of our barn cieling was just riddeled with these stars after one summer. A few barn swallows fell victim to our wrath. Definately could take out small game, if needed. We would easily get half an inch penitration into the barn beams. The ones in the ceiling never fell out.

Anyone else ever try this.

Nifty idea. Wonder what would happen if a body were to weld the nails together, and weld a washer or two in the center. You probably had better quality steel than those found in most commercial stars.

We used to use sickle sections from a mower bar. They are three-inch triangular blades with two holes along the base to rivet them to the bar. By riveting three or four together, you got some very heavy stars that were about 6 inches across. I actually still have some floating around somewhere.

K'Jev
8-)

I've always wanted to make a shuriken and this is one of the ideas i had a while back, but wielding the nails to a solid metal center. Just out of curiosity with throwing stars would one of the spikes or blades have to be a bit longer than the others to help it spin and penetrate more i wonder? Kinda like a throwing knife i mean.

-Ben

You make them symmetrical. We made them out of sheet steel in school when the metalwork teacher wasnt looking. I can vouch for the fact that getting a shuriken stuck in you is very painful and messy  :(

Sounds like someone has done some equally dumb stuff.

And I never got any smarter  ;D

We were always safe with the edged toys.

It was the flash powder and later on, the cannon that were our monuments to childhood adventurism.

K'Jev
8-)

Although 3 sticks of dynamite will do wonders to a wasp nest. :o

Mmm, flashpowder... I've done some dumb stuff with that myself. We also found out a cheap way to make hydrogen gas and had great fun dropping matches on a trash bag inflated with it.  



I too have done the nail shuriken thing, but fortunately there were no impalements.

 Yeah, I tried the nail stars when I was a kid, I guess I didn't use enough tape though.  The nail caltrops on the other hand worked just fine.  My brother and I started making throwing stars out of old circular saw blades.  They worked pretty well, though they could've uesd more weight.  My favorite was a plain triangle about 6" to a side, and I had the points and the edges sharpened.  That thing made some nasty cuts in the local trees... fortunately not in any of the local people (like my brother who had a close call with a ricochet).

I made out of one of those round electrical box covers. It's a four pointed one.

Here are the instructions
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap%2c-good-quality-Shuriken-throwing-star/

Ben-Aussie wrote on May 10^th, 2009 at 2:08am:

I've always wanted to make a shuriken and this is one of the ideas i had a while back, but wielding the nails to a solid metal center. Just out of curiosity with throwing stars would one of the spikes or blades have to be a bit longer than the others to help it spin and penetrate more i wonder? Kinda like a throwing knife i mean. -Ben

hira shuriken are almost always radially symmetrical with the exception of the yagyu shinkage ryu sanko shuriken which is bilaterally symmetrical

Dean Eichler
Owner
www.korisuya.com

---

The nails and tape version actually sounds like it could be really nasty if done properly. However another thing that also would be doable would be to take four nails, glue them to something in the center of the nails, then use wire to make a gods eye. Its even easier if you sharpen both ends of a nail.

For reference, here is a site that deals briefly with gods eyes.
http://www.caron-net.com/kidfiles/kidsapr.html

If you didn't go very far with the wire it would hold together really well, and be pretty effective.

I do a lot of bicycle mechanicing, and I found that the small front sprocket from a "triple" (mountain bike) crankset makes a pretty good shuriken.

The little teeth don't allow much penetration, but they do throw nicely.

Bikewer wrote on May 31^st, 2009 at 5:49pm:

I do a lot of bicycle mechanicing, and I found that the small front sprocket from a "triple" (mountain bike) crankset makes a pretty good shuriken. The little teeth don't allow much penetration, but they do throw nicely.

Good idea!

I've done my fair share of making shurien out of nails and stuff aswell. Here's one out of three nails and some 'kneed it' instant concrete i made a while ago. Unfortunately it didn't hold up very well:S
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b49/wannabeswat/Random/nailshuriken.jpg

Also a few of these, usually glued between two bits of 5mm custom wood/mdf. held up fine unless thrown hard, same as above one:)
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b49/wannabeswat/Random/bladeshuriken.jpg

The ones I used made with duct tape held really good for at least 20 really hard throws. Only takes ten minutes to make one. By the time they started to ware out they were either stuck into the barn cieling or lost in the woods. So it didn't make much sence to spend a lot of time on the construction of it.

Hm i'm gonna try make some out of sheet metal this weekend hopefully, i'll post pics when i do  ;D

-Ben

Kjev wrote on May 10^th, 2009 at 11:14pm:

We were always safe with the edged toys. It was the flash powder and later on, the cannon that were our monuments to childhood adventurism. K'Jev 8-) Although 3 sticks of dynamite will do wonders to a wasp nest. :o

soz for the bit off topick here but how can a 14 year old living in england get (or make) flash powder. (and how do i use it)

poor wasps  :'(  ;D

We also made the duct tape stars.I thought we invented that!Did you know that bikers(outlaw)used the same technique for road jacks except you bend the nails to about 30 degrees and weld.When you drop them they always land with one point up.When you unload a handful from your saddlebag,your pursuer has trouble getting through without hitting one.

      Brett

wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 11:01pm:

We also made the duct tape stars.I thought we invented that!Did you know that bikers(outlaw)used the same technique for road jacks except you bend the nails to about 30 degrees and weld.When you drop them they always land with one point up.When you unload a handful from your saddlebag,your pursuer has trouble getting through without hitting one.       Brett

oh yeah, they're called caltrops

You have to love those things.