Home-made equipment

[daeinwolf]

I have seen a couple of posts speaking of making your own dummies and what not. So it got me to wondering, what other home-made equipment has everyone been making? I figure that this might make a decent sticky if we can get enough posts and how-to's.

 

SiK---Joshua

[CloudDragon]

Century martial arts has a book that addresses this nicely, you might want to check their site

[aefibird]

I've made a couple of makiwaras, but nothing else - yet!

[delta1]

I'm making a dummy now. PVC frame padded with carpet padding and carpet, wraped in duct tape to hold it together. The PVC dummies tend to get busted up fairly regularly, but I'm trying some new reinforcing measures and a shock mounted base.

 

The base is a piece og 3/16ths sheet aluminum about 2ft x 2ft. Two pipe anchors are riveted to this base, and a 14" x 3/4" PVC nipple is threaded into each anchor. On top of each anchor is attached a heavy duty bunjee strap. The nipples are loosly padded to absorb side shock. The legs of the dummy are 1 1/2" PVC. They slip over the nipples, and the bunjee straps are attached inside the legs with a bolt. The bunjees absorb upward force. The PVC nipples should give way before the legs, and will be easier to repair. The legs are usually the most vulnerable part of the dummy. The legs attach to the torsoe with unions, so that you have access to inside the legs to secure the bunjees and effect repairs.

 

The torsoe is just a skeletal frame of PVC nipples and fittings, cross braced with twisted wire. I'm thinking of adding some 1/4" plywood to brace critical parts, like the shoulders and chest.

 

The head and neck is more PVC, but heavier to take the abuse. Just bush up to larger sizes.

 

The entire frame is padded with carpet padding, and the outer padding is carpet. By cutting and layering, I can get all the landmarks and targets, effectively creating a fairly realistic human body. I use a LOT of duct tape securing all this. Major muscle groups and body shape are pretty simple. But I also include details like eye sockets, mouth and jaws, ears, adams apple, suprasternal notch, ..., any landmark that indicates a target I might want to hit or stay away from.

 

I dress them in old clothes, and name them after Pollacks I've known. They are one of the best training aids you can have.

 

I don't put arms on them because they are way too easily broken. A partner standing behind the dummy can strike with padded sticks for a bit more realism. But, I am toying with the idea of a shaft and bunjee mount for moveable arms that have resistance. That is one other reason for useing plywood reinforcing in the torsoe- though it would have to be 3/8ths to 1/2 inch plywood for this. Who knows? We'll see how it ends up.

 

Edit/Update: I kicked the legs a little and wasn't satisfied with the way it felt. So I've just modified the base. I added a 4" steel nipple to the bottom, and coupled the PVC nipplet to this. The steel nipple is padded with one wrap of carpet padding. Seems to work OK, but obviously won't know 'till I get it all together and whomp it a while.

Edited April 17, 2004 by delta1

[delta1]

I have some tennis balls strung on light bunjee chord that I hang at variouse heights to useas focus balls. You can also hang paper or foil strips for this purpose, but the wind will obviousely effect them more.

 

I make training knives from scrap wood. Shape them on a belt sander or a grinder. I leave the edges fairly flat. Recently, I came across a tip somewhere that you can glue pipe cleaners to the cutting edges of wooden knives. Dust them with carpenters chalk, and you get a mark everywhere you 'cut'. I use hot melt glue, and it works. One thing I found is that you should crimp the ends of the pipe cleaners back so that if (when) they come loose someone doesn't get poked.

[delta1]

Well, if no one else is going to reply, I'll post another.

 

For weapons practice I use two dummies. One is five old tires stacked and bolted together flat. A sixth tire is bolted on top, edgewise. This is a pretty common dummy for FMA's.

 

The other is an old fire hose doubled over and hung in my garage. I duct-taped some sponges at head height. I also taped the hoses together at groin height and put grommets in the bottoms. I use round bunjee chord through the grommets to anchor sandbag feet so I can put the legs in a stance. Works great for stick work, practice swords or knives, staff, ... whatever you want to hit him with.

 

I'm looking for some really heavy rope, like they use in school gymns to climb. I figure that I can tie a few knots in it for targets and hang it from my tree outside. I have some 1" rope, but it wraps around the staff with a heavy strike. It does work with the sticks because it forces you to hit with the tip so it doesn't wrap or start swaying around too much.

 

Now it's you guys turn...