Once upon a time I was an ultra-runner. These daft sausages run 50 and 100 mile races. I have, you might say, some experience running through things. However, due to one injury and another, I stopped running at the age of 20, and wasn't physically able to run through much of anything for more than ten years after.

When you doctor tells you to stop running or you'll stop walking, and your first though is, "Can I get in the race this weekend?" You're addicted. Cold turkey is called for.

I've been re-training since, some, though not much, and I've been excessively careful - so it should come as no surprise that this task called out to me. However, niggling in the back of my mind was the feeling that I'd spent my whole life doing this wrong...

...so I went to the closet...

...and I got a tool of choice...

...and I ran through them in order...

What follows is a photo description set:



The words we're looking for here are "Foining, stabbles, paranoia."

Mostly the latter, since the 440 stainless (optimistic since I'm pretty sure this is lower quality than 440) seems likely to be the sort of metal you could punch break just by saying hi.

A cardboard box. Yep, we sure can run that through, even at the wonky down-angle on the braced thrust.



A handkerchief. Recently used.

A cardboard box.
A handkerchief.
A DVD Spindle. Still on its side.

(Four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves - would with this sword and a fire go quite well.
I want bird food.)

On the fifth day of foining, 440 gave to me:

1 cardboard box
1 cloth handkercheif
1 DVD spindle resting on its side
1 paper towel used as a handkerchief and then later (once I got it off the blade again) as a face cleaner.
1 peppermint teabag! (Ommmm Nommm Nommmm Nom!)
1 mapcase cover, this won't reach twelve items
1 bizarre still packaged antibiotic ointment I'll never use...
1 plastic bag, wait we've reached the end... but that's a lot of stuff for me to run through!

Needless to say, this requires more piccies.



Any blade, and most especially the extra-crappy ones, you need to respect. If you're looking to run through things, you need to know the break profile of the metal your blade is made of. If you're going to manually ride things down a blade, as I did here, you need to know how much friction (static and kinetic) and how much difference in friction you're going to get, and how much risk you're undertaking.

Riding things down a blade because it's still? Is dangerous. I do a *lot* of blade work, and even with that experience, working with a crappy blade in stuff like this makes my hair stand up. The blade oil: How old is it? The metal, that sound, is that a snap coming on? Even 440 or softer can toss a flake if they tempered it anywhere.

*sighs*

So, if you're out running through things, do yourself a favor and bring a real blade, not some crap Chinese knockoff chisel-point wanna-be.