You can't catch your hand on the bolts.

Look again.
You'll notice that the "outer tube" houses the track system for the "inner tube" that slides out of it.

Ahhh, dur, I just missed your very tiny little outline for the outter tube to show the insides of it. Now my question is how do they lock out? or does it rely purely on centrifugal force to stay extended?

Addressing the "middle shaft not being held" theory... Make the middle shaft longer. Ta-da! Now you can hold the middle shaft and spin the two ends out.

Not the exact middle. By "middle shaft" I meant of an extendable staff. Break it into three pieces, one being about 2x the length of the other two (making the two together being as long as one). Now you don't have to worry about gripping a joint.

Damn, I wish they had an on-line site. They are more of a hole in the wall type of place. The owner can order you a real Katana from Japane through an old buddy he knows. That is if you can come up with $1200.00. LOL. Its a nice little place.

anyways. I will say it again. The center peace seemed to be 2 1/2 feet long The outer peaces were 1 1/4 long. They slid out quite easy if you twisted it hard enough. getting them back in was a pain because they had two locking buttons on each end. Since the center of the staff was the total length of the two ends so you did not end up touching the smaller parts of the staff. I know how to use bow staffs and it was a good design. They even seemed to have put small weights (like 1/4 a pound, in the end of the staff to counter balence the fact that the ends were smaller and weight less. I have not been there in a few months but Maybe I should go buy a few and sell them on e-bay. LOL.

Oh ya, I could be off a little bit on the messurments. The staff was 5 feet 6 inches when fully exstended...I think. LOL

Sorry, Yes 5'6''. And the lame joke would be best left for another topic. LOL.

As for the sword, it was nice, better than most I find. Real folded steel, not some factory press crap.

I bought one years ago and used it for picknicks and barba-qs. When you pull out a katana to cut water mellon or carve a pig you just seem to get a little more respect than other cooks. My Japense friend was insulted, good thing he did not know what me and my girl friend liked to do with it. LOL.

...

I don't want to know...

Not to mention makes all that money so well spent.

If I were to actually buy a real katana (not Pakistani steel, not combat sword (Starfire)), it would only be for when the zombies come.

...What?

(Saw Dawn of the Dead Saturday night and couldn't help thinking how fun it would be to just hack through zombie after zombie with edged weapons instead of shooting them in the head.)

Haven't you seen Versus? It's all about the katana/firearm combination.

~J

I Though Shaun of the Dead was a far superior film, but may be thats just me.....

Katanas are for weenies who watch too much anime. Real men decapitate zombies with a battleaxe.

No real men cut off their right hand and replace it with a chainsaw

John: The plural of katana is katana.

And "real men" use whatever is it hand to kill a zombie. If it happens to be a katana, so be it. (And, by the way, nice sweeping generalization. Not all people who like katana are obsessed with anime.)

Ooh, someone's being overly defensive.

What, you want me to pull out my machette instead?

Oooh, how about a can of compressed air! (That might make a pretty nice bomb, actually...)

Doc: And we know why.

Just a comment on talking about Dawn of the dead being real: Linky

A friend of mine is wild about katana, and feudal Japan, Samurai and all that, but he hates anime, I don't think there's a definite connection.
I'm no proof though, I like both swords and anime.

Real Roleplayerers make a flowery speech and then steal a truck to go save the doggy, thus giving the Real Men the opportunity to use their chainsaws and shotguns.

Pardon me while I shoot that stupid woman...

Sigh.

Old thread, let it die, as it already was long ago.

Here, let me find one of your older threads where you posted something without really thinking and in a bit of a rush.

And, AE, that was a bit of a low blow. I'd've never expected something like that from you.

Sorry. I probably should have presented it otherwise, but I just wanted to remind people that katanaphilia is a clear and present threat. If you feel what you said was really dumb, go back and edit it to include a disclaimer such as [Sorry, I have no idea just what the fuck I was thinking when I posted this shitty excuse of a message.] (And I'm not saying that's what the message is, that's just an example of the kind of disclaimer I've been wanting to add to many of my early messages.)

I don't mind if you link a stupid message written by me. I've read a lot of my earlier stuff, and I'm ready to admit I've been dead wrong on a lot of things. I'm also over it and doing my best not to repeat those mistakes.

Actually, most of what I said I still stand by (stubborn, yeah, I know). However, the reason I would choose a katana over, say, a battleaxe or a broadsword is that a katana is better at rending flesh than anything else.

After all, axes have been known to get stuck. If you're slashing, there's less chance of it getting stuck (unless deeply embeded in some very thick bone).

yeah axes get stuck in thick bone so would a katana

"Stubborn" is indeed not the word most people would use. In any case, I would also pick a sword over an axe to destroy zombies with, just because a sword is easier to use for most people. That's something I have not yet seen any RPG take into account well, the best attempts being greater attack speeds/better "initiative", etc.

Speak for yourself, I weild a 16lb splitting axe much better than I do a sword. Plus while you take three strike to kill 1 zombie. I'm taking two and killing two.

<inserts a blatant Shaun of the Dead reference> I'd still rather have a collection of old LP records to hurl at the zombies, with a cricket bat for back-up once I run out of the crappy albums worth throwing.

Me, I'd rather have a katana. Why? Because it's what I use. Most weapons capable of causing massive trauma will be pretty much equal, all in all. There are variations, but all capable of being overcome through familiarity with the weapon.

The weapons I would not want to have are those like a rapier, intended to puncture organs. Damn undead and their lack of biological weaknesses...

~J

I guess it all comes down to what kind of zombies these are, ie what does it take to stop them from moving. Most blunt trauma, for example, is nearly always useless against zombies in movies, thus a bat wouldn't help (haven't seen Shaun of the Dead).

I have browsed through a number of medieval weaponry catalogues as part of my quest to use Shadowrun rules in a medieval fantasy setting and trying to make the combat as believable as possible. I am very aware of the general shapes battle/combat/war axes take. Yes, they often have spikes you can use to thrust, but these are certainly inferior to how you can utilize the whole blade of a sword, especially with later middle age swords which are very, very pointy. Against zombies, the fact that the thrusting point on an axe will only allow a small amount of penetration will also be a huge minus.

I already expressed my opinion about blunt trauma. Wielding an axe as a club is certainly easier than as an axe (as silly as it sounds, as long as there's no piercing point or hammer on the other side), because you don't need to hit at a very good angle to get some effect, but it's of limited use against zombies. Bashing with the haft is the equivalent of bashing with a sword's pommel -- except with several swords you also have the ability to smash your opponent with the crossguard, for which there is not an equivalent on most axes. Still, these are very minor concerns in battling hordes of brain-eaters.

Looking at RL examples of what weapons people pick, or even should pick, certainly cannot be used as proof of one class of melee weapons being superior, because of the mentioned preference, style of thinking, natural aptitude and level of training. However, just going through in my head the ways in which I, personally, could effectively engage and undead, rotting humanoid monstrosity, I think I'd be better off with the range of options allowed by a sword. A rather light, straight hand&half sword with a good thrusting point, to be specific. I think I have about equal experience with swinging sword-like (boffer and stick-fighting) and axe-like (woodcutting, just generally swinging axes at things) objects.

The thought behind katana getting stuck less often than an axe is as follows:

When fighting with a katana, you tend to move, and move, and move. Mainly circularly, but continuously nonetheless. Axes tend to be a bit jerkier in motion (attack, land hit, pull axe back, repeat).

Yes, there are better weapons, however, I'm in the same boat as Kage. It's what I'm trained in. I can easily default to a bastard sword, or a scimitar, or twin daggers... However, I feel more comfortable with a katana than any other blade.

Now, granted, I'd like to stay as far away from the zombies as possible, so twin dagger would be a bad choice (as would most melee weapons when they really start to overrun), but they're options for when you lose your weapon of choice.

If I had no chance of running out of ammo, yes, gun, all day, every day. However, that isn't always an option.

And also seeing that zombies are about as probable as Zaphod Beeblebrox showing up at my front door... We can all safely rest and just kill them in video games instead.

"You only had the two arms and the one head and called yourself Phil…"

~J

As far as I'm concerned, for Zombies at least, axes would be a very good choice. Never underestimate the ability to take limbs off when trying to stem the tide of that Zombie horde, especially legs ... and of course heads. While katanas, and other swords can perform adequately in this area, it's a task for which an axe excels.

Zombies can crawl, you know. Best to kill them in one go than not at all.

Katana has a fast repeat rate (light compared to an axe). Well, most cutting swords do rather. That way you can choose whether to reduce the effectiveness of multiple opponents or eliminate one or two rather than being more or less limited to taking out an opponent per relatively slow hit.

~J