How to Build a Simple Stunt Knife

Any artist who's ever tried to create theatrical or movie stunts involving staged knife fighting knows that far too often, there's a difficult choice to be made between safety and realism. With a good stunt knife, neither of these important qualities must be sacrificed as even a full-on "stabbing" strike won't have the potential to injure. A basic rubber knife, whose soft blade will bend harmlessly on contact, is easy to make from liquid latex.

For this project, you will need:

Paper
Cardboard

Scissors

Craft glue

Leather or waxed cotton cord

Liquid latex

Silver spray paint

Acrylic paint

Cut out a knife blade shape from paper. Either sketch your own, use a cut-out of a picture, or trace a real knife according to whatever shape you want in a stunt knife. Make sure the blade's thickness is no less than a fourth of the measurement of its length for best structure.

Reinforce the handle with cardboard. Trace just the handle portion in cardboard, cut out, and glue the cardboard portion to the bottom of the paper knife shape, leaving just the blade in paper only.

Wrap the handle in string. Add several layers of leather cord or waxed cotton cord to the handle in a tight wrap, moving up and down the length evenly as though wrapping a spool. Make the handle about as thick as you want it to be when finished.

Dip the knife in several coats of liquid latex. Dip the handle a few times first, hanging it by the blade while it dries and letting each layer dry before adding the next. After completely coating the handle, dip the blade and hang the knife by the handle while the blade dried. Add enough layers to make the finished, dry knife blade stiff enough to stand up on its own.

Paint the knife. Spray paint the entire knife silver (paint one side, let dry, then spray the other) and let the silver paint dry. Paint the knife handle by hand using acrylic in black or brown.