Cold Steel stick. Just a fluke?

**Fuzzy** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 3:22am

Permalost, you need an ebay store or something man.

**RynoGreene** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 11:34am

Permalost, I've heard good things about hickory. Will you be testing that at all? If so, I'd love to hear how it does.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 1:42pm

Originally Posted by RynoGreene

Permalost, I've heard good things about hickory. Will you be testing that at all? If so, I'd love to hear how it does.

Haven't gotten any hickory, but I've heard that too. IIRC it was the stick choice in bartitsu for the walking stick. Seems kinda pricy- the hickory dowels I've checked out are about as much as various exotic hardwoods. I'll probably get around to it sooner or later though.

**JesusChrist** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 2:06pm

Hickory is probably on of the best woods IMO. Aslo with regard to the cold steel stick snapping my friend had the same issue with their bokken. Whatever synthetic material they use does not seem to hold up well on contact.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 2:19pm

Originally Posted by JesusChrist

Hickory is probably on of the best woods IMO. Aslo with regard to the cold steel stick snapping my friend had the same issue with their bokken. Whatever synthetic material they use does not seem to hold up well on contact.

That's a shame, especially considering how they market their polymer trainers as "virtually unbreakable and practically indestructible". That's a pretty silly claim to make after they spend so much effort and money to build a reputation of abuse-tested solid products- if they've subjected them to the sorts of stress tests they use for their knives then they must know that they break sometimes.

All the anecdotes I've heard about Cold Steel's polypropylene trainers breaking makes me suspect that their polypropylene ("unbreakable") baseball bats break too, and there's probably a thread about it on a baseball forum somewhere.

**Ignorami** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 5:28pm

The mere shape and weight distribution on a baseball bat must make it hugely more susceptible to stress fractures/breaks.

Either the baseball forums are full of that, or the eskrima thing is isolated cases.

P.S. my lack of any scientific brain-skillz may make the above comment irrelevant, but I have invested in cold steel sticks and desperately want them to be good.

**Twobits** · Posted On: 8/21/2012 8:33pm

Funny you should mention the baseball bat. After this fiasco I went to look at some of the reviews on amazon and someone said their baseball bat broke on the first swing.

I somehow still have faith in the materials because I've seen videos of people trying to snap their trainers with a car (and it survived), but I think the quality control needs to be way better.

**Goa Tse** · Posted On: 8/30/2012 3:22pm

Yeah, I ordered the sticks off Amazon and didn't happen across this thread (Or the TMA forums) until after my order had shipped.

So I got the sticks today and cut them down to the size I want, when I notice that they break after a certain amount of cutting, and I see the bubbles you were all talking about earlier. I'm really hoping that they aren't a defect and that these are good sticks, but I guess I'll find out in time.

**Goa Tse** · Posted On: 9/03/2012 11:06pm

OK, Since I can't edit my post anymore, I'll have to post a little update.

I swung my sticks against a large maple tree full force and then against a brick wall a few times, and they are still fully intact, though there's some indentation on the edge where I rammed it front-first into the wall. While I don't doubt the claims some people have made about sticks breaking, I have to believe it's just the result of a defective batch. In fact, when I took them to class, I was told I wouldn't be allowed to use them to spar because of the damage they do to the rattan sticks.