Something Different

I have a lot of interests.  I'm not necessarily any good at some of them, but that is no reason not to be interested.  One of the things I enjoy very much is knife throwing.  Only I normally throw spikes instead of knives.  

When I take the dog out to her run so she can relieve herself in the morning, I like to grab the spikes and throw them for a few minutes.  These pictures were taken this morning.

The target is pretty mangled because it sees a lot of use, not only from my spikes, but also from my wife's tomahawks.  When I get the chainsaw out in a couple of weeks, one of the first things I'm going to do is replace this piece of log with a new target round.

My spikes are 11" long and have a square point at the tip.  This is a remarkably aggressive point to put on a throwing spike.

A close-up of the tips.  I forge the points and only have to do minor touch-up with the grinder.  These spikes are heat treated to be tough.  I've broken several commercial throwing knives through lots of use.  These spikes will put up with anything I've done to them so far.

I throw from about 10 feet away and finally stick them more often than not. At least if I hit the target at all.  You'd think that a slice of tree 18" across would be easy to hit from that distance.  And for some people it is...

But why pink?

I discovered years ago that it is far too easy to lose a knife or spike that is black.  You might think a black object would stand out in the grass or the dirt of the hillside behind my target, but it doesn't.  I sometimes spent more time looking for the spikes that missed the target than I did actually throwing them.  Painted them pink and that problem went away.  

I'm not a ninja.  I don't need them to be black.  I just need to find them when I (very often) miss the target and have to go looking.