BLADE Magazine

Editor’s note: the following originally appeared in the December 1995 issue of BLADE. Read more from the archives with this collection here.

Mortal Kombat®, based on the video game series of the same name, hit screens in 1995. The story of the knife that appears in the movie is anything but linear. It’s a good example of how things work in Hollywood. 

How the Gil Hibben Raptor for Mortal Kombat was Created

As with many movie knife projects, the Mortal Kombat Raptor materialized not by design but by some behind-the-scenes events that are typical of movie productions. Let me explain.

Originally, the producers of Mortal Kombat asked United Cutlery to design custom knife props for the movie. They wanted a knife with a mermaid handle for a specific scene that was to take place on a wooden ship that takes the characters to the island where the Mortal Kombat tournaments are held.

While on the ship, three heroes and three villains. including the captain, were to fight below decks. I t was during this scene that the captain was supposed to use the mermaid knife. As soon as he was to bring the knife to bear, a blue ball of energy would streak through the passageway and turn into the character of Kayden, Lord of the Dominion of Earth (played by Christopher Lambert).

The knife and everything in Rayden’s path would crackle with energy. There was even talk of having the eyes of the mermaid open as the energy went through the knife. It all sounded fascinating but in the movie knife business strange things happen, and this was no exception.

Evolution of the Mermaid Dagger

In July 1994, Mortal Kombat‘s prop master, Eugene McCarthy, sent United Cutlery a sketch of the handle he wanted for the movie knife. It was based on an existing mermaid dagger he had seen in UC’s catalog. except he wanted it to have a damascus tanto blade. I designed two versions of the knife around his requirements, one with a dagger blade and one with a tanto blade. The handle had to be metal so that the electricity could dance over it. I added a pearl and a seashell to make the handle different from United’s existing mermaid design.

The movie’s officials picked my dagger blade design, and United sent them a handmade blade with a carved wood handle. Since they needed to use rubber knives in the combat scenes for safety reasons, they were going to use the United prototype to make casts for rubber props that would be painted to look like real metal.

At United, we proceeded to make the molds and tooling for the version that we were going to sell to the public.

However, movie officials told us a few months later that the scene had been cut from the film. That kind of thing has happened in other movies we’ve worked on in the past, so we weren’t too upset.

Enter The Raptor Knife

Fortunately, the movie officials told us they had used one of our other knives, the Raptor. in another scene. The director, Paul Anderson, earlier had requested some samples from our existing line to consider for other characters in the movie. Two of the knives were our Gil Hibben Double Shadow and the Raptor.

The Raptor is the 1994 edition of United’s Hibben Knives Custom Design Series. Each year we produce a new knife for the series. Hibben’s knives have been featured in many films, including Rambo III and Under Siege. The Double Shadow has been in several TV shows and films, but to our knowledge the Raptor had not been used in a film yet.

Anderson wanted the character Kano (played by Trevor Goddard) to use the Raptor in a fight scene with Sonya (played by Bridgette Wilson), one of the heroes of the film. In the fight, which is mostly hand-to-hand and martial arts, Kano uses the Raptor but is disarmed in the end. The movie is targeted for kids, so no blood is shed with our knife in the film.

Collector Raptor

We are producing a special Mortal Kombat edition of the Raptor for movie knife collectors. It is the same as the one seen in the film, except that it features a two-color deep etch of the Mortal Kombat logo on the blade and an embossed dragon emblem on the sheath.

Each knife will be individually serial numbered, and will come in a special box featuring movie graphics and photos. We liked the original mermaid knife so much that we produced a modified version of it and added it to our line.

We omitted the damascus-etched blade but otherwise it is the same as the one designed for the film.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the December 1994 issue of BLADE. Read more from BLADE‘s extensive archive here.

Again and again, when knives hit the silver screen, they become characters unto themselves. Some knives take that more literally than others. Here’s one example.

A Movie Knife with Tibetan Influences

The Phurba, the knife from the 1994 motion picture, The Shadow, breaks new ground for movie blades because it’s the first to take advantage of new computer-generated special effects. For the dagger in The Shadow, that means the creation of a living, breathing character, so to speak.

“It growls a couple of times, flies through the air, sprouts legs and even bites Alec Baldwin’s hand,” United Cutlery’s Kit Rae said of the knife. “They used a lot of computer graphics so the face on the handle moves, and the handle twists around.”

Designed for the movie by Joe Nemec III, the Phurba – or “Phurbu” as it is also spelled – is based on an actual Tibetan exorcising knife or “ghost dagger” used by lamas (Buddhist monks) to drive out evil spirits. The Phurba dovetails with the theme of The Shadow since the movie begins in Tibet.

A Three-Sided Blade

According to A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor, by George Cameron Stone, the original Phurbas had, “a three-winged blade and a hilt made up of lamaistic symbols. The pommel is usually a head with three faces crowned, with an animal’s head and neck projecting from the top. Thunderbolts (vajras), dragons and dragon’s heads are frequently present. Usually the blades are made of iron and the hilts of brass; sometimes the entire knife is of brass, and occasionally of wood.”

Nemec couldn’t get an authentic Phurba, so he based the movie knife on research, Rae said. The movie Phurba is true to the original knife in looks, right down to the three-sided blade. The main difference is in the number of faces on the handle, which was sculpted by Nemec. Where authentic Phurbas have three faces, the movie version has but one.

“[The movie’s officials] decided on a single face because it fit in with the idea that the knife was a living character,” Rae said.

Editor’s note: The following appeared in the February 1993 issue of BLADE magazine. You can read more from BLADE‘s extensive archive here.

Knifemakers keep the candle lit for traditions going back generations. It’s no wonder Hollywood would turn to these keepers of history when making movies set in centuries past. 

Winkler: It Started with a Casting Call

Knifemakers Daniel Winkler and Randall King capitalized on being at the right place at the right time to make the knives for 1992’s box-office hit, The Last of the Mohicans.

Winkler, who lives in Boone, North Carolina, (the movie was filmed in the nearby North Carolina mountains) read about a casting call for the movie in a local newspaper. A maker of period pieces for and a participant in mountain man rendezvous, Winkler and his knives would seem a good match for the movie’s mid-18th century time frame, but not even he and his business associate, Karen Shook, could have foreseen the good fortune that would befall them when they met with movie prop master Ron Downing.

“Karen and I introduced ourselves to Downing’s secretary and got a map to his office,” Winkler recalled. “We spoke with Downing and he told us he had a meeting that night with the movie’s director, Michael Mann, at which time he was supposed to show Mann the knives that were to be used in the movie.

“But Downing didn’t have any knives! Karen and I ‘happened’ to have a suitcase full of knives and Downing asked if we would stay for the meeting with Mann. Though no specific knives were agreed upon at the meeting, they decided our knives were appropriate and gave them some idea of what they wanted.”

Designing, and Re-Designing, the Knives

From there, Winkler learned just how tough a job he had taken on. He met with production officials to decide on a specific knife design. From that design Winkler made a knife and brought it to the next production meeting, where movie officials suggested more changes.

“I went to six weeks of meetings and they’d change the knife at every meeting. They continually changed the design until the final knives were an evolution of changes,” Winkler said.
Once the final designs were agreed upon, he had to make three of each knife in case any one was damaged or lost, all of which had to look alike.

“It was difficult to get the same shape bone for each handle,” he noted.

The knife can be seen in the first few seconds of this video clip:

Winkler made the knives for Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his adopted brother, Uncas (Eric Schweig), and the tomahawk for the movie’s villain, Magua (Wes Studi). Magua’s tomahawk was one piece Winkler didn’t have to change. It gets the best close-up shot of any of the movie’s edged pieces early on when Magua attacks one of the English soldiers escorting Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May) Munro to see their father. Winkler said it was copied from a design on display in a French and Indian War museum in New York.

“(The movie officials) didn’t change the reproduction I made,” Winkler said. “When they got it, they liked it.”

King: It Started with Breakfast

King can thank his father for his opportunity to make the movie knives.

“Jim Morgan, the assistant prop master, ate breakfast where my Dad does every morning,” said King, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, also near where the movie was filmed. “They got to talking and Dad said I made knives they could use in the movie. Jim said to send me down.”

The next thing King knew, he was making movie knives.

Hiding “Blood Bladders” Inside Knife Handles

The knife King made for Chingachgook (played by Russell Means) is a combination of two knives-an English dagger blade with a handle designed by Downing. Like Winkler, King had to make several copies of the knives.

“Do you know how hard it is to duplicate a piece of stag? I took a moose antler and sawed a piece from it about 2 inches in diameter,” he explained. “I sanded it down to the same shape as the original and took a Dremel tool to cut the lines in it and then burned it in places for the stag effect.”

King also had to duplicate the carved bear-head handle of Magua’s knife, and made two special effects knives for Magua with removable handles that hid “blood bladders,” which squirted fake blood when squeezed for the movie’s action scenes. King also made the knives and sheaths for the movie’s extras.

Winkler said the huge gunstock war club that Chingachgook cames in the movie, as well as the other tomahawks used by movie extras, were made by in-house prop people. A lot of the tomahawks were based on authentic designs illustrated in blackpowder catalogs, he noted.

Working with the Stars

Both makers said they got to meet the stars and were impressed with how cordial they were, King even to the point of having his picture made with Studi and Day-Lewis.

Though neither maker “got rich” from the money they made-King used the proceeds to make himself a new knife shop-both viewed the experience as educational.

“Working on a movie production is not something I would want to do very often,” Winkler admitted. “It was fun but it took a tremendous amount of time. They wanted everything right away. I had to put off some of my custom orders and missed some knife shows to meet their deadlines, and a lot of what I did for them was put on the shelf. We (knifemakers) are suppliers, not actors.”

The makers may not be actors but, in a way, the knives and tomahawk were. And if the past is prologue-as with the Rambo knives that helped boost the knifemaking fortunes of Gil Hibben and the late Jimmy Lile-Winkler and King may reap even more benefit to their knifemaking careers from the pieces for The Last Of The Mohicans.

Editor’s note: The following originally appeared in the February 1986 issue of BLADE magazine. Read more from BLADE‘s archives in this collection.

Jack Crain passed away in September 2016 at the age of 70. He’s best remembered for the knives he supplied for many Hollywood movies, including Commando, Predator, Road House, Predator 2, Demolition Man and Executive Decision.

However, it was Commando that solidified Crain’s reputation as a knifemaker to Hollywood. Here is the complete article about his work for that action film.

Hollywood Loves Custom Knives

Hollywood is sold on the custom knife, and knifemaker Jack W. Crain of Weatherford, Texas, has reason to be pleased.

Why? Because one of Crain’s knives has recently “co-starred” in a Hollywood production. The knife, a model Crain calls the “Life Support System I,” was recently featured in the popular motion picture Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The knife also appeared in the Airwolf television series, and later this season it will appear in an episode of The Fall Guy.

Knives on Silver Screens Inspire Knifemakers

Indirectly, explains Crain, the relationship between Hollywood and the custom knife began about three decades ago with the motion picture The Iron Mistress. That film, a romanticized biography of James Bowie starring Alan Ladd, had a tremendous impact on the early custom knife industry. Knife collecting became more popular, and several of today’s prominent makers readily concede that their careers were launched by that movie.

Crain was building knives before he ever saw the film.

“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t making knives,” he states. But he admits to having watched The Iron Mistress “several hundred times.”

And since he prefers to make Bowie knives over all other styles, he assumes that the movie influenced his career as well.

Occasionally a knife will surface which purports to be the Bowie knife used by Alan Ladd in The Iron Mistress. Of course, it will be accompanied by a formidable price tag. Crain admonishes would-be investors that these knives are almost certainly fakes.

All of the Bowies from The Iron Mistress are in a private collection, and they are not likely to be sold in that collector’s lifetime.

The Renaissance

Handmade knives flourished in the years following The Iron Mistress and Jack Crain was part of the ensuing Renaissance of custom cutlery. He sold his first knife in 1969. A decade later he became a full-time maker and joined the Knifemakers Guild.

Initially, Crain forged his blades. Later, he adopted the stock-removal method. He occasionally returns to the forge to make a damascus blade.

He has produced folders and hunters and fancy daggers, but Bowie knives remain Crain’s primary interest. His fellow knifemakers have cautioned him that the popularity of the Bowie is waning.

“Perhaps they can’t sell Bowie knives, and perhaps I couldn’t sell the kinds of knives they are making,” declares Crain, “but I’m having no difficulty selling my Bowies.”

Limited edition commemorative Bowie knives have become Crain’s specialty, because they allow him to merge his talent for knifemaking with his passion for Texas history. In 1982, he introduced a 13-piece set in which each knife represented one of the 13 days of the heroic siege of the Alamo.

Then came a 20-piece series commemorating Isaac Millsap, one of the Alamo defenders. The Bowies for both sets were loosely patterned after the Bart Moore knife, which allegedly belonged to Jim Bowie.

A Bowie knife found on the San Jacinto battlefield (and currently on display at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame in Waco) provided the design for the Captain Jack Hays series of 20 knives. Hays was a legendary Texas Ranger during the period when Texas was a Republic.

Another series commemorated Noah Smithwick, a blacksmith who fought in the Texas Revolution (and left a detailed account of his exploits). Smithwick actually made Bowie knives-Jim Bowie bought the first one-and the knives in this set replicated the only known Smithwick Bowie in existence.

Survival Knives Get Hot

In 1982, Hollywood released a motion picture whose impact on the custom knife industry rivaled, or surpassed, that of The Iron Mistress. That film was First Blood, and it showcased a handmade survival knife built by James B. Lile. Suddenly the market was flooded with both factory and custom knives featuring sawteeth and hollow handles.

Crain also felt the movie’s impact. He received numerous requests to produce his own version of a survival knife. Since such knives are essentially modified Bowies, the task would appear simple for a Bowie knifemaker. But Crain perceived some inherent challenges in those modifications. He would not replicate Lile’s design or any other pattern. Rather, he would incorporate his own notions of what a combat-survival knife should be.

The LS-1 is Born

The end result was the Life Support System I, which featured a nine-inch by two-inch by 1/4-inch blade, flatground for strength. When this knife was introduced in 1982, Crain offered it with either a 440-C blade in a matte finish or a 1095 spring steel blade with a black finish.

However, Crain became dissatisfied with the quality of the 1095 and later substituted 01 steel on the black-finished knives. He has also added D-2 as an alternative steel for the knives with a matte finish.

A single row of sawteeth is standard on the LS-1. Crain says that, in general, a single row of teeth cuts better and binds less. However, he offers a double row of teeth as an option. The knife is also available with either a square or sharpened back instead of the sawteeth.

Another distinctive feature of the LS-1 is the cut-out at the choil. This indentation accommodates the index finger. This grip provides the knife’s user with better balance for close-up work or more leverage for difficult tasks. It also affords room for a two-handed grip.

In designing the LS-1, Crain recognized that a critical area was the junction of the blade to the handle. On many survival knives, the tang is a short, thin rattail which is merely epoxied or bolted into the handle. Thus, these knives are liable to break at the guard. Crain attempted to correct this problem by strengthening the tang and then welding it into the handle.

Quality Control

However, during strenuous testing he discovered that his blades were still vulnerable at the junction. Through his research, he learned that the airhardened 440 steel had actually been weakened by welding the blade after it had been heat-treated. He successfully resolved the problem by welding the blade into the handle first and then heat-treating the steel.

When Crain discovered the internal flaw, he had already sold a number of his Life Support knives. None of them had been broken and returned. However, he assumed the responsibility of recalling and replacing every knife he could locate. Some knives had changed hands and were lost; a few collectors had prototype knives and refused to return them.

The hollow handle of the LS-1 provided other problems. At first, Crain experimented with the same kind of tubing used on other survival knives. But he determined that the wall thickness of the tubing was too thin. He also discarded the notion of casting the handles (or any other parts of the knife). The alternative was to fabricate the handle out of a solid block of steel.

Because Crain does not possess a lathe or milling machine, he found it necessary to subcontract the production of the handles. They are manufactured to his exacting specifications. Otherwise, Crain performs all of the construction: from free-hand grinding of the blade, to hand-cutting of the sawteeth, to hand-fitting of the guard and handle.

The LS-1 Reaches Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Commando Movie

Crain’s agent took several Life Support knives to California. It was a model with a black finish that was “discovered” by Hollywood and featured in the Airwolf series.

In January of 1985, Crain’s agent was contacted by Tom Shaw, the propmaster of a soon-to-be-made motion picture which would be called Commando. The movie would star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had used custom swords made by Jody Sampson in the Conan films. Shaw reported that Schwarzenegger had seen a Life Support knife. He liked it and wanted to include it in the movie.

“The thing that impressed me,” remembers Crain, “was that these people were trying to get actual working guns and knives-no dummy props.”

Crain was asked to supply three matte-finished Life Support knives and six scabbards for the production. (Schwarzenegger’s character, Col. John Matrix, only carries one LS-I; the extra knives and scabbards were required as back-up.) Then the movie folks requested that Crain design a “small and concealable stiletto-type” knife for Matrix to carry.

Crain complied by developing the Commando model. The single-edged, spear-point blade is flat-ground and measures six inches by one and one-quarter inches by three-sixteenths of an inch. It is affixed to a hollow handle by the same sturdy method as the LS-1.

Three Commando knives were sent to California. The film producers were delighted with the model, but they decided that Col. Matrix would carry two small knives instead of one, and they asked Crain for yet another pattern. Within the movie’s limited production schedule, there was simply no time for Crain to design and construct another new knife. However, he had previously been commissioned by a private company to develop a limited edition of 50 small “all-around survival knives” to be called Scorpion.

These knives featured a six-inch by one-inch by three-sixteenths-inch blade with a sharpened top edge and a double row of sawteeth. Crain secured permission for the Scorpion to be used in the movie, and serial numbers eight and nine were shipped to Hollywood.

Key Scenes from Commando

In the released version of the film, the Commando and Scorpion knives appear very briefly. Matrix jerks them from his scabbard and flings them simultaneously into two attacking “bad guys.”

The LS-1 is displayed much more prominently. Matrix carries it on the front of his combat vest throughout the second half of the movie and utilizes it in the final confrontation with his arch-nemesis, Bennett (portrayed by Vernon Wells).

Contrary to the film’s publicity, Crain did not make the D-guard combat knife carried by Bennett in the movie. That knife, explains Crain, was composed of a factory blade attached to the handle of a 1918 trench knife.

Crain’s Rules for Knives in Movies

In fact, Crain will not permit one of his knives to be used by the villain in a film.

“Knives have a bad enough reputation,” he states. “People associate them with street gangs and psychopathic killers in the ‘slasher’ movies. I don’t want to see my knives doing that sort of thing.”

He stresses that knives are sometimes favored by the “good guys,” too.

Crain has another rule which applies whenever he is asked to design a knife for a movie. He requires creative input from the filmmakers, either the producer or director or the actor who will carry the knife.

“I had several pleasant conversations with the producer of Commando, Joel Silver,” states Crain.

“They treated us real well,” he recalls. “It was quite enjoyable working with them.” Crain adds that Twentieth-Century-Fox provided him with the movie’s press kits and forwarded all inquiries about the knives directly to him.

Crain thoroughly enjoyed watching Commando, noting that it was “fast-paced and fun.” However, he does not recommend that his customers try to emulate Matrix by throwing their Scorpion and Commando knives.

“Blades that are tempered hard enough to take a good edge are generally too brittle for throwing,” he observes.

Limited Supplies

He also notes that it would be extremely unlikely for anyone to find one of his LS-1 knives in an army surplus store, as Matrix did in the movie (above). To date, only about 80 have been made. None of Crain’s knives are mass produced.

He has no employees other than his wife, Toni, who answers the phone so her husband can get some work done in the shop.

“We’re not trying to make a whole lot of knives,” he explains, “just a few good ones.” (Crain also states, with justifiable pride, that Toni is rapidly developing into a talented engraver).

“Actually, the movie has slowed my production,” Crain reports. More people are writing and calling. Some of them want to come to his shop and select a knife from his stock. Crain politely informs them that he has no stock. Every knife is custom ordered and shipped upon completion.

Crain is pleased that Commando was a commercial success and that it has generated more interest in his work. However, he regrets the film’s timing.

“It would have been more convenient if the movie had come out last year-or next year,” he states.

He will have less time to devote to his survival knives in 1986, the year of the Texas Sesquicentennial, and Crain has been commissioned to make commemorative Bowies honoring several Texas cities, including Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston.

Collecting Jack Crain Knives

The fact that Crain’s knives have become “movie stars” has not affected their price. The Life Support System I still costs $450 (in 1986 prices). The Commando sells for $300.00 (in 1986 prices).

However, Crain has introduced a special limited edition set containing both the LS-1 and the Commando. The series, restricted to 50 numbered sets, sells for $1,500. Sets have been presented to Arnold Schwarzenegger and producer Joel Silver.

Crain also makes the Life Support System 11, a scaled-down version of the LS-I with a seven-and-three-quarter-inch by one-and-three-quarter-inch by one-quarter-inch-blade. Although it has not yet appeared in any movies, Crain reports that the LS-2 has been more popular than its big sister with campers and backpackers and others who actually want a using knife.

Will there be more Jack Crain knives “starring” in future motion pictures? Crain thinks so.

There may be a sequel to Commando he states, adding, “We’ve been approached to make some knives for other movies. We’re considering it.”