Who would have guessed a rusty old table saw blade could make such a nice batarang? In
this project we're turning some old shop accessories, into high-speed, superhero throwing stars.
After changing out this 10" saw blade, I wondered what could be done with the old one. Then
the answer became obvious. Make a custom shuriken. To get started on this project, we're gonna
need a paper template, and a stick of glue. Let's go ahead and glue the picture directly
to the saw blade, smoothing out any creases, and let it dry for about 10 minutes. Now we'll
need to fasten the blade securely to a table, making sure there's something to protect the
tabletop from the saw blade, because we'll be cutting this pattern with a jig-saw. You
can see these jig-saw blades have 30 teeth per inch and are made for cutting metal. Let's
start the blade in a groove between the teeth, and begin cutting the straight lines first.
Now I’m cutting very slowly, because I don't have any oil to dissipate the heat, and going
too fast could ruin the blade within minutes. You can see I continued a straight line all
the way across the top, giving easy access to the more intricate cuts inside. The tight
curves are gonna take a lot of time and patience, but with some persistence, you should end
up with something like this, although it does look a little rough around the edges. To fix
that, let's gather up a couple of half-round metal files. I'm gonna use my bench vise to
hold the batarang for better leverage, and here you can see it definitely looks terrible.
But let's go ahead anyway, and use the flat side of the small file to begin grinding down
the sharp points. The contours can be worked with the rounded edge, and after a few minutes
you can already start to see a noticeable improvement. The larger file helps smooth
and shape the bottom curves, and the goal here is to make everything symmetrical. Now,
if we carefully file the edges at an angle, you can see it adds a bit of a bevel to the
top of the wing. I angled both sides of the wing tips to make them look sharper, and seem
a bit more authentic. This actually looks pretty awesome in silver, but let's go one
step further and paint it black. Now if we push the wingtip into a piece of cardboard,
the batarang should stand upright, and we can hit it with a few shots of spray paint.
Make sure it's the kind that can be used on metal, and after a couple of hours, the paint
should be dry enough to handle. At this point, it's nearly finished, and you might be thinking
I forgot to paint the tip. But watch what happens if we use something like sandpaper
or a sanding sponge on the beveled edges. It re-exposes the steel, blending the unpainted
tip with the outer edges once again. Our superhero shuriken is completely finished, and we don't
even have to sharpen the blade. I went ahead and built a throwing post from a length of
2x8, and added a dart board, to use for a target. Now, to throw a batarang, just take
3 paces away from the target, hold it by the bottom wing, and throw it with a bit of a
flick in the wrist. If you did it right, it should make one full rotation and stick firmly
into the target. Now if you adjust your distance in small increments, you'll eventually find
the sweet spot where it sticks perfectly upright, just about every time. A distance of 3 steps
equals 1 full rotation, so from 6 paces it should spin twice. Now it's important to be
safe when handling these things, and they should be treated with the same respect as
a throwing knife or a throwing star. You can see that after two hours of practicing, my
target took an incredible beating, because these are the real deal. Using this method,
I was able to make 5 batarangs from the one saw blade, and you can see I made each one
a little bit different. Well now you know how to turn rusty old saw blades, into a collection
of custom superhero throwing stars. Just remember to be safe, and never to throw them at people,
or property. That's it for now. If you liked this project, perhaps you'll like some
of my others. Check them out
at www.thekingofrandom.com