Icepicks

[sm]

The older I get the more I appreciate simple. When I was growing up, going to the ice house to get a block of ice was neat. Often times getting a free icepick and metal bottle / can opener opener - made in USA - with the name of the Ice house and their phone number.

Just a wooden handle, carbon steel with a cardboard "sleeve" to protect that point.

Ice was chipped of course, then again these were great for lots of uses. We didn't have all these travel cups and all, so use a mason jar, or Blackburn's jelly glass, that became a coffee mug as it had a handle, with metal lid and - punch a hole , wallow it out, and stick a straw in it.

Drive, sip tea, soda, water and not spill on nice clothes.

We played mumbley-peg with these, all us kids had a wooden handled icepick we had gotten free. Drill a hole and put a cord through it. I used a piece of rawhide boot lace for mine. I could hang mine up this way. With a longer peice of rawhide, and using a slip knot, I could wear it around my neck. Pretty handy when exploring, or in a boat with a ice block, remove, cardboard , use, put sleeve back on. Really neat when I got a leather sheath like the Rapala fishing knives had.

We never had all this .gov meddin about kids, we were taught by parents ,Parenting and adults "Adulting".

Weapons? Well, anything can be used for one, even throwing a cup of coffee and then the coffee cups works to stop an immediate threat. Folks did not think the only weapon was a gun or knife.

One lady, a nurse used hers to stop someone from trying to jerk her car door open. Getting off work at 11pm, window rolled down about 1/3 way, being humid here in the South. No air conditioning in many cars back then, they did not come with A/C.

Some guy came from bushes at a stop light, tried to get door open, then cussing and saying bad stuff, reached in to unlock door. Nurse started pulling away. He would not stop, she got him good with that free ice pick in the door pocket, he decided to let go and off she went.

I remember other times folks used ice picks to stop something. It is not so much the tool, but the mindset and knowing how to do something.

Boy, a can opener point sure will sure mess up a hand trying to reach in a slit in a screen door to unlock it too...

Mom&Pop hardware store got some more plain old wooden handled ice picks and made in USA can/bottle openers like the good old days. Lady friend now has these in her vehicle, never know when she might want to unlock a church with her "church key", or want to chip a ice block.



Steve

 

[earthworm]

Worst cut I've ever seen was inflicted by an old 'church key' can opener.It didn't slice;the pointy hooked end dug in & ripped.Not deep & not fatal but the victim (a local bad**s) said "I've been cut before & it didn't hurt like this!"
Suturing & dressing was not easy either.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Steve,

Couple of SF troops I knew used to carry the last few inches of a stainless steel car antenna whip tucked away here and there, cut off so the ball from the tip was on one end, other end sharpened to a point. Fold of a wallet, pocket seam on BDU pants, all sorts of places one of those would go. Called 'em 'hatpins' for some reason, they never pinned their hats on though.

8^)

lpl/nc

 

[sm]

*grin*

Lee,
"hatpins" were shared with me. First one I saw was actually "very similar" to a ice pick , only about half as long and no handle. Unless one would call the black bead off a hatpin - a handle.
Then again many are not familiar with "collar stays" and right nice place for gents hatpin to be kept...
Sounds like something SouthNarc would do...don't it? *grin*

 

[Hans Esker]

Old days and Hat Pins

It seems to me that nowadays the only good old style icepicks around are the Old Hickory ones (please tell if there are other ones!). All the other ones seem to be just pieces of round stock with a rough ground conical tip.

I have read that ladies would have large hatpins as defensive tools once upon a time.

As for "hat pins", that gives me two ideas :
Drill a hole just smaller than the diameter of your icepick shank partway through a steel ball. (finding a steel ball the right size would be the hard part. You would want to anneal or normalize a ball bearing first.)
Heat up the ball and put over the end of the shank. Quench.
The contracted ball should stay on pretty tight.

Alternatively if you are handy with solder (haven't played with it myself before), I bet you could do it with a bead in the metal of your choice. Copper would be pretty.

 

[TimboKhan]

My mom accidentally rammed an icepick through my hand when I was a kid. That was unpleasant.

 

[Dr. Snubnose]

Shomer-Tec used to carry some really kool Titanium Ice Picks..I have a few...my favorite is the fluted hyper-dermic style end point with the hole running straight back to the pommel...empty a can of it's fluid, relieve a bladder...you get the idea.....Doc

 

[TimboKhan]

Titanium Ice Picks

Getting that rammed through my hand would have still been unpleasant, but admittedly a bit cooler.

 

[hso]

Long ago my Mom was at the movies with a friend. Suddenly the fellow sitting in front of them yelps and leaps out of his seat and heads for the door like he was stung by a hornet.

As they were leaving my Mom mused about the guy who left so suddenly and her friend showed her the 4 inch hat pen that she had stabbed into his backside after he'd reached back to fondle her leg one too many times.

 

[kBob]

Older man I knew (he's passed on) used to carry an engineer's or draftsman's pencil, of the type that has a four jawed chuck that allows on to feed as much lead forward as needed. Instead of lead his contained a bicycle spoke with a chisel point on it. He wore it in his shirt or jacket breast pocket.

THe only time he pulled it the two thugs broke and ran when he pulled it out and deployed it before he could get good field data on its effectiveness. I told him it seemed to have wrked perfectly in that case.

I considered doing the engineer pencil deal with an ice pick "blade", but it occured to me that this would be a whole lot like a gravity knife which is a no-no in these parts.

One summer I worked in a peach packing plant and among my duties was "ice man" large blocks of ice were brought in a pick up every few hours and I had to chip them down to managable chunks and throw them in the cool down shower. Once the peaches were in baskets for sending up north they went on a conveyor belt for a two minute trip through a shower of ice water.

That summer I "played" with an ice pick a lot. Don't recall the name but it was wooden handled and had a steel butt cap to further reduce the ice with. I had no doubt what so ever that an ice pick could make a pretty good expedient weapon, especially for some one that used them a gillion times a day and did heavy lifting.

-Bob Hollingsworth

 

[Piedmont Plinker]

Young one checking in here- but has anybody got a picture of a church-key can opener?

As to ice picks, I've no doubt they would be effective as weapon, particulary around the head/face. A nasty idea- if you were being held down, stick it up the attackers nose. You could even pull an Egyptian and scramble the brains around a bit.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Church Key

I've always thought that the term "church key" is somewhat ironic as, given that they're used to open booze, a church would be the last thing they'd open.

They look kind of like this:

​

 

[hso]

You can still get "church key" can openers at kitchen and restaurant supply stores.

They were called "church keys" because the big flat skeleton keys for old style heavy church door locks resemble them.

 

[Coyote3855]

Always knew them as church keys. Just another thing that seperates us old timers from the younger ones like CZ.22, an obvous post-pulltab person. I always thought the moniker had more to do with satire/irony than resemblence to an actual key. "Hand me the church key, Rick, I need to open another can of Colt .45." In the back seat of my '55 Chevy.

Regards,

Coyote

 

[Carl Levitian]

Wasn't there an outfit called "Murder Incorporated" back in the 30's or so, that used an icepick alot as the preffered weapon for a hit?

 

[Piedmont Plinker]

Wasn't there an outfit called "Murder Incorporated" back in the 30's or so, that used an icepick alot as the preffered weapon for a hit?

I believe this is so. An icepick was also used in the movie Bullit with Steve McQueen. Tip stuck in a cork, and strapped to a guy's leg.

 

[Mp7]

i knew you guys had a lot of guns laying around,
but i nver guessed there would be such a stockpile
of icepicks......

...that "Basic-Instinct" movie surely did
sumthin weird to the american psyche

 

[Piedmont Plinker]

Free knives/tools.

If free ice picks and bottle openers were the standards back in the day, than the closest thing you can get these days is a waiters knife.

You know, a bluntish blade, bottle opener, and corkscrew.

I have one from a dairy, and two form the Melia White House in London.

They are very useful tools, and work pretty well as knives- when we went to England, none of us had the forethough to bring a knife. We used these extensively.

They aren't worth much as weapons, though.

 

[Frizzman]

I worked in an urban area as a LEO many years ago. Ice picks were a commonly carried weapon back then in that area. Saw a couple of people stuck with them multiple times. They were not fatal but it made a nasty puncture wound that I would assume would be subject to infection.

 

[Joe Demko]

Somewhere along the lines I got parted from them, but I used to own a pair of hat pins that were about four inches long and had clear lucite beads as heads. These were actually heat treated too. They'd flex and return to true.
There were a million ways to conceal them in clothing. I liked having one in the back of my jacket lapels.
Never actually stuck anybody with one, but on a couple of occasions when I was unable to carry a larger and more effective weapon, it was comforting to have them tucked away. Today, of course, metal detectors are very very common and they would be discovered in many situations. Still, if I could ever find another hat pin like them, I'd be all over it.

 

[Dirty Bob]

sm nails it with this one:

It is not so much the tool, but the mindset and knowing how to do something.

We get so obsessed with tools that we lose track of what really makes the tool effective: the user. I think Steve could defend himself with a Tupperware container of strawberry Jello.

BTW, It's great to hear that there's still a quality (Old Hickory) ice pick out there. I once made do for a while with a scratch awl from a hardware store that cost me under $5. Think of it as a heavy-duty icepick with a shorter blade.

Best wishes,
Dirty Bob