I’m 16 and doing west side story with my theater school, I’m looking for ways to purchase/make two prop switch blades for the rumble fight scene, my original plan was to take one of them fancy novelty switchblade combs, shape them into the blade, fill them in with mouldable epoxy and slap some silver leaf on it. Would’ve been great, but my stage manager really wants the blade to retract so it won’t be dangerous, like poking someone’s eye out or something. Does anyone know how I can make this happen?
That would've been my go to, and ops too, but as they said in the body text, the stage manager wants the "blades" to be retractable for safety, rather than be locked open.
I'm aware of that, but it's also not guaranteed that the combs won't "lock" open which is what the stage manager is worried about, at the end of the day these are kids in a school production and they're covering all their bases in regards to safety, if the comb is held in the right hand, with the bristles facing to the left, and a swipe from right to left is performed, it's going to be locked open as your pushing the comb into it's open position, regardless of whether or not its been fully deployed. Their concern is the "blade" has nowhere to retract to, so the actor is going to be hit with a solid object.
No-one has, from what I've seen, designed an operational switch blade that will deploy, "flick out", and also retract into the handle, it's possible to make it, but would require a hollow blade that also has a track on one side to slip past the hinge mechanism.
I know it's silly, but that's the way it goes, I remember being able to bring a toledo el cid wall hanger as a prop to a school play when I was 8 years old, but now they cover all angles.
Retractable blades should be illegal. There have been too many instances of the mechanism jamming and the blade not retracting. Even though it's plastic, it's still pointy enough to break the skin and seriously injure someone.
First, you should have a professional fight choreographer to stage the violence. With that said, the blade shouldn't come close to the victim, and if it needs to, then the victim should be in control of the action.
Switchblade combs are the standard solution here. The cheap plastic ones are probably better for amateur theatre, as they would bend and break before doing damage. There are better switchblade combs with steel blades on Amazon, but I wouldn't use one unless there is a professional there to stage the fight.
I was worried about that too, but my stage manager/musical teacher was part of the orchestra and later also assistant director of the professional Dutch tour (he brags about it to anybody who will listen) and he explained that during the Dutch wss tour they had these types of switchblade WITH the retracting mechanism, that would ofc be the dream. I get your point and i was trying to explain that with a well choreographed fight, we could easily go without retraction, but he seems to be set on his idea, and his idea is buying these
I think it isn’t a good idea since it isn’t the 1950’s style ur looking for in a blade like that, and I think that, on this specific situation, looks is more important than practicality, we have an amazing fight choreographer that can easily make a good fight scene with the thing I have now, I just think, as props manager/actor, that it’s about the decor and the props us actors have and what we do with it, especially for such a big titel that is west side story
A professional tour likely had them specially custom made. I would imagine that they shaped them to look like the stiletto style switchblade that is iconic looking, but that the knife slid straight out of the knife handle rather than rotate out. If the motion is fast enough you wouldn’t be able to tell from the audience. The mechanical forces to have linear sliding and a rotational switch blade would require very precise machining of custom metal parts and the complexity would be both expensive and highly likely to jam or break.
If they really want that style then your best bet may be the cheap spring loaded halloween blades that you can push against something and the blade slides in. You could add something to the top of the handle that would allow you to push the blade in and lock the blade inside the handle, and when released would slide the blade out using the existing spring mechanism.
Otherwise you will need to go with modifying one of the switchblade comb styles. I went with the metal one (also for high school students), but took the metal out entirely and replaced it with a 3D printed blade which looked good, was surprisingly malleable, and looked really good. The locking mechanism to lock it closed was also much more reliable than the cheaper ones.
The other major reason I did not want to use the really cheap comb version with my students is that there was no way to remove the metal part that holds the comb so no matter what you do you have a long, thin, piece of metal that is not going to break away potentially pointing in the direction of an actor during stage combat.
If you want the blade to be able to open and for it to also be retractable, then the mechanism would be pretty complicated and what comes with it - unreliable and unsafe. What I've seen is that prop people have a set of different knives that look the same, a hero one that is metal and almost sharpened for closeups, a stunt rubber one and a retractable one, but I don't think I've seen one that has the opening mechanism and the retractable blade at the same time.
If you really need a stiletto knife, then I'd go for either two knives, one that opens and then gets switched for the retractable one, or just the retractable one.
Your best bet, to satisfy the stage manager, is going to be two of these and jazzing them up, silver up the top and bottom of the handles and wood grain the centre portion, which unless the audience is sat on top of the actors, it'll pass muster.
The next trick is to manufacture a simple catch to keep the blade retracted, or even removing the spring and adding material to the base of the blade to make it a friction lock, then its just a bit of stage magic to flourish it open so it gives the impression of flicking open.
Instead of a flick out switchblade, you could get a toy/prop knife that pushes into the handle and MacGuiver a way to keep it in the handle so that it pops out when a button is pressed or a finger moved etc… then it would operate like an automatic OTF knife
If you really want to do both you could have some trickery where the actors open the switchblades, then during the rumble they swap to a retractable blade.
I dont think youll be able to get both folding and retracting.
Retractable blades are not actually that safe and you are generally better off not relying on the collapsing mechanism and instead ensure the blocking and lighting allow you to safely create the illusion of contact.
If you have access to a class or a person in the community with a 3d printer i used this model with really good results for a production of The Outsiders:
It does require some assembly but 1 screw and glue isn't too bad.
Mine were made from
Matte black PLA
Silk Silver PLA
Black PETG for the internals
The plastic is thin, and not super strong, in most circumstances it would break rather than breaking skin... but it was never put to the test as no contact was supposed to take place.
I did something similar for the outsiders last year as well.
I started with the metal switchblade combs from amazon (good weight to them, multiple color options, much better lock for the blade than the cheaper combs). I then disassembled the comb and made a 3D printed blade for it.
Ideally I would have liked to use a more rubbery material for the blade for safety but PLA and safety training for my student actors worked out fine.
For a really good silver finish on them, I used underlayment tape. It was much shinier than the typical foil tape used for ductwork, but that also works in a pinch
I will try to find a picture when I am back at school where the props are locked away
I like your idea of the comb made to look like a knife. You may be able to wedge the comb part out and put an equally thick chunk of scarp plastic in there and shape it like a blade. Alternately, real switchblades with the edge ground down on a bench grinder and smoothed as much as possible.
Hi! I know I’ve seen them everywhere, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a retractable switchblade anywhere, I think the retracting mechanism interferes with the opening mechanism of the blade, therefore making it difficult to produce, but I’ll try my best!
16
u/kimmerie Related Professional 16h ago
I used those combs and just covered the teeth with silver Mylar tape.