Wooden Stake FAQ:

So... You make wooden stakes?

Yep, we sure do. I think we are the only professional fighting stake makers in the world - Though we suspect that a lot of people make their own.

As in... For killing Vampires, yea?

You got it. It's an interesting one to explain at parties if nothing else...

How did this all start?

We started from a background of making both weapons and natural wooden items and one day someone asked us if we could make a wooden stake that was practical to use. We played around with a few designs and eventually came up with the "fighting stake" that now forms our logo and most popular item. The original stake had wooden tips and wasn't really very practical for long term use so we investigated a lot of Vampire legend and decided that it would be a good idea to use screw in tips made of pure silver. For good measure, and backed up by some legend, a proportion of the silver is from Holy Items.

During our investigations we found a lot of fundamental things that we had done wrong with our original stakes and being obsessive purists corrected these and created our first Vampire stake. The person who asked us to make it was more than happy with the stake, ordered more than enough to pay back the original design costs and since then we have had a steady stream of unusual, but very interesting customers all with their own specific needs.

So do you sell stakes?

Not really. We have a private customer base who keep us able to carry on eating but we don't normally sell to the "general public". These stakes are not always the most pretty things to look at and the cost involved in making them makes them a bit expensive as novelty items. There is also an issue with the fact that most of the stakes we do are blessed and according to our tame Catholic Priest, an item that has been blessed cannot then be sold.

Oddly, a lot of people are return customers so we can only assume that these things get used.

What sort of stakes do you make?

Generally speaking, whatever we are asked to make though there's not huge amounts of of variety in wooden stakes. The fighting stake is our own design, we also do a tonfa like stake, a smallish hand stake, stakes that can be shot from crossbows and of course, the traditional straight stake. We have made some very odd one offs but I can't see most of them taking off.

One thing we are considering at the moment, is a much more practical weapon that involves a wood, ceramic and plastic mix

How do you make them?

Carefully! These days we have learned not to make the pointy bit first... A lot of the process that goes into a finished stake is a trade secret but the basic stake is hand cut from a suitable cut of wood and the silver tips, inlays and barbs are hand cast from pure silver. The garlic smell they give off is part of the wood treatment and finishing process we apply - This part is where our stakes differ vastly from an everyday pointy stick. Generally we don't use power tools with the exception of an occasional chainsaw. A lot of research went into the history of Vampire killing and all of this has been incorporated into our stake making process. We have also made various little changes of our own to turn these stakes into practical weapons that hopefully do their job very well.

Do you use a particular type of wood?

Vampire killing legends are often contradictory on what type of wood to use but fruit trees tend to be a common theme. The wood we use also has to be hard enough to withstand a lot of abuse, it must hold its shape and it would be embarassing if it was to split at the wrong time. We vary between Apple and Cherry most of the time, because it smells nice (or something).

Have you ever made any novelty items?

Erm, well I admit, we did once make a stake with an embedded sound unit that played the Buffy theme... Sorry! One of the nicest things we made was a walking stick that would "snap" into a silver tipped stake for emergency use.

Do you make anything else?

Nope, not any more - It's hard enough keeping up with the ones we have to make now.

Do these things work?

I have absolutely no idea! If you believe the legends then you can be sure that these things probably work better than any other stakes ever made and we have certainly not had any complaints. Someone did once point out to us that Vampires couldn't mail us any complaints because the computer monitors would be as bad forthem as direct sunlight - Maybe this explains why Vampires don't complain to us?

They don't look much like Buffy's stakes, and I saw those work!

Some Vampire legend says that any old lump of wood stuck into a Vampire's chest will send it to the happy blood-bank in the sky. Other legends are far more specific about what should be done. Some even claim that peices of the true cross should be involved but luckily these are rare because nobody will give us any! The one thing about Buffy's stakes is that they look really uncomfortable to use. As a good martial artist you would think she would use better designed tools... In fact, she should come to us.

Why don't people make their own?

I suspect that by far the vast majority of people who may use these things do but it's not as easy as it looks. I suspect the dangers in getting it wrong are quite ... fatal.

What are the legalities in this?

We honestly don't know. We have taken some advice and when the person we ask realises we are serious, they are usually very confused. Are we supplying a deadly weapon or a pointy stick? Is a silver tipped wooden stake any more dangerous than an arrow and here's an interesting one, if the stake is used to "kill" a Vampire, has a crime against the person been committed bearing in mind the Vampire is already dead? On the basis that these things are leathal weapons it's probably not a good idea to carry them around generally.

Do you offer a money back guarantee?

Who to, the Vampire or the Vampire Hunter?