Breaking Material

[Spookey]

Dear All,

I would like to hear what breaking material you use / prefer for power demonstrations... wood (white pine , industrial yellow pine), patio blocks, roofing tiles, ect.

Also, I am wondering if anyone has done any density comparisons between industrial yellow pine and white pine (traditional breaking material)! If you have broken both (or even held a peice of each) you will certainly agree that the "yellow" is much harder.
What in your personal experience would you say is an equivalent equation?

1 (1x12x12 yellow pine) = ? (1x12x12 white pine)...

I have told someone on this forum that I feel 1 peice of yellow is almost equal to 2 peices of white...I believe that this comment was maybe a little over calculated (but not much)!

Looking for some input!!!!!!!!!!

TAEKWON!
Spookey

[bvermillion]

We have only broken boards and patio bricks.

[eXcessiveForce]

At one time I actually had a book that told you the densities of most of the woods of the world. I can't remember for the life of me how I came to have such a book. But try going to a library and you may have some luck. I believe it was a book on commerical construction with wood. But it's been a long time ago.



I've found that the type of pine rarely matters because it changes so much from batch to batch at the lumber yard.

They sell sugar pine here which seems easy to break most of the time. Easier than other pine boards of different grades. But every once in a while we get a batch that were fairly tough.

[osopardo]

Your question just reminded me of the first time my son had to break boards, a story I've previously related some time back in another thread.

The instructor announces that the following week white belts will be testing for promotion. The test will include forms, sparring, terminology and board breaking.

That weekend I (old Tae Kwon Dad) rehearsed that little boy (6 1/2 yrs. old at the time) until he was almost ready to drop. Practice included breaking a pile of boards I picked up at the local building supplies store - #2 Southern Yellow Pine, structural grade. Considering what I had done, the kid's success rate was pretty good; about 50/50. But in his mind he was thinking about how he had an equal chance of failure and how mortifying it would be to fail in front of everybody.
Luckily, the instructor found out what I had done and intervened, giving my boy a pep talk and showing him how the boards he would be breaking that evening were paler in color and lighter in weight.

He also threw me one of those back-handed slap feints, "Why, I oughta..."

Needless to say the kid was amazed how very very easy it was to break white pine and couldn't get enough of it after that, going for fancier techniques, power breaks, etc.