Anyone can make an effective garrot by putting handles on piano wire. They are compact, light, and very lethal. Unfortunately, however, it can be difficult to use on someone whos size or strength is far greater than your own, or if you are fighting more than one person. I was thinking about this while making maille the other day, and came up with an idea. Typically, one would hold the handles of the garrot, put it over your adversaries head, loop it around once, and pull. However, by using a bit more were and attaching one end to a small coil of galvanised steel wire (available at your local hardware store, I would recommend 16 to 20 guage, depending on your needs and strength) one can fix the inherent problems. Instead of looping it once and pulling tight, loop it around once or twice with the piano wire, and then continue on with that side when it hits the steel wire. After looping this wire around a few times, one's adversary would not only be unable to breathe, but would also be unable to undue the loops in time, even if you let go. Therefore, one could coil up several of these garrots, and when needed make several tight loops around the neck of your opponent and then let go, ready to face whatever else is around, while your ooponent is effeciently strangled. If one wanted to get even fancier, one could put together several plastic bags, slip them on first, and then commence with coiling.

-Ancalagon

Nylon zip ties will do the same too :)

i was wondering if guitar strings were strong enough to use as garrots.
i have recently broken one and i was wondering if it could be made into a carrot by coting the ends in cotton/plastic to allow better grip

Guitar strings would be easily strong enough. So would Piano strings. Hitler used piano strings to hang people, so they should be effective enough. SWIM could attach a ring on each end of the string to make it more easy use. SWIM wouldn't use brand new strings either as they start @ $AU20 a string and thats jsut for an A string.

I seem to remember some thread on rec.pyrotechnics about garrots. In it I read that they don't necessarily strangle the er.. mark since it's pretty easy to cut a throat with them, or even take off the entire head. Much messier than strangulation. Indeed I imagine it would be pretty hard to strangle a person with a garrot and not cut their throat. This seems to make perfect sense to me, if a thin wire is pulled tight then it is pretty easy to cut soft things like flesh with it (think cheese cutting wire). I recommend reading the rec.pyrotechnics thread if you can find it, it is quite instructive.

Zeocrash, if you can make a guitar string into a carrot, then I will be impressed :eek: ;) .

Many harmless things can be abused as a garrotte, e.g. fexible tree saws or cheese cutter.
But if you like to have it quite bloodily, this "chainsaw" is a MUST HAVE. :D

http://www.medicalantiques.com/medimage/swchain.jpg

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Short History of the Garrotte (http://www.donrearic.com/thegarrotte.html)

A large nylon zip-tie is about the perfect garrot, ready made. :)

You pass the leg of the tie through the zip-lock, through a small grip handle from a bicycle, and you're good to go.

In use, the loop is slipped over the head, the free end pulled hard, while keeping the handle pressed hard against the victims neck. This allows you to get the zip-tie locked tight around the neck.

You then simply step back and watch your victim strangle to death. You don't have to hang on to them as they thrash about, and could even go on to the next one while the first one is still thrashing about.

I've used this on cats and dogs before, and it's very effective. One hard yank, and you don't hear a peep out of them as they go bonkers trying to claw it off their necks, usually clawing themselves bloody in the process. All the better since you're not holding on to them at the time. :D

It's obvious that it'd work. Was it really necessary to test it?

:(

Of course you don't need to try it.

The problem is, here in Australia you can't get zip ties/cable ties/whatever you call them long enough to effectively strangle people.

This causes obvious problems, but I think that there is a way to get around it.

What about simply getting piano wire and making a slipknot out of it, so you effectively get some sort of a noose? Then you can tie a handle to one end, slip the noose over the head and then pull and step back! The garrot can later be removed and reused. The thing is, this is still possible to remove from the head. To solve this, I would suggest a very tight slipknot, so that a thrashing, panicking, choking person wouldn't be able to undo it in time, and the harder they pull, the tighter it gets! ;)

Oh and no piggie ballistic suits protect them from garrotting!

The problem is, here in Australia you can't get zip ties/cable ties/whatever you call them long enough to effectively strangle people.

I just wanted to point out that it's easy to hook more than one zip tie together. BTW those things are very strong and go on tight if correctly applied, I was impressed. You deffinetly need good handles built on though since they are hard to grab onto. Maybe vice grips could come in handy as reusable handles.

Ahh...but multiple ties tend to break, whereas a single tie is much stronger, especially those big enough to strangle humans with. You need to stop looking in the corner hardware stores, and start looking in industrial supply catalogs, that's where you'll find the meter long zip-ties.


It's obvious that it'd work. Was it really necessary to test it? :(


Not really, but I liked doing it. :) And if you can't kill an animal, how do you expect to kill humans? :p

True also that a ballistic vest won't protect against a garrote, but sneaking up behind a pig to use one may be rather problematic, since swine tend to travel in groups and are a wary prey. But the zip-tie garrote has the advantage that you don't have to hang around while your target is dying, since there's no way for them to remove it in time, so you can "zip and run". :D

NBK's zip-tie idea is very similar to mine, in that I was suggesting a way to use a garrot that enabled you to let go and still strangle the opponent, only a zip-tie is easier and more convenient. However, the reason I suggested a piano and steel wire mix is that often enough garrots are used to both stangle and cut, sometimes even decapitate, the opponent. I have a friend who served in WWII, and use to sneak into foxholes to pop the heads off the japanese. So the point of piano then steel wire is that you can cut into the neck then make it impossible for the opponent to to pull or cut off the garrot. The only problem I had was what to do when I reached the end of the steel wire, so I attached a large and multi-pronged fishhook at the end to sink in the neck. I'll try the zip-tie idea too (on a synthetic dummy, of course), and see what pops up, or off:D

-Ancalagon