Bob

Bob -- from "body opponent bag," is a martial arts training dummy. Bob comes in various versions, Cotten has the basic model in his garage, and it's more fun to thump than a plain old punching bag.

I was thinking that if you could use the latest tech, like self-healing plastic, you could make ole Bob into a pretty good multiple-use knife dummy. (Using encapsulated liquid tricyclic, like diolefin, and some kind of catalyst for quick hardening. Cut the "flesh," the capsules rupture, and fill in the gap, if it isn't too big.)

So I stuck a scene into the current book-in-progress, Bristlecone, just for fun.

Obviously there would be drawbacks and it would be passing spendy to build Bob this way, but I have a black-bag government agency with deep pockets and money is no problem.