Sukellos Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Me and my muzzle-loading partner just finished six "Zulu" type spears for a youth group historical re-creation. We were looking for cheap, fairly easy and tough enough to stand up to teenage boys lobbing them at bales of straw knowing that, being teenage boys they wouldn't stop at just bales of straw. :angry: As you can see, the blades are not sharp for obvious reasons. The heads are forged from mild steel scrap pieces, hence the lack of uniformity. Each leaf-shaped blade has a squarish rattail tang about 3/4 as long as the blade itself. We counter-clockwise twisted each tang about two complete turns so that they could be "screwed" into the hole drilled in the shaft. The shafts are just 1" dia. (25mm) wooden push broom handles from the local home improvement store. We fabbed the ferrules from 1" (25mm) i.d. EMT electrical conduit tubing from which we removed a triangle shaped piece in order to make the ferrule fit the taper on the broom handles. We re-welded the ferrules with a wire-feed welder and ground them smooth. The heads were mounted by forcing the ferrule onto the wooden shaft, drilling a 3/8" hole into the end of the shaft and coating the spearpoint tangs with JB WELD epoxy. Then the tangs were twisted into the holes and the epoxy allowed to set. My first attempt at uploading pics failed, but the next two worked (I think). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WmHorus Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Looks good enough for a mob of kids to throw :D, almost thought you were making the wide headed close combat type made popular by Shaka. You had fun they had fun its all good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bentiron1946 Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Looks like they could have a heck of a good time with those and prompt their mothers to ask you if you were in your right mind to them loose with spears in their hands. What great fun!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sukellos Posted June 12, 2012 Author Share Posted June 12, 2012 Looks like they could have a heck of a good time with those and prompt their mothers to ask you if you were in your right mind to them loose with spears in their hands. What great fun!! All who know me question whether or not I'm in my right mind...or if I ever had a right mind to be in. :wacko: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsrevenge Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 A well armed child is a happy child as my dad always said Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 You must be the neighborhood's favorite old adult! Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.