Razzputin Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 Well guys I got my forge on this morning and cracked my to do list right down the middle. The assagai blade I wanted to forge did not take me as long as I thought it would, maxing out at just a little over an hour to forge and another hour to clean it up a little. This is the rough blank I forged out before the shaping and cleaning up. Initial cleanup of the blade. Final cleanup was to shiny for my flash so I took another one... Here. Sorry for the bad quality but my camera does not take nicely to photographing shiny things. I decided to leave the pockmarking and pitting from the forge to give it a more authentic feeling as back in the day when these spear blades were forged they had no means of sharpening or cleaning them, so they forged them sharp and left them fire scaled. One might say that this is rather easy to do but considering that the anvil used back then was a large rock and the hammer another smaller rock I would disagree. Tell me what you think, It still has to be attached to a shaft, that I will be doing tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maillemaker Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 Did this culture not have files or whetstones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodge Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 Sorry for the bad quality but my camera does not take nicely to photographing shiny things. I decided to leave the pockmarking and pitting from the forge to give it a more authentic feeling as back in the day when these spear blades were forged they had no means of sharpening or cleaning them, so they forged them sharp and left them fire scaled. One might say that this is rather easy to do but considering that the anvil used back then was a large rock and the hammer another smaller rock I would disagree. Tell me what you think, It still has to be attached to a shaft, that I will be doing tomorrow. Its not your camera that is at fault, but the angle at which you aim it. At 90º, the only direction for the flash to reflect is back into the camera lens. If you absolutely have to shoot at that angle, one trick is to put a sheet of tissue over the flash or several layers of the frosted type "Scotch"tape. Try two or three and bracket your shots (shoot several and see what looks best). You may need more if you are shooting close up. Otherwise, shooting at an angle that will bounce the light away from the camera lens will avoid washing out the image. The blade looks nicely shaped, but I'm with Maille. Images I have seen of other other Assegai spears are usually smoother. If they had rocks to use as anvils, they certainly had rocks (and sand) to improve the finish. :) Also, the tang looks very thin for such a large blade. I realize its a spear point but a glancing hit when thrown, I fear, would be the spear's demise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razzputin Posted September 7, 2013 Author Share Posted September 7, 2013 The zulu culture we are talking about dated back to pre renaissance age up untill and into the colonization of the African countries. They did not have the advanced metallurgical knowledge of the western world and did not have files but as Dodge rightly says they had sand. This piece is an artistic rendition for a client and is intended to be a decorative piece rather than functional and I am well aware of the failing point of the thin tang as the original assagai was meant to do this if it was thrown so that the enemy could not throw it back. The stabbing spears had a more substantial tang. Thank you for the advice on the photography by the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razzputin Posted September 8, 2013 Author Share Posted September 8, 2013 Well here is an update on this build, I have burnt the blade into the shaft which I hand carved out of some rather tough old wood that is really strong Ill have the type of wood in my next update. Now all I have to do is engrave the clients name, varnish the whole thing and do some leather wrapping and Ill be done. On this pic you can see the black smudge caused by the little flamethrower that happened when I pushed the tang in, is this ok? or am I making the tang to hot? What you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 You are overheating the tang! Aim to MELT the tang in Rather than "burning" it in! You should have very little charring or none. The charring severely weakens the tang socket (think crumbly charcoal powder)! MELTING the tang into the socket actually strengthens the socket greatly by compression of the fibers in the socket area and creates a "hot glue" effect by melting the wood's natural resins! It takes practice to get the heat right... but it should never reach a glowing heat level. I use heavy flat tongs to isolate the tang heat from the hardened and tempered blades and these also provide added mass in the case of light blades or tools to help with the seating of the tangs. Your wood looks kind of like pecan from what little I can see. Pecan is an excellent shaft or handle wood! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 BTW I should have mentioned that in order to properly MELT the tangs in you will need to carefully pre-drill the holes for the tangs... usually I will pre-drill to about slightly more than the width of the square tang allowing the corners to be melted in. If your tangs are tapered much then you need to step drill or ream to a matching taper. You'll find that in very hard woods the pre-drill needs to be a bit larger than in slightly softer woods. Green wood melts in easier but if too green, it may shrink enough as it dries to crack the shaft! Also your shafts will look better if you round the ends some... an abrupt saw cut looks primitive in an unattractive way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 If you want to drill the hole with a hot piece make it smaller than the final piece and experiment to see what gives you the best "preform" to do the final heat setting. I like finding branches that have a distinct "pith" to form a channel that a hot rod follows. When I was on my camp out I found that I had left the drillbit to mount my postvise to a 1" plywood table top back on the counter at home. So I predrilled a smaller hole and then tapered a piece of sq stock and used it as a burning awl rotating it as I pushed. did a great job! Do they have pecan available in South Africa? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Do they have pecan available in South Africa? OOOops! I didn't see that Thomas! Possible but not so likely! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Wasn't there a post about archaeological evidence that indicated early smelting and smithing in Africa? Contemporary with northern/western Europe and Asia? Just because triabalism let the "white ants" out compleat the natives doesn't mean they were pore smiths. The current thinking I'm the Western Hemisphere is that the central and South American natives were early Bronze Age before the Spanish arrested their development. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razzputin Posted September 8, 2013 Author Share Posted September 8, 2013 thank you so much for the advice on the burning in of the tang. The sawcut is going to be covered by a leather wrap which will soften the transition from shaft to blade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razzputin Posted September 9, 2013 Author Share Posted September 9, 2013 Well here is the final product, the handle is varnished and the blade is engraved with the clients name. I wrapped the join with some leather to soften the tansition a bit and all in all it was a great success. Ill be meeting the client in two weeks to give it to him as it is for his fathers birthday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper Iron Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 I don't really believe they would purposely put a small tang on a blade so it would brake when thrown for the only purpose of not being able to throw it back. If they were as primitive as you say I doubt they would waste all the months and months it took to gather the raw metal to actually get some type of billet made, then spend countless hours forging it. To only have a 1 shot weapon. But I think you did pretty well getting its basic shape down. Hammer control is a hard beast to tame. I'll forever be working on mine lol. What type of wood did you use for this time period accurate piece? Is it something native to Africa? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doggsmit Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 I enjoyed your post on your assegai I LIKE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNT making the one you have , i managed to score a mwynwenwhezi spear head from my fathers collection, i am currently researching how to go about making its leaf spring replacement. i used a solid fiber glass shaft and a lead counter weight to ballance it out. the difference between your south african assegai and my east african one is that the east african spears have sockets, they are not fully closed to help secure the handle to blade by the means of friction. A central ridge is imperative in making good African spears. As they say above they did not have the metallurgy to harden steel sooo, they developed the central ridge to strengthen the blade. have a look at Kenyan designs (Google Masai spears) The old school one are the ones that are 6' long with a three inch wooden handle, these will show you the very pronounced central ridge, making a good spear is not easy. the African black smith doesn't use a traditional hammer in the European sense either, he prefers a lump/bar of steel with no handle,He holds the bar and pounds like he would his fist on the table. this is to help him create the strengthening central ridge without worrying about a misplaced hammer strike ruining his work. I will upload some photos i took before it got dark here in New Zealand to show you an example of a socketed spear with a pronounced central ridge, it has a steel spike on the bottom to act as a counter weight improving its balance during travel,ie walking EVERYWHERE as an african warrior does and the steel counter weight improves the thrust of the weapon during combat. Cancel i will upload photos, this is my very first post so i need to figure out how to upload.... hmmm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razzputin Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 Cancel i will upload photos, this is my very first post so i need to figure out how to upload.... hmmm I upload them onto my blog and google+ pages then use the generated url link from those pages to put it in here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doggsmit Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 tried to upload, the server says im not allowed to use my google plus extention in this community.... any other ideas.... i will change my icon to a Kikuyu spear blade... it is not my work... i say again.... the spear blade in my icon is not my work. Pics inserted for doggsmit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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