Trident

[EtownAndrew]

My son came to me several nights ago. He was trying to pull together a costume of the greek god Poseidon for Halloween and wondered if we had a board or something that could be cut into the shape of a Trident. So as we were talking about it my response was that a wooden trident sounds dorky why don't I just make you a real one. So I spent the last two evenings pulling together the trident shown in the attached picture. I didn't go all the way since it was just a costume accessory. So I mostly used a 3/8" mild steel round rod for the tines and didn't sharpen the ends. The socket is a piece of 1" pipe that I tapered down. The parts were stick welded together. The socket is pinned to the 1 1/4" ash shaft with a copper pin.

 

The biggest problem that I had was making the middle tine with the double barb. It has the same problem as making a broad head arrow. I did a fair search on Iforgeiron and elsewhere to see if anyone had every really laid out how to do that and couldn't find anything. My first attempt was to make a leaf shape and try to cut away the sides. That may have worked but my first attempt looked so bad that I gave up. My second try was to split the end of a bar down the middle and fold the sides back. However, when I tapered that down I ended up with a split in the end. So I finally just bent a 9 gage wire over and welded the middle to the end of my tapered bar.

[jasonmichalski]

how did you taper down the 1" pipe, I'm looking to do the same to make sockets for wood handled fish spears? 

[EtownAndrew]

That part was easy. I forged down the end with a hammer on my anvil. I just kept rotating the pipe around as I hit it with most of the hits being at the end so it would be tapered more. Stop whenever you want. I then took the pipe with a tapered end to my band saw and cut off the desired length for the socket. I could have also forged a pre-cut piece of pipe. Forging it while attached to the longer piece of pipe provided a convenient handle so I didn't have to fuss with tongs. Also I didn't have to guess how much to start with as a cut piece.

 

I had forged the socket end down till it matched the 3/8" metal shaft that I then inserted and arc welded all around. I then forged the weld down smooth. I could also have forged welded the shaft to the socket but it was easier to arc weld it. I could also have ground the weld smooth but my forge was still hot and so I forged it down.

 

The end of the wood shaft was hand carved with a knife to match the taper with frequent tests to see where to cut next. I repeatedly inserted the shaft into the socket and then pulled it out to see where it was dirty and cut more at that spot until it fit. The hole for the pin was drilled through both the socket and fit handle all at once. I probably used a 10 gauge copper wire as a pin. 10 Gauge copper wire has become my favorite pin because it is readily available and peens easily with a small hammer.