Welcome to the final episode of Spear Born of Fire!
In this episode, we will make the shaft for the spear and also give it some light use.
At a close by lumber store, we picked up a large piece of wenge.
This is a hard wood with a very straight grain.
Historically, ash would have been the likely material but that was not at hand.
Originally, we wanted to use a spoke shave to round the wood but since was so hard, we
quickly gave up on that.
Instead, I am using my bandsaw the cut the wood roughly to the write dimensions and then
use the belt sander to round it.
As in my other videos, I would like you ask your help again with sharing a link to these
videos on your social networks.
The hope continues to be that it will lure innocent viewers to this channel.
I have also lost Tony's help and cutting these long pieces requires some juggling.
As with blacksmithing, my approach to rounding is to transition from square to ocatagon first.
The belt sander with a rough belt makes short process of the rest.
To avoid a lot of dust, I am running a big dust collector and my powered respirator.
Now comes the fun part, fitting the shaft to the spear head.
I am using some machinist blue inside of the shaft to make it easier to find the high spots
on the wood.
You will see in a minute.
This is an iterative process and takes a few times before everything fits tightly.
Once piece of advise, don't stick your freshly polished spearhead into a rough leg vise,
unless you want the spearhead to look less freshly polished afterwards.
Once the wood is sanded, I am applying a couple of layers of boiled linseed oil to finish
it.
This makes the wood immediately look much nicer.
There are different ways to attach a spear to a shaft.
I am using a very simple one here.
I am drilling one hole and then will use a single square nail to attach it.
Other options would have been to rivet it but ultimately the goal is to prevent the
spearhead from falling off while still making it relatively easy to replace the shaft in
case it should break.
For square nails to not break the wood, it makes sense to predrill the hole.
I taped a little flag to it to get a quick depth stop.
Alright, this was the final step.
The spear is now officially completed.
So, let's take a look at it in its natural habitat.
I have nothing fancy to test it with, so am sticking it into a broken tree branch just
for the heck of it.
To get a sense for the size of the spear, I am providing myself as reference.
Here is a final view of the finished product.
I hope you enjoyed following me on this journey and stick around for future videos.
Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and share these videos with your friends.
See you next time.