- Joined
- Dec 28, 2003
- Messages
- 4,793
Wanted to share a small project I just finished.
Cold Steel had a closeout on their large and small Assegai spears last month thru their special projects catalog, so I bought one of each. They make this spear with two sizes of heads, and at least one of them is available with a long 6' shaft which makes throwing it much easier.
However, I didn't want the long spear so I bought the standard 3' 2" shafts to go with each size head. This makes the spear equivalent to the standard African short spear that was used by the Zulu and meant to attack under or around the shield of your opponent.
These spear heads are extremely sharp, but are only given a medium temper so that they can bend when thrown and not break off. They come with very hard American Ash shafts that have been coated in some kind of thin polymer to prevent splintering. The shafts are supposed to fit in the heads and be held with two small screws, but the heads are so tight there is no way to get the shafts all the way in, plus the wood is so hard that even if you drill a pilot hole the screws are very likely to snap off in the wood.
Finally, although I like the short spear, the balance is way off with the head really weighing the rest of the weapon forward. So I decided to make a set with some basic changes.
First, to mount the handle, I pretty much disposed of the two stock screws. I heated the base of the head of each with a propane torch until it was cherry red, and then with the blade resting in a 3/4" hole in my bench, I pounded the shaft down into the head as quickly as I could. Some of the wood was shaved off in the process, but the end result was a shaft that was completely embedded in the head, and not just partially held in place. I let the steel cool naturally to keep the temper the same, and as the head cooled it really tightened on the shaft. Then I drilled two larger pilot holes into the wood thru the side of the head, and mounted larger than standard screws just to be sure nothing would move. Finally, I filled the screw heads, gaps around the holes, and the gap were the shaft met the head with JB weld. I smoothed it while wet as best I could, and then sanded it smooth with emery paper after it hardened.
To compensate for the heavy head and make something that could be thrown or thrust much more accurately despite its short length, I cut 1/2" off the round end of the handles (which round end frankly make it just look like a broom handle anyway), so that it was perfectly flat and just started to taper in. Using a 5/8" Forstner bit I drilled down about 3.5" into the center of the ash handle of the larger blade, and about half that for the smaller blade. I filled the holes with JB Weld and into the larger butt I set a 5/8" hex head bolt with the ID numbers ground off and the head polished. The bolt weighs about 1/4 pound. For the smaller spear butt I cut about 1.5" off the bolt before embedding it.
Final touches were to paint the embedded hex bolts black, repaint the spear head haft black to touch up where the torch heated it up, and then to paint the plain brown handle a mix of OD green and black in kind of alternating stripes, strictly freehand with no pattern intended. Lastly I wrapped a section of 3M grip tech tape as near as I could to each spears CG so they balance well when held, just slightly blade heavy this time.
Finally, I made a rack for the spears out of poplar to match the hangers I made for my fixed blades.
The cool thing about this is that my wife who is completely disinterested in all my knives, realizes that one of these would make an excellent defensive weapon if needed to keep someone at bay. The larger head is almost 18" long and sharp as hell. I'm not sure how long they will be making them but got a sheath for each in case I want to carry them somewhere.
Definitely low tech, but fun, and now that they are balanced are fun to throw and quite accurate once you get used to them. Their real use though is not as a throwing spear but as a razor sharp extension of your arm, held with one hand to thrust under guard or to use defensively.
Sorry for the typical lousy pix. Very little of the color shows through. Compared to the stock spear though they are quite nice looking, and the whole project just took a couple of days.
Thanks,
Norm
Cold Steel had a closeout on their large and small Assegai spears last month thru their special projects catalog, so I bought one of each. They make this spear with two sizes of heads, and at least one of them is available with a long 6' shaft which makes throwing it much easier.
However, I didn't want the long spear so I bought the standard 3' 2" shafts to go with each size head. This makes the spear equivalent to the standard African short spear that was used by the Zulu and meant to attack under or around the shield of your opponent.
These spear heads are extremely sharp, but are only given a medium temper so that they can bend when thrown and not break off. They come with very hard American Ash shafts that have been coated in some kind of thin polymer to prevent splintering. The shafts are supposed to fit in the heads and be held with two small screws, but the heads are so tight there is no way to get the shafts all the way in, plus the wood is so hard that even if you drill a pilot hole the screws are very likely to snap off in the wood.
Finally, although I like the short spear, the balance is way off with the head really weighing the rest of the weapon forward. So I decided to make a set with some basic changes.
First, to mount the handle, I pretty much disposed of the two stock screws. I heated the base of the head of each with a propane torch until it was cherry red, and then with the blade resting in a 3/4" hole in my bench, I pounded the shaft down into the head as quickly as I could. Some of the wood was shaved off in the process, but the end result was a shaft that was completely embedded in the head, and not just partially held in place. I let the steel cool naturally to keep the temper the same, and as the head cooled it really tightened on the shaft. Then I drilled two larger pilot holes into the wood thru the side of the head, and mounted larger than standard screws just to be sure nothing would move. Finally, I filled the screw heads, gaps around the holes, and the gap were the shaft met the head with JB weld. I smoothed it while wet as best I could, and then sanded it smooth with emery paper after it hardened.
To compensate for the heavy head and make something that could be thrown or thrust much more accurately despite its short length, I cut 1/2" off the round end of the handles (which round end frankly make it just look like a broom handle anyway), so that it was perfectly flat and just started to taper in. Using a 5/8" Forstner bit I drilled down about 3.5" into the center of the ash handle of the larger blade, and about half that for the smaller blade. I filled the holes with JB Weld and into the larger butt I set a 5/8" hex head bolt with the ID numbers ground off and the head polished. The bolt weighs about 1/4 pound. For the smaller spear butt I cut about 1.5" off the bolt before embedding it.
Final touches were to paint the embedded hex bolts black, repaint the spear head haft black to touch up where the torch heated it up, and then to paint the plain brown handle a mix of OD green and black in kind of alternating stripes, strictly freehand with no pattern intended. Lastly I wrapped a section of 3M grip tech tape as near as I could to each spears CG so they balance well when held, just slightly blade heavy this time.
Finally, I made a rack for the spears out of poplar to match the hangers I made for my fixed blades.
The cool thing about this is that my wife who is completely disinterested in all my knives, realizes that one of these would make an excellent defensive weapon if needed to keep someone at bay. The larger head is almost 18" long and sharp as hell. I'm not sure how long they will be making them but got a sheath for each in case I want to carry them somewhere.
Definitely low tech, but fun, and now that they are balanced are fun to throw and quite accurate once you get used to them. Their real use though is not as a throwing spear but as a razor sharp extension of your arm, held with one hand to thrust under guard or to use defensively.
Sorry for the typical lousy pix. Very little of the color shows through. Compared to the stock spear though they are quite nice looking, and the whole project just took a couple of days.
Thanks,
Norm
