I just wanted to do a quick writeup on some steel spearheads that I bought from Native Way over the holiday. The original plan was to use them as cheap viking throwing spears, but they turned out to be larger (and much cooler) than I had originally pictured.

Native Way is a primitive weapon and flintknapping supplier that I found whilst looking for images of cavalry lances. I didn't look too deeply into their website, but the majority of their products are geared towards stone and bronze age hunting tools.
http://nativeway.safewebshop.com/

Overview
Native way is selling these as "socketed lance heads" fit for a wide range of cultures and time periods. This assessment is fairly accurate; the head is a very generic elongated diamond shape with a diamond cross section, built on a large, heavy duty socket. The measurements provided were 14 inches length overall, 1 3/4 inches wide, though I measured the head at the widest point. The blade itself is 9 inches long. The socket is 5 inches long with an interior diameter of 1 1/8 inches wide. Native Way informed me that they were made in Pakistan but did not specify the manufacturer.

Fit and Finish
The heads are carbon steel and were shipped in plastic bags covered in grease. Once the grease was wiped away, some discoloration on both heads was evident, but polished out fairly easily. Of the two heads I purchased, one had the very last two millimeters of the tip broken off. Normally I would have returned the damaged head, but I wanted one for display and one for hard use anyhow. The overall construction is very stout; the socket is 2mm thick, and the blade exhibits a constant distal taper from 6mm at the socket joint down to less than 1mm at the tip. One gets the immediate impression that this was built for hard use, but retains an elegant simplicity that is very pleasing to the eye. No rivet hole was provided, but the sockets are easy enough to tap that this was not a problem.

Handling Characteristics
Off the haft, the socket seems unnaturally bulky, but one mounted on a short (6ft) haft this makes the head very agile; again the design proves to be well thought out. Thrusts are forceful but easy to recover. There is sufficient edge on the front half of the blade to slash against an unarmored target. This is a very quick and deadly sharp tool.

Conclusion
Native way is currently offering these lance heads for $20 a piece. At this price these are an excellent purchase, and I almost wish I had bought a couple more as gifts.

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That's very impressive for $20! Such diamond-shaped heads can be seen in some 15th c. artwork. I wish I'd known about these before I invested so much time in de-vik-ifying a Hanwei Viking Throwing Spear head. I mounted that piece just this week. Looks good, but I might like these heads better.

Seems like a nice project.

What did you haft yours onto, and what did you rivet it with?

M.

Interesting site and I've just bookmarked it for future reference and will have a closer look at what they offer.

With a thick walled socket and a shaft of diameter equal to the outside diameter of the socket, I would think that one could recess the socket so that the outside of the socket and the shaft are flush or close to flush: Would look good and maximize the diameter of the shaft if one wanted a very stout shaft for a mostly handheld spear that wouldn't be thrown except at very close range.

Was this done historically when mounting spears or other polearms ? I would do it anyway, but it's useful to know for those its an important thing to be strictly historically correct.

I purchased two of those spearheads a few years ago. I cut off the last 2 inches of socket and shaped them with a file, turned out nice.These spearheads appear to be forged from a single piece of steel.They compare very well to my Arms and Armer "viking" spear as well as my custom Mark Morrow spear.

So I just sand down the shaft by .25" to fit?

M.

I'm having trouble with the physics on this. What is the difference strengthwise between a taper to 1" or a step to 1"? In either case the weakest point will be the 1" section, unless there is some interaction between the wood fibers that is not intuitive.

I made some darts/light javelins a few years ago using large medieval swallowtail arrowheads. Instead of mounting the heads on a simple tapered haft, as one would when making arrows in historical fashion, I mounted them flush on tapered and stepped 48", .5" diameter poplar dowels. Given the taper, the haft stepped down from about 3/8" to 5/16". During throwing experiments one of these darts struck a rock and the head snapped off cleanly at the step. I decided that the step serves as a very efficient lever point for the edge of the socket when the head strikes an unyielding object at an angle. I slapped my forehead. Maybe arrowheads were mounted on simple tapered shafts for reasons other than weight savings or simplicity of manufacture. Duh! Lesson learned. I also understood why at least one contemporary writer decried the common use of poplar for arrow shafts instead of superior ash.

Polearms are different (at least in the medieval period for which there is artistic documentation and surviving weapons). Spearheads seem typically to have been flush-mounted with some kind of step, either straight or sloped, thinned edge or not. I hadn't thought of the sloped step solution, but I think that's a compelling idea, albeit one that requires a thin socket edge, which seems counterintuitive for reasons described below. I have little doubt that a straight step puts extra stress on the haft, but I also have little doubt that this matters more in the case of the narrow shafts of arrows. An 1/16" step down on an arrow shaft might prove catastrophic. I'm not yet convinced that a 1/8" step down from a 1.25" spear haft poses significant risk to the haft. I sure would love to get a close look at the sockets of unmounted historical heads now that I know what I would want to look for (a very thin edge quickly sloping up inside to a thick socket wall).

As for thinning the edge of the socket--there might be more danger in this than in a straight step because a too-thin wall could be deformed or torn around the rivet. There is also the case of the spear shown below, which clearly was intended to withstand tremendous stress in the socket walls around its rivet. Now, this is a replacement haft, but one made or at least approved by the Royal Armouries, Leeds. It's flush mounted, with what must be a very thick socket and little, if any, thinned edge.

The other photo below gives some idea of socket wall thickness. The edges of some of these sockets are straight and quite thick, just like most modern repros. We don't know if these were flush mounted, but artistic evidence suggests that they probably were.

Polearms study lags far behind sword study, but that at least leaves us to ponder such interesting technical questions! :D

I think all we can say with certainty is that contemporary artwork and surviving examples show flush mounting. It's also reasonable to assume that flush mounting would not have been the norm if it was known to compromise the weapon.

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This is a rough diagram of my spearhead mounting method, originally posted in another thread here (the step is exaggerated for clarity). If, instead of presenting this as a how-to diagram, I were to ask, "which of these sticks would be most likely to break?," I think most of us would choose the middle image. I don't know if this perception is true. Somebody else will have to tackle the physics involved, but I'd sure like to know, through both theory and experiment, if a 1/8" step on a 1.25" diameter pole significantly weakens it at that point. I'd also like to hear speculation about why flush mounting seems to have been the common method of construction. Surely it isn't purely aesthetic....? It's a lot more trouble than a simple tapered haft.

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My intuition says that I would sand the point end to match the interior of the socket, fit it over, and rivet it in place.

M.