Forging a spear head -- myArmoury.com

Joshua Koss · Posted: Wed 10 Sep, 2014 7:15 pm Post subject: Forging a spear head

This is my 4th attempt at forging a spear head. Hopefully it will be my third successful one. Wink

I'm not working from any specific historic reference for two reasons: First, I just decided to give this a go in class today, and I didn't have any reference material with me. Second, I haven't been able to find much reference material, especially in terms of dimensions and weight. If anyone wants to point me towards any info or photos of extend spear head from medieval europe, I would much appreciate it.

I started with a chunk of leaf spring cut out with a torch. Not the best starting shape, but it should work. I don't have a picture of my starting material, but here it is after a fair few heats. The general form starts to emerge.

Once I got the cone for the socket large enough for my intended shaft diameter, I started to curl it. I just made up a shaft diameter of 7/8".

At this point I had to run off to work. I should likely get the rough forging done tomorrow, no problem.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Blade making in general is fairly new territory for me.

Tim Harris · Industry Professional

Hi Joshua,

It looks pretty good so far to me.
I'm of the belief that there is no one "right" way to do anything in smithing. There are plenty of approaches that will yield the same result, although with various degrees of efficiency.

My only advice on this would be to get the head closer to completely shaped before doing any more work on the socket, but then again, that's merely how I'd do it - to avoid messing up any work I'd done on the socket. Will you be welding the edges?

Matthew Amt · Posted: Thu 11 Sep, 2014 6:05 am Post subject:

Hey, that's what I want to do! But I won't stop in the middle and leave everyone hanging, hee hee...

My only thought is that the initial blank might not be waisted in the middle like that. David Sim did some Roman spearheads for his book "Iron for the Eagles", and found that just starting with an isosceles triangle resulted in the desired finished shape. Though obviously that may depend on the exact type. Unfortunately, line drawings and photos of artifacts never give *quite* enough information...

Very cool, we will be watching!

Matthew

Joshua Koss · Posted: Thu 11 Sep, 2014 5:16 pm Post subject:

Got the forging done today. Sorry for the cellphone pictures. I've got to get batteries for my actual camera.

I normalized it and then "annealed" it (heated it up and stuck it in vermiculite for hours. Don't know if that quite counts as annealing). Next I'll grind out the shape then heat treat it. I'm thinking of an oil quench, but I'll have to see if I have enough oil. Otherwise I might try a water quench? Not sure. Seems risky.

Tim, in retrospect I could have worked the head a bit more before doing the socket, but in its finished state I think it would be a bit more of a pain to hold onto while doing the socket. I did end up finishing the socket first before doing the head, but it wasn't a problem. I just didn't let too much heat get into the neck/socket and worked the head carefully.

I'm not sure what you mean by weld the edges. You mean weld on the edges of the blade, or weld shut the socket? I hadn't planned to do any welding, really. The steel should have enough carbon to hold a decent edge, and I don't think historical spear heads had their sockets welded shut. At least not these few anglo-saxon spear heads I have some pictures of. Definitely something I would like to know more about though.

Interesting idea Matthew. I can't quite imagine how that would work though. Maybe the process of rolling the socket would impart the waist shape?

Matthew Amt · Posted: Thu 11 Sep, 2014 7:03 pm Post subject:

Oh, sweet!! Excellent job. And don't worry, the cell phone photo gets the point across, yuk yuk!

I think this spearhead was done from an isosceles triangle:

It was made for a Roman auxiliary, so it wasn't cleaned up (though many probably were quite shiny and nice). I think yours came out MUCH better around the transition between socket and blade.

Some cultures did tend to close up the socket seam, either welding or just lapping, but some didn't. It's honestly been way too long since I looked at Roman spears to be sure, but they certainly left some open though they might have closed some. I think the Greeks went either way, too (no pun intended...). But of course the line drawings in the books usually only show one side, so if no seam is shown that doesn't mean it ain't there. Pretty sure the Vikings tended to close theirs up--I know they were different from the Saxons. (At least that's what I remember learning.)

Gonna make more? How big? How many? How much$?

Yea, spears!

Matthew

Joshua Koss · Posted: Thu 11 Sep, 2014 7:24 pm Post subject:

Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Looks like a bit more of a quick and dirty method than my approach.

I think without closing the seam, I could at least smooth out the line a bit if I had a bickiron stake or some such thing that would fit neatly into the finished socket so that I could kind of plannish the seam. Once I shine it up, the seam will probably look a bit nasty. We'll see. I feel like some 15th century spear heads are forge welded smooth, but I don't actually know why I think that.

Did the greeks also do cast bronze spear heads? If so I assume there would be no seam in those sockets. Also, the next semester of this program is all bronze casting...

I've been playing with the idea of doing a bit of a production run of spear heads, but for now I'm still practicing and not yet a "maker/manufacturer". Not sure how much about that I'm allowed to say in this forum.

Daniel Wallace · Posted: Fri 12 Sep, 2014 4:38 pm Post subject:

Very cool, I have to admit, I don't want to make knives as much as would like to make spears and axes. the forging process is pretty involved. your not just making flat stock to distal and profile taper, well your doing that in addition to forge welding or drifting. lots of other techniques that you don't have to do in knife making.

Quench in oil for your best results Peanut oil works best from what I learned because it has a high flash point, if you use motor oil your should mix a bit of diesel with it from what I learned using something like motor oil will flash so make sure you do this in a safe place. I forged a few tools from springs this year I used water once and the end result was a crack in a slitting chisel I made because I couldn't find the oil in class and was too impatient. I also annealed in vermiculite, one heat to critical and plunge - allow to cool for 8 hours and HT worked out great.

I did an axe head that was annealed, but on further inspection I had a weld that I wasn't sure took, gave it another heat to seal it up, with care not to heat the blade, then HT still yielded positive results.

Matthew Amt · Posted: Fri 12 Sep, 2014 6:44 pm Post subject:

Joshua Koss · Posted: Fri 12 Sep, 2014 8:12 pm Post subject:

Dan, spears are definitely more interesting to forge than knives. I prefer doing handle work on knives really. That's my main motivation for forging knives.

I did go with an oil quench. Turns out there's a big ol' bucket of veggy oil at school. Makes sense. Made the shop smell like french fries, which was a nice change from burning rubber. I've got the spear in my oven now, tempering. Probably tomorrow I'll take it back to the shop and temper the socket and neck down to a purple, then final finish.

I snapped a photo after the quench today. Didn't get a shot of it after the rough grind.

Matt, do you think they were sand casting the spear heads? I would definitely like to take a crack at casting spear heads, but i think we're doing mainly lost wax.

Matthew Amt · Posted: Sat 13 Sep, 2014 6:23 am Post subject:

That looks great! The perfect "everything" spear.

Daniel Wallace · Posted: Sat 13 Sep, 2014 10:21 am Post subject:

your forging looks real good, won't have to do too much grinding on that one. and looks like everything went well with the quench too, one very functional spear coming up. Big Grin

Joshua Koss · Posted: Sun 14 Sep, 2014 12:15 am Post subject:

Just to be clear, the most recent picture I posted has after a bunch of grinding which was followed by a quench. The second to last picture is as far as I got with the forging. I wish I could forge something as clean as that last photo. Razz

Joshua Koss · Posted: Sun 14 Sep, 2014 12:18 am Post subject:

Matthew, stone you say? I have heard very little about stone moulds used in casting. I've heard of people using it for pewter. I guess it would make sense to do it with bronze. I'll have to remember to look into that. Got any tips as to where I could find more details? Type of stone, carving tools, etc?