[R D Moore]

[M. Eversberg II]

Check above, R D Moore.

M.

[Gavin Kisebach]

Just out of curiosity; did anyone else end up buying one of these lances?

[M. Eversberg II]

I will be, actually, as well as one of the 23USD ash poles; I think I'm going to make myself finish my bronze sword project first, though.

Got any pictures of the ones you made?

M.

[Ken Speed]

Sean & Jerry,

Jerry said, "Given the relatively low ultimate strain of wood, this can drastically increase the chance of snapping the shaft. ...unless you actually cut into the shaft deeper than 1/8", it will still be proportionally as strong as a 1" shaft, you'll just be certain to know where the break will be when it happens :-)"

Sean said, "...Decreasing the diameter of the haft increases the likelihood of damage. No surprise there. An oak 4x4 would make a much stronger shovel handle than a length of 1" diameter ash. It also would be ridiculously impractical and, in ordinary use, pointless. Ditto for polearms. It's undeniably true that a 1.25" diameter haft is stronger than a 1" haft, but the real questions are whether or not a 1" diameter haft is historically valid and, if so, is it compromised by a step.

If I understand the point made above, a haft stepped down to 1" diameter is not weaker than a simply-tapered 1" diameter haft. It just has a more predictable break point."

Respectfully, I think you're both missing the point (no pun intended). I" diameter ash is definitely more than strong enough for a spear shaft. It would probably be almost strong enough for a pitch fork. I do believe that cutting a shoulder on the shaft weakens it because you are cutting across the grain of the wood. I think a gradual taper would result in a stronger shaft; what you are doing is sacrificing some strength for aesthetics. The question is how great is the sacrifice and does it make the spear dangerously weak and I think the answer to that is, "No". Going back to the pitch fork analogy it would seem to me that you would have to be using the spear like a pitch fork (lifting something extremely heavy with the point) for the shoulder to present a problem. So unless someone is planning to spear something that weighs about 150 pounds and then lift that thing up in the air on the end of the spear and then throw it over their head the shoulder should be fine.


Best regards,




Ken Speed


I think this is the heart of the concern, and the lesson may be that we're thinking about this in the reverse order of our medieval friends. They may have determined the optimal diameter for a spear shaft and then stepped up, overbuilding slightly and creating a flush surface between socket and haft (for reasons unknown). For our modern purposes, this would mean that a 1 1/8 haft is plenty strong for a spear, and we're not compromising that strength by "adding" 1/8 to create the flush surface. Does that make sense, or am I trying too hard to match the physics to the historical practice?[/quote]

[Gavin Kisebach]

Perhaps it would help if we had a consistent expectation of the expected strain and natural lifespan of a spear haft.

You are correct about viewing this in reverse, Ken. We look at extant examples and try to extrapolate the workload expectations; they looked at the workload and build accordingly. The modern tendency seems to be overestimating the need and then grossly overbuilding to the detriment of performance.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Fabrice Cognot]

Generally speaking, halberd/polearms hafts were very closely fitting the head (I'm not speaking for older, "Sempach" type halberds). The octagonal hafts are about 3,5 cm in thickness.Reinforcing comes from the lateral bands nailed down the sides of the shaft, which help transfering the returned energy of each strike to the wood ; as they are set in recesses, this can help even more.

Aesthetics in various periods suggest indeed that the haft surface was flush with the spear socket. Though excepions exist.

Making shafts for polearms was a profession on its own BTW, and it makes sense thinking of the work needed to perfectly adapt each individual haft to each individual socket.