Advice on unloading a halberd
Hi everybody,

Fairly recently I cleared the decks on pretty much all of my collection. I did this because of space. I was to try to get rid of everything and buy just a couple of really nice pieces instead - quality over quantity.

Unfortunately, the money I made selling everything ended up going to bills after a period where work was hard for me to find. I'm now in a position where I can finally get the pieces I want.

One thing I failed to get rid of was a Cold Steel Swiss Halberd. The reason, I believe, is the size. I'm determined to get rid of it, being the last bit of the old collection and taking up more than its fair share of space, and I want to do it sooner rather than later because I am ready to pull the trigger on the new stuff.

I basically just want it out of my house. I don't think I will have success selling it. The shipping alone would probably be more than anybody would want to pay - even if I was giving it away...and I would absolutely be willing to do this if somebody wanted it - just pay shipping. Another alternative is that I could try to unload it locally on kijiji or something. But I don't know if I feel good about selling or even giving away a weapon to somebody in a parking lot or whatever.

Another thing I thought about was just selling the head and letting somebody get their own pole and that would reduce the shipping cost quite a bit. The problem here is that the pole is so tightly in the head I can't get it out...

The blade also has a ding in it. So that's probably not going to help the sell-ability of it.

Any advice? Thanks!
If you want to get rid of it, cut the pole down to the halberd head size and wrap it up with clothe and tape, then bring it to the nearest metal scrap yard. But don't expect any payment because it will probably be in pennies.

If you want to keep the head and sell it somewhere else, first of all how did you attach the head? If it's a nail then you can drill through it with a cobalt drill bits.
Edward Lee wrote:
If you want to get rid of it, cut the pole down to the halberd head size and wrap it up with clothe and tape, then bring it to the nearest metal scrap yard. But don't expect any payment because it will probably be in pennies.

If you want to keep the head and sell it somewhere else, first of all how did you attach the head? If it's a nail then you can drill through it with a cobalt drill bits.


Dan: Well, is there a pin holding the head onto the shaft, or a combination of pin/screw and epoxy ?

If the nail or screw had a head on it you might be able to pull it out, although drilling it out is an option as suggested.

For epoxy heating the socket to around 300°F/350°F will make the epoxy lose it's hold and let the head come off the shaft.

350°F is not hot enough to ruin the heat treat of a blade, and the heat in any case would be on the socket, one can wrap the blade part with wet towels just to make sure to not affect the heat treat where it matters on the edges.

One thing that one has to be careful about is the trapped air, and maybe gas generated by the heated epoxy, can have the head almost be pushed off the shaft rather vigorously ! So that can be something to be aware of.

I've done this before when removing an epoxied steel butt cap, or a copper end cap from a cane or staff.

One way to get the heat to do this is using a stove top electric element to be in contact with the socket of the halbert to get it up to epoxy releasing heat.

Alternative ways that have worked for me was just using the heat from a large candle, or one could use a propane torch!
( Not an acetylene torch: Much too hot ! )

When cutting off the shaft leave enough to hold the shortened shaft when heating the steel of the halberd head .... Once it pops out the length of wood is irrelevant !

Well, keeping the head might not really be an issue since it wont be a 6' long thing difficult to store ..... No rush finding someone who might want it ? Maybe give it to someone at a Renaissance Fair the next time you can go to one ?

Hope that this is useful to you. :D
That halberd sells for $146 new on Amazon; you can get a similar head (w/o pole) from Museum Replicas for $60; yours has some damage. So - what do you realistically think you could get for it once you cut the pole off, and is that worth the time/effort to get that much? $40? $30?

I'd be inclined to donate it - to a Ren Faire participant, or a school drama department, or maybe just put it into the metal recycling.

But - I hate the logistics of selling stuff, so maybe that's just me.

ETA: maybe advertise it to a local SCA group, or D&D group - someone local who might be interested and can come get it (even if that means sticking it out their sunroof).
Thanks for all the replies!

I hope I'll address everybody here...

It is attached with friction and screws. I've taken out the screws but the friction is just impossibly tight...I kind of made sure of that when assembling - I really hammered the handle into the socket (so it is totally my fault!). Stupid. I know. It was like 13 years ago...I was younger and dumber than I am now (I hope so anyways).

I'm not really looking to sell it because I know it isn't really worth anything. I don't want to simply cut off the handle at the base of the head and toss it in the bin just because I think it might be dangerous (it is still a functional weapon - sharp and all!) - as mush as I would just like to out of sight and out of mind this thing, I just don't want even the possibility of this hurting somebody. That being said, I also don't want to spend the time grinding doing the edges and points just to throw it out.

I think I like the idea of donating to a renaissance fare participant rather than to some random on Kijiji. If I can't do that, maybe I will contact the scrap yard ahead of time and ask them about cutting off the handle and dropping it off...

Page 1 of 1

Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum




All contents © Copyright 2003-2006 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Full-featured Version of the forum