Modelling

Making spears etc

Posted by Ochoin on 14 Apr 2021, 14:38

For years I've persevered with the sometimes inferior spears supplied by figure manufacturers but finally with the problem of supplying a large quantity of sarrissas to my Pyrrhic phalangites, I started my own "armaments factory". It must be hereditary as my Mum spent WW2 making bombs for the RAF.

I've procured a packet of florists' wire. This is used in making floral bouquets & is reasonably strong wire that comes in several thicknesses.

The process is simple: cut to scale length, place about 3-4 mms on an anvil, You then hit this with a large hammer, turn over the now flattened section & repeat. I use a dremel with a grinding stone to shape the flattened section to a spear-point.

You would be surprised how quickly you can turn out sarrissas & I intend to make my own spears & lances & javelins as well.

donald
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Ochoin  Scotland
 
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Posted by Ben Bob on 14 Apr 2021, 15:36

It sounds effective.

Not having an anvil or a grinder, I used plastic broom bristle. Just pinch the end with flat pliers and snip into a point with scissors.

As with your experience, it is much easier than I expected.

Now I find myself wishing that more companies made figures with open hands instead of a) making crazy poses just so that the spear can fit in the mold, and b) making the spears too large.

A bad case of this is the 15mm manufacturer, Forged in Battle, which have a massive range of miniatures and are nicely detailed, but all are either pointing the spears at their feet or straight up.

I look forward to seeing your army, by the way :-D
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Ben Bob  United States of America
 
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 14 Apr 2021, 17:17

Ochoin wrote:For years I've persevered with the sometimes inferior spears supplied by figure manufacturers but finally with the problem of supplying a large quantity of sarrissas to my Pyrrhic phalangites, I started my own "armaments factory". It must be hereditary as my Mum spent WW2 making bombs for the RAF.

I've procured a packet of florists' wire. This is used in making floral bouquets & is reasonably strong wire that comes in several thicknesses.

The process is simple: cut to scale length, place about 3-4 mms on an anvil, You then hit this with a large hammer, turn over the now flattened section & repeat. I use a dremel with a grinding stone to shape the flattened section to a spear-point.

You would be surprised how quickly you can turn out sarrissas & I intend to make my own spears & lances & javelins as well.

donald


And, using this technique, these weapons will be fully functional. Perhaps I will wait until my boys are a bit older to give this procedure a trial run.
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Bluefalchion  United States of America
 
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Posted by Minuteman on 14 Apr 2021, 19:24

Ben Bob wrote:It sounds effective.

Not having an anvil or a grinder, I used plastic broom bristle. Just pinch the end with flat pliers and snip into a point with scissors.

As with your experience, it is much easier than I expected.



I use plastic broom bristles as Ben Bob has also mentioned. A good quality broom head will yield hundreds, and they are long enough (just) for sarissas and more than sufficiently long for other 1/72 purposes eg: standard poles, thrusting spears, landsknecht pikes etc. Being plastic and very light I find that these work well with plastic figures. For metals I would probably use the florists wire approach that donald describes.

I also use thinner plastic bristles from a small kitchen washing up brush, for arrows. They are about the right thickness for 1/72 scale and by flattening one end and painting it light grey a reasonable 'flight feather' can be depicted.
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Minuteman  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Konrad on 14 Apr 2021, 19:25

I used the bristles from a plastic broom.
Works great. :yeah:

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Konrad  Germany
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Posted by Minuteman on 14 Apr 2021, 19:30

Good looking Phalangites Konrad! And I find that the lightness of the broom bristle means that it sticks more easily when it comes to attaching it to those small moulded 'gaps' in HaT Phalangite hands.
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Minuteman  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by steve_pickstock on 15 Apr 2021, 01:33

I use brass wire, squeezed between smooth pliers, and then shaped with a dremel.

Brass wire gives me different thicknesses - thinner for javelins and thicker for spear and axe shafts.
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steve_pickstock  England
 
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