06-25-2006, 12:29 AM
Avete omnes,
BOY is forging steel fun! I suppose I might not say that were I a real blacksmith making horseshoes and other mundane things all day, but luckily I'm a new hobby smith, and my first piece is this replica hasta tip- after an original I have a photo of. I'm not exactly sure where it was found, but one of the same shape is in the Museum of Scotland. I'm not 100% sure if the size is just right (overall length 54cm [21 1/4"]), as all I could do to figure that out was to enlarge the image until the socket size seemed sufficiently large for the haft not to be too weak at that point.
An original piece that I believe is in Kalkreise has a section of haft still in place that shows it to be a larger diameter than the socket, tapering a few cm from the socket base. Since I had a section of 3.2cm diameter dowel from my old Vexillum lying around, I decided that would be a half-decent haft diameter and worked out how wide the socket end would have to be from that.
It ended-up being almost like a half-gladius on a stick :lol: but then the images of real hastae seem to show a very wide range of sizes (although virtually all retain the leaf-shape). So this one would be a thrusting pole arm as opposed to a light throwing weapon.
I began with a bar of mild steel (probably closest to Roman steel metallurgically) that was 5cm wide by 6.5cm thick (2"x1/4") and cut it to a basic leaf shape (accounting for the spreading as I flattened out the blade), and got heating and hammering. It has a diamond cross section just like the original, and I flattened out the section that would become the socket to a thickness of about 1.25mm. I then curled the edges of the socket around and after a lot of adjusting to get the edges to meet without a lot of ripples (I need a form), voila- now I can take on barbarians at a range of about 2.5m (8').
It still needs a bit of work to clean up the last few hammering dents (the dark spots), and to polish out the sander marks (I used an angle grider with a sanding disc to get a lot of the scale off), but after an hour with some emery cloth I'm confident it'll look like a hastus tip polished daily to keep the rust off.
This makes me really want to try making my very own pompeiiensis gladius or maybe a pugio...
Don't forget to click on the image below to see the full-sized one- this little thumbnail doesn't show much
BOY is forging steel fun! I suppose I might not say that were I a real blacksmith making horseshoes and other mundane things all day, but luckily I'm a new hobby smith, and my first piece is this replica hasta tip- after an original I have a photo of. I'm not exactly sure where it was found, but one of the same shape is in the Museum of Scotland. I'm not 100% sure if the size is just right (overall length 54cm [21 1/4"]), as all I could do to figure that out was to enlarge the image until the socket size seemed sufficiently large for the haft not to be too weak at that point.
An original piece that I believe is in Kalkreise has a section of haft still in place that shows it to be a larger diameter than the socket, tapering a few cm from the socket base. Since I had a section of 3.2cm diameter dowel from my old Vexillum lying around, I decided that would be a half-decent haft diameter and worked out how wide the socket end would have to be from that.
It ended-up being almost like a half-gladius on a stick :lol: but then the images of real hastae seem to show a very wide range of sizes (although virtually all retain the leaf-shape). So this one would be a thrusting pole arm as opposed to a light throwing weapon.
I began with a bar of mild steel (probably closest to Roman steel metallurgically) that was 5cm wide by 6.5cm thick (2"x1/4") and cut it to a basic leaf shape (accounting for the spreading as I flattened out the blade), and got heating and hammering. It has a diamond cross section just like the original, and I flattened out the section that would become the socket to a thickness of about 1.25mm. I then curled the edges of the socket around and after a lot of adjusting to get the edges to meet without a lot of ripples (I need a form), voila- now I can take on barbarians at a range of about 2.5m (8').
It still needs a bit of work to clean up the last few hammering dents (the dark spots), and to polish out the sander marks (I used an angle grider with a sanding disc to get a lot of the scale off), but after an hour with some emery cloth I'm confident it'll look like a hastus tip polished daily to keep the rust off.This makes me really want to try making my very own pompeiiensis gladius or maybe a pugio...
Don't forget to click on the image below to see the full-sized one- this little thumbnail doesn't show much
See FABRICA ROMANORVM Recreations in the Marketplace for custom helmets, armour, swords and more!
