What was the pilum made of?

[Peroni]

Probably takes longer to carve the wooden part of the shaft than forge the iron part of it.

Not if you include the fact that it had to be hammered from a large stock iron billet. These vary in size from about 250mm x 40mm to 300mm x 60mm.

David Sim in his book 'Iron for the Eagles' says that a billet hammered into a length 700mm by 13mm was enough to make a pilum shank.

He gives the production time for one pilum as 10 hours 26 minutes from billet to finished item using 13.5kg's of charcoal.

Quite expensive to produce! Sim suggests that as it lasted as a weapon over a considerable time period, and had several modifications to the design, that the effectiveness of the pilum, justified its expense.

Billet to forged bar
forged bar to flattened bar
'upsetting' the end to form the point
shaping the point
reducing the shaft with fullers and cross pein hammer
flattening the shaft
flaring the tang end and punching of holes.