Making a spear

[reproman]

I have been looking for plans for building a spear. I have a great one I received from my dad,he made it long ago. I would like for my son to spear also. I have a welder and me son is very mechanical. I think it would be a good project. I'm just not finding any guidance on line. Any suggestions? Less than two months till season!

[fish-kabob]

sure is easy to make them but it can get complicated  a lot of guys are cutting out stuff with a plasma cutter attached to a optical eye ... that allows designs to be cut in the metal  I would just keep it simple and not go to extravagant it is real easy to make one kind of like the ones grapentin enterprises sells here in Michigan.. you look at double diamond or even that other place dark hose spearing supply its all cut out with a plasma cutters except the handle  is hex stock or similar... just go by the kiss method keep it simple stupid.. reason I say that is you start getting out of you league and make it easier to mess some thing up... some times it looking around at different things to see what you can come up with from like if you got a cutting touch with a rose bud tip or a heating tip you can take and lock the end in a vise of the spear handle and heat the meatal up every 3 inches to every 1 inch...  then give it a turn at the other end with a wrench giving a spiral effect to the spear handle... can even do it to the tines of the spear head to... you can even turn some wood to use as a throwing handle etc ...with intricate designs in the wood... skies the limits you got to take stuff you see in the metal shop and translate it to the spear and trial and error  till you like it ... a lot of guys are using spring steel so it pops back unlike other spears and other guys are making removable tines so if you hit under water rock you can replace the tines...but like said the skies is the limits so keep it in mind..   it all depends on length to seen a few spears cut off for smaller shacks it all depends on a lot of stuff... remember you making it not some one else so you got freedom of design here cause of it... search spear manufactures and see what you can get ideas form is all I can say...       

[reproman]

I could duplicate mine. My question is what to use for the shaft and what to use for tines. Is there stuff to "repurpose" to use in making a spear? I'm assuming my father used what was already available. I don't want to start welding stuff together and find out it doesn't work. I suppose there are worse ways to spend time though.

[fish-kabob]

I could duplicate mine. My question is what to use for the shaft and what to use for tines. Is there stuff to "repurpose" to use in making a spear? I'm assuming my father used what was already available. I don't want to start welding stuff together and find out it doesn't work. I suppose there are worse ways to spend time though.

he probably used what was available at the time a lot of guys do that... I would use new stuff and put your dads spear on a wall with a pike mount lol's just personally  would do... if you brake it you will never get it back the way it was remember that...

I you trying to use your fathers spear to make your new one? piece it together? or ae you wondering what to use for a spear?


if building new... it all depend on what your welder can weld if your trying to use all new components. like mild steel and stainless steel are the mains you will want to look at mainly stainless if your welder is capable of it some of the cheaper flux core welder don't work with stainless steel... see my point there if it was me I would go stainless steel.. but that's just me... look on your welder and find out what types of stain less to use like 403 stainless etc... etc...  as for the tines use the same as the shaft and spear head...  but make it so you can replace them easily like make 10-12 inches long tines max for pike...more like 5-6 inches for perch  out of say 1/8 round stock for perch and maybe 3/16 or 1/4 round stock or even square for pike.. that was how thick stainless to make the tines...what I would do is use a die and thread the tines so that it will slide threw a hole  in the head of the spear so that the tine  tightens with a bolt on top and bottom of the hole in the spear head the tine slid threw so it will tighten to it...    so it is removable...then all you got to do is drive it out of the spear head if you break a tine off with a drift punch or some thing similar..... then use 3/8 inch for pike  or 1/4 inch for perch for the spear shafts weld the shaft to the head or cross bar that the tines attach to but drill the holes first for the tines  if the spear head is thick enough cross drill it then weld it... like if you use 7/8 for pike  or 1/2 for perch for the head for the tines and shaft to go threw cross drilled... you could also sleeve the shaft of the spears with a thick walled dom tube to forward weight the spear more...   


these are just examples for you to get a idea of what to do...you could go to a 1/16 inch tine on the perch spear....se my point it all up to you and what you plan for the design and what you welder is capable of...see my point??? it all in the design and welders capability???                 

[reproman]

Well, a buddy at work is bringing me in a mess of old pitchforks and a couple of broken spears. I think I will see what I can do with them. Our fabricator at work can advise on what I can do. Thanks for the advice.

[fish-kabob]

Well, a buddy at work is bringing me in a mess of old pitchforks and a couple of broken spears. I think I will see what I can do with them. Our fabricator at work can advise on what I can do. Thanks for the advice.

it should all work for you it sounds like it is all steel so as long as you don't mix steel with stainless you should be fine.... but that is basically the way there built,, by finding some scrap meatal and get tot crafting...

[English]

Friend of mine who is a farmer built my spear. He used old tines off a hay rake for the spear tines.  I speared about 20 pike with it last year and no complaints whatsoever!

Mike

[thewyler]

I could duplicate mine. My question is what to use for the shaft and what to use for tines. Is there stuff to "repurpose" to use in making a spear? I'm assuming my father used what was already available. I don't want to start welding stuff together and find out it doesn't work. I suppose there are worse ways to spend time though.

use the steel out of old leaf springs like from cars and etc, best steel for applications like this

[CavScout]

My old roomate and I made a mess of spears back in the day. Figuring something out for tines was out biggest headache. Out best solution and what we still have in use today after 10+ years of use was stainless round stock with a properly sized nail welded to it.  First you grind off the head of the nail, weld the nail point towards the handle of the spear. Our nails were about 1in long. Weld the first half of an inch and then use a grinder to blend the welds and nail to a nice stremlined shape. Bend the none welded nail point out to the desired barb gap based on the softness of the fish your after and Walla.    In 10+ years i only broke 1 nail on one of about the 6 or so spears we made. And replacing the nail is an easy fix.   These spears work great on everything we threw them at to include 30lb carp, gar, dogfish and of course  pike through the ice.