"Pike Shafts - What Colour?" Topic

Historically what colour were ECW pike shafts?

Were they bare wood? If so, what kind of wood and what colour would it be?

Were they oiled, stained or painted? If so, what colour would they appear to be?

My thanks for your replies.

-- Jeff

The ones that I have seen in museums are all dark wood colour from age and frequent handling.
None of them had been painted but they may have been oiled.

It's often been said that Sir Bevil Grenville's Cornish pikemen used blue and white stripey pikes but may be a misunderstanding by Mary Coates?

According to George Gush, stained with Nitric acid. No idea what color that turns hardwood, but you can assume they would become pretty dirty pretty quickly.

In Gunpowder Triumphant Stuart Reid states they were black through the staining for preservation. This does not seem to have been accepted by gamers and reenactors but is food for thought.

Any shade of brown or black/grey. Pikes often broke and were not always replaced with regulation wood or stain.

I find that lighter yellow brown looks more effective for wargaming army. Darker colors often blend too much with the rest of the uniform. Lighter colors put more emphasis on the weapon.

Nitric acid solution, also known as Aqua Fortis, is the same as was used on gunstocks, so usually a dark brown.

I'm not sure where I read this but once treated the pikes would become a dark greyish brown.

According to references in Ospry Military elite series #25 "Soldiers of the English Civil War 1 Infantry" on page 22 under the heading Pikemen on the 3rd paragraph it says:
"made of good ash" and later on it says "The staves to be coloured with aquafortis".

I had no idea what aquafortis is so a quick wiki search produces this:
"Aqua fortis, or "strong water," in alchemy, is a solution of nitric acid (HNO3) in water" and further on this:" It was mixed with oil of vitriol and used to stain canes to appear like a tortoise shell by applying several coats while the cane is over hot coals. The canes were then given a gloss with a little soft wax and a dry cloth."
Now that being said, I usually paint pike a lighter colour so that thay show up on the table top so there is less chance of not seeing them when you reach over and hit them bending breaking or ruining your lines on the table. I read on other forums of a cornish unit that painted the pikes with stripes but I have no idea if that was historical or not.
Hope that helped.

I am of the same opinion as IGWARG1 and smolders, dark may be accurate but light looks better. Lately I've been using Vallejo 912 Tan Yellow.

I just paint them some dark brown, whatever is handy at the time. This leads to pike staves of different shades, but so what? They were made of different woods at different times, and replacement staves would not have matched exactly.

I usually paint them mahogany brown, but for the Swiss pikemen I posted the other day in the Medieval Gallery I used a mix of 4 different shades of brown

Re the Cornish- the original source says that they had colours on their pikes and musket rests- i.e ribbons, presumably much like those sometimes
given in lieu of uniforms to the troops

The phrase "as plain as a pikestaff" does suggest that pikes were usually uncoloured. There is some evidence that in Germany it was common to paint/stain the wood and hence the contradiction in England that they were plain wood.

Incidentally have checked the Mary Coate reference and my interpretation would be that the pikes had blue and white markings, perhaps hoops only at the top – they were from Grenvile's own armoury and therefore it would not seem unlikely that they were marked similar to the way that private property of the Gentry often is. If this guess is correct it would also suggest that, in 1642/3 other units equipped from private armouries (e.g. Northampton's Foot) would have had their pike 'marked' with the Colonel's Livery Colours.