"Spear making material/process" Topic

I may be needing to make/have made spears and other long thin articles for figures.

What may be a lightweight, glueable, paintable way to do it that won't bend?

Metal will not work, heavy bendy.

Plastic injection is too costly, but otherwise perfect.

Resin spears…Aaaaaaugh! Unless you can insert a popstick pre cast to keep things straight???

3d prints will probably be too expensive or liney or accident prone for thin little bits (rakes, pitch forks).

Leaves me with scratch building. A thin rod of plastic with a cast head glued on. Cheap thin plastic rod?

Any ideas???

Scale of figures may make a difference in choice of materials. For 1/72, 25mm figures I've used thin brass wire/rod or piano wire-- I've not found this to be very heavy, and certainly not easy to bend. Evergreen has styrene rod in a variety of diameters and is flexible enough that a permanent bend is unlikely unless a figure is seriously mishandled.

Nylon brush bristles, cut to length are reportedly one of the best options.

Durable, cheap, and can be painted. They flex, but snap back to shape readily.

Flatten the "heads" with a pair of pliers and cut/file/sand to shape, as desired.

Brass

I agree with khanscom. Talk scale first. Metal--steel or copper--certainly does work in 25mm and above. It's cast lead or tin which is "heavy bendy."

I used nylon brush bristles for 10mm pikes years ago. Looked good starting out, but sagged badly over time and did not snap back to shape. May have been a storage error on my part, but I'd try piano wire if I had to do it again.

I have used blow gun darts (believe it or not) for 28mm. They can be bought with flattened, sharpened tips. Some companies make wire spears – similar to piano wire they won't bend or break

John

Old school used brass wire. They crush flattened the tip with a needle nose pliers, then they sanded the flat tip to a spear point -- very sharp! I need to do this on a lead 60mm Viking's malleable spear. It's always bending… Cheers!

28-32mm.

Brush bristles came to mind. Didn't realise you could get them thick enough for the scale. I'll have another look.

Most metal will be too heavy. Aluminium too bendy.

Making tips too time consuming and I need to cater to other options, brooms, what have you.

I'm thinking plastic lengths of some variety with cast heads?

May abs, or other, fillament for printing be straightened easily? Would that be a good thickness? Extruded plastic may work.

I use split bamboo skewers. A small blob of glue at the tip for spear point painted silver serves the illusion well enough….. flexible but easily replaced if need be. Cat whiskers work well too… but the cat doesn't agree.

youtu.be/KWYAGyj01vE

Grimm

I am a big fan of the good old brass wire

I am another fan of brass wire. If you need to protect your troops against heavy-handed gamers, you cn purchase 100mm wire with sharpened points from Artizan Design:

link

Rick