Making a Roman Pilum (Part 2)

Hey everybody, welcome back to Bar Run Forge. It's time for part two of our series on the Roman Pilum. We have completed the spear, the forging portion of that. So now we have to work on something to attach it to. And what we're going to do, we're actually going to take this handle of a wheelbarrow. It turns out to be a pretty good dimension for us. We're going to have to shave a lot down here on the handle. We'll work that down. We'll work it down to the connection point, which is kind of a pyramid shape here. We'll split that so this inserts into it. And we'll also put a metal cap on the top of it, put rods through and peen that together. And we'll have a Roman Pilum all ready to go. Guys, stick around for the action. For this portion of our Roman Pilum, we're going to be spending a lot of time here at the vise and with some hand tools, also some power tools. But we need to mark our shape out first of all and get some dimensions in. So we're going to do that right now. Really the critical part of this is the cone or the pyramid shaped here that makes the connection between the spear and the shaft. So what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and mark the distance where we have this notch made and get an exact measurement there. And what will end up happening is there's actually going to be a cone on top of here. We'll forge that down and then it'll insert into that cone. So we're going to leave just a little bit of space back here, but that is our connection point. So that's just one piece right there. That piece right there will be cut down the center to that point. And then also we have holes that will be in the Pilum spear itself and we'll make marks and go ahead and drill those holes where they belong as well. Let's do that now. Now we'll mark our halfway points. We have about an inch and three quarters. So we will go ahead and set our mark for halfway. What we'll do is we'll just scribe it, scribe down the center, turn our square around, scribe, scribe back that way. And that will essentially give us our cut mark. What we'll do is we'll flip this around, put it on the back side. Now the other thing we need to do is make our measurement for the distance back here. So not only do we have to make the connection, narrow that down. We also have to give some space back here. So I'm essentially going to put an additional about two inches. We're going to go about inch and three quarters from the connection point back to that point. So this will all be tapered in and worked in. This will all be pretty solid in dimension. Then it'll taper down to somewhere along this point right here. So we'll make all those lines and we'll show you the end point about how we got everything measured out. And then we'll just start drawing some of the wood down. So as you can tell from our layout, we've got the items that are going to be removed, darkened out. And because it's currently square, you know, we've got this portion behind it and then we're going to shave that back in. We're going to stay inside this line. That'll be some that'll be left over, but that'll hold the shaft in the final part of the javelin. We'll take this portion out. There'll be a portion that gets cut back at this angle. And then the first thing we're going to do actually is cut the slit. Now that it's square, we can go ahead and run a saw through that while it's square and make that cut where the pylon will fit in that sleeve. So we'll do that now. Cut for the attachment point. So now we're going to take the same saw. We're going to cut these angles off here. Again, we'll stay inside the line. That way we can shape it exactly where we want to. With the vast majority of the tapers sanded in, we'll clean those up for final fit. Now we're going to move on to the throwing part of the shaft. And for that, we'll probably use a draw knife and then finish up with the angle grinder with a flapper disc. With the haft mostly complete, now we're going to make a cap to go over this first part so we can put a pin across that and kind of strengthen that up a little bit. What we're going to do is try to use this piece of round pipe and we'll taper it down. We're going to make an attempt at this. We're going to taper it down and then we're going to turn it square or have to end up splitting it, but that's quite all right because it's going to do exactly what it's supposed to do and squeeze down on here together. It'll be a really nice tight fit. So now we're going to find where the holes are and we'll measure back, drill those holes, and then we'll put a hot oil finish on it. We'll heat up the haft and rub some oil down on it, put a final finish on it. This will be done. We have completed a Roman pylum. This thing was a lot of fun to make. We've learned a lot about it. We're actually planning on making a second one of these actually for a different purpose, but man, what a cool thing to be able to do and to make this Roman pylum. We don't want to say historically accurate, but pretty doggone close. We're excited about how it turned out and we're excited that you guys have come to join us for another video here at Bar Run Forge. Thank you so much. God bless you and we'll see you on the next one. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happen so that the scripture would not one of his bones will be broken. And as another scripture says, they will look on the one they have pierced.