Pole Arm Haft Repair

First major project of the year... I have to repair a pole arm haft that is in need of repair.  The top got mangled but the rest of the haft is still good wood so I'm going to attempt to save as much of the original piece of wood as possible.  I'm planning on splicing a new wood blank onto the top of the old haft and remounting the halberd head and banding.

I'll be documenting the progression of the fix so I can reproduce it if I need to.

First I made two cuts in the haft just below where the banding ended about 1/3 of the way through.  I will be removing wood from the original haft to make a post to affix the splice to.

 

Next I cut off the un-needed and damaged part of the haft.  I will start shaping the splice from the remaining material.

This is a closer look at the remaining material that I will shape the splice from.

I cut two shoulders for the splice using the two original cuts I made.

Continued to shape the splice.



The finished splice on the original haft of wood all cleaned up.  Total length of the splice is roughly 8 inches long.



I cut two new pieces of wood to form the other part of the splice from 1"x2" oak.  The new part of the splice will add a new two feet onto the original haft to help repair the damaged part.  In the new pieces I routed out  the negative profile of the splice so that when glued together they will form a cavity to slide over the haft.

Test fitting the splice.

Everything all glued up.  I'll wait 24 hours to make sure everything is nice and dry before I remove the clamps and start shaping the wood to blend the splice into the haft's original lines.

Next Steps:

• Shape haft to match original shape
• Chanel and fit the halberd head onto the haft
• mount halberd head onto haft and finish wood and metal accordingly

Time for a helping hand...

Hi everyone, it's Mike.  Keeping with the theme of this blog I wanted to share one of the projects that I plan to begin this weekend:  I am going to be building a period shaving horse. 

(image from http://www.greenwoodworking.com/)

I have been doing a fair deal of woodworking lately at events and I have been finding it difficult to work on a piece and hold it steady while trying to shave/plane the wood.  Most recently I've been working on a polearm shaft that required me to taper the end to fit the socket of the halberd head.  There has been no good way of transporting a vice/workbench so I'm hoping this new shaving horse will do the trick.

(image from http://www.greenwoodworking.com/)

I will post my progress as the shaving horse takes shape.  I'm hoping to modify the design a bit so it breaks down easily for transport to and from events.  As it is designed right now it doesn't lend itself to an easy breakdown becuase of the tapered mortise joints that the legs attach at.  These joints can swell and make removing the legs very difficult if not impossible.

More to come...