In Denmark we have no traditions with pole spears at all, but I have been lurking around reading about all you american spearos using these pole spears. It strikes me that no one really uses wooden spears, why is that?
Anyway, I got a call from a friend Soren who has the same fascination about pole spears as I have. He told me: "I want to participate in the Danish Speafishing Championships, and I want to show up with a pole spear. My goal is to finish in top ten - will you build me one?"
We are both mad about wooden spearguns, and felt a sense of connection to ancient spearing, so we decided on a wooden spear. We knew it had to be fairly thin (16 mm) for easy tracking, it had to be really rigid and it had to be about 8 feet long. I used carbon fibre to reinforce the thin rod of sapele, making a cross running through the length of the spear.
First I jointed the sapele billet and split it in half on the table saw. Then I glued the two halves together with a layer of carbon weave in between. Split the blank again perpendicular to the carbon strip and glued together on a new piece of carbon.
This blank I jointed again and cut down to a square cross section with the "carbon cross" exactly centered.
No wood lathe is long enough to accommodate a 8 foot spear, so I made a dowel jig for my router table.
I fed the square blank into the jig spinning and got a nice, dead straight, 8 foot sapele/carbon dowel out on the other side
With a bit of sanding it was perfect! Really rigid, if I bend it it returns to dead straight and if I tap it gently in the concrete floor, it rings like glass.
I used black walnut to turn some sort of muzzle, to take the spear tip. I turned recesses to fill with carbon fibre for strength.
Finally I applied 3 thick layers of epoxy to avoid carbon splinters. The spear takes little flex when under compression, if you rotate when loading there is none. It handles well, but there is a learning curve - we will never hunt the same again.
We have later talked to a carbon engineer who says that the carbon cross is not the ideal solution, we would get more strength with the weave running on the outside of the spear… hmm that will be version 2.0
And oh - Soren came in 9th!