South Florida Bluewater Build.

Quote from Marco

For free? :rolleyes1:

Or better offer...

Quote from Reefchief

Paging Don...

Was looking for some slip tip expertise. The question is. Spectra or cable?

Spectra for Wahoo, Cable for Big tuna,Billfish, grouper and dogtooth snapper.

Cheers, Don

Can't help you with that one, you Florida guys would have more experience with this.
When it has been sharky for me in French Poly I have a PPD mounted on my second shaft.
Terry Maas carried a separate ''shark prod'' on a shaft he tucked behind his back.

Cheers, Don

For the shark spike I would say you will need at least 1.25" sticking out and that much recessed into the stock. You could slightly angle your band slot with the front elevated. This will give some extra room under the front to anchor the spike (without having to move the slot back) and will help to stagger you bands and make them lay flat

What if you ran a 63 inch shark spike then you could taper the gun to your original intentions? I'm no gun builder but it could work assuming you don't have some buoyancy issues.

You mean a rod through the entire gun? Integrated into the stock it might work, but I feel it would be tough to get it in without effecting the integrity of the stock

Quote from LunkerBuster

You mean a rod through the entire gun? Integrated into the stock it might work, but I feel it would be tough to get it in without effecting the integrity of the stock

Yeah a rod through the entire gun almost like a guitars truss rod.

Quote from Hookinfish

Yeah a rod through the entire gun almost like a guitars truss rod.

Heeeyyyyyy....you're onto somethin' here. Maybe.

It would add weight but it would be stronger and you SHOULD be able to use a thinner piece of wood? so...maybe it wouldn't be a net weight gain after all. Interesting.

It would depend on the material. If it was any kind of solid metal it would be way to heavy. You're basically adding another shaft. If you did a hollow pipe you might be able to float the gun but then you have the issue of making a spike from a pipe.

Hank weight isnt really the issue here. you can float a 200lb log or a 200 ton stip if the displacement is high enough. In this case if you added a metal rod down the length and removed wood it would be even more negatively buoyant.

As thin as your blank is there isnt much room for a shark spike unless your bands are way back from the muzzle. You have a blank that is 20/16" tall if you're using a 5/8 in bands you have holes/slot that is a minimum of 8/16 but preferably 9/16 which leave 11/16" left. You need about 4/16 between the bands and the shaft/track which is probably another 3/16 below the top of the gun. Now you need 3 - 4/16" below the bands and you're out of room. You can save a couple 1/16" here and there. A shallow track and tight bad slot or reinforcing the muzzle. The riffe euro does all this pretty well and its about 1' tall for the guns less the 110cm. The longer guns have been thickened recently to prevent flex.

When I started CADing my most recent build I came up with 1.25" as pretty close to the bare minimum height for an all wood gun. If you want to keep that height I have two suggestions. You can try adding a little wood right around the muzzle. This wont change the rest of the gun but will give you the space you need for a spike. Or you can try your hand at composites. Adding a layer or two of carbon (or even fiber glass for cost) will add a dramatic increase in stiffness. You could combine those two ideas and reinforce only the muzzle with carbon to minimize the space between elements and possibly find room for a spike.

I hope Dan chimes in. He has a spike on his wooden gun

Yeah 1.5" should make it much more feasible. How long were you planning on making the spike and what diameter spike were you planning?

On my gun the spike sticks out 1.5" from the muzzle, the wood from the end of the muzzle to the first band hole is 1.5", the length of the spike in the wood I guess is about 1". I seal the hole with penetrating epoxy, but I don't epoxy the spike in there. It's a friction fit, so as to be able to just pull the spike out gripping it with a vice.

I think you may have enough wood in the stock to put the spike below the band hole, so there may not be a need for extra wood in front.

I make the spike the same diameter as the shaft I'm using. It still hasn't been determined whether a hand push is enough to detonate a Speardiver powerhead, but I want to have the option of putting the powerhead on the spike. 1.25" of shaft is necessary to deploy the powerhead, so a 1.5" spike is sufficient. I don't want it so long that it can put leverage on the gun and yank it out of my hands if it somehow gets really stuck in a shark.

I will have to dig

I like the power head idea. It was what I was thinking about the whole time.

I don't know if you all saw Jeff's (tin man) post about his testing of the spike muzzle. He swung, not stabbed the spike on a gun into a fence post repeatedly. Making sure the primary vector was across the tip and not into it. This was to test the delrin and it passed

I used to be lucky enough to dive with Hau every weekend. He tested his muzzle spike with a huge heavy Torres .762 power head. It held up flawlessly. The spike on those muzzles is 1.5" out and in the muzzle