Posts by onkelhedde

  • Danish Pole Spear Project

    Quote from Dan

    Very nice concept and execution, and congratz Soren. I've been thinking about a wood pole spear myself, but decided it will be too buoyant. Can you say if this was the case? I'm settling on the idea of the forward section being heavy wood with a shaft embedded through it, and the back section being carbon.


    Actually I don't know how it is supposed to be, we have no experience with polespears whatsoever.
    But this spear is barely neutrally buoyant. If I let it go, it hangs vertically in the water with the back just touching the surface. The sepele I used is quite dense, the spear weighs about 420g.
    What are your preferences for a pole spear?, balance?, weight? buoyancy?
    Our experience is that the polespear lacks speed compared to a speargun - is this usually the case or have we done something wrong?:confused1:

  • Danish Pole Spear Project

    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! :)

  • fucil de sapele

    Your trigger problems may be caused by the mech not being "parallel" or in line with the spear.
    It looks like the mech is installed at an angle to the spear, that will cause problems with engaging the shaft.
    And once you have hammered the shaft in place it will then affect trigger pull.
    I have installed some NileTecs and have experienced similar problems if alignment was off.
    If you take out the mech and try to engage a spear at different angles you will see what i mean.
    It is a very good mech though.

  • My new gun

    Quote from Ihab

    Hi Henrik,
    Usually this type of slick design is common among the Mediterranean coast....I'm impressed you guys up North are as good..... if not better.


    Let me know how it handles/accuracy...and the setup you will be using (bands/spear..etc)....if it needs ballasting....I have a few ideas without messing up this beautiful work of art.


    Ihab


    Thanks Ihab, with this gun i took inspiration in the Mediterranean style, and gave it a Scandinavian twist :)
    I have balance tested the gun, and know where to put the weights to give it near perfect neutral buoyancy, but I would so much want to hear your ideas


    /Henrik

  • My new gun

    Hi Ihab
    The pictures of the handle mounting is an explanation to wbrigham about the gun in my avatar. That trigger is a Riffe. The trigger in my new gun is one of your and Dans :)

  • My new gun

    Thanks guys for all the kind words!


    @wbrigham:The handle is mounted by a sort of wide tapering dovetail.
    It is slid in form the side and tightens when it reaches full depth (is this nonsense)?
    The point of using the dovetail here is to stop the handle from being pulled out during handling.
    Hopefully the pics will make it clearer. The handle was glued in before mounting the mech.

  • My new gun

    Quote from Dan

    The finish is very nice. It was sprayed on right?


    No Dan, I brushed it on, being very careful only to brush in one direction and with long strokes.
    Le Tonkinois is quite thin, and runs together beautifully.

  • My new gun

    Hi all and Happy New Year!
    Having finished my new gun over christmas I thought i would show you how it came out.
    The gun is a 90cm (bandstretch) euro, made of 3 vertical lams sapele/teak/sapele.
    I have quarter sawn the sapele to really bring out the shimmer in this beautiful wood.
    My other guns have a tung oil finish, but this one is finished with 8 layers of Le Tonkinois varnish - too bad we can not get Phils clear epoxy here in Denmark.
    I have long wanted to make a trigger guard out of wood to make the guard and handle sort of "flow together" and I think it came out fine.
    It has not been fired yet, looking forward to that.
    Hope you like it...


    /Henrik

  • Summer flashback

    Was just browsing through our summer photos and found this... My oldest son Mathis (9) with his first catch.
    He had been constantly on about coming with me spearing , and I finally let him... water was pretty cold, 14° C - so I knew he couldn't stay in for long. We went in together, me holding his hand, guiding him along in the "kelp". Could feel him shivering from the cold, and after 20 min he spotted this flounder and put the spear in the fish. We yelled in victory and brought the catch to shore:)
    It was a very special moment for him and for me even more - I couldn't be more proud!
    He has gotten the bug now - badly... one son to go, and one daughter:)

  • A pair

    Thanks for the nice words :)
    I was surprised at the strength of the recoil - the difference in going from a 1/4" shaft on a 80 cm gun with a 16mm band, to a 7mm shaft on a 110 cm gun with doubles 16mm bands, is significant. The muzzle doesn't kick, but the gun is moving backwards ok.
    I thought of recessing the bands but decided not to, the bands sit ok on the gun i think - i will post a pic.
    Thanks for your input, there are heaps of qualified opinions on this forum.
    /Henrik

  • A pair

    Hey Dan, thanks for your very fast processing of our order to Denmark, Scandinavia ;)
    Thumbs up for Pursuit!


    I have just put the finishing touches on this pair of teak/walnut guns, one 70 cm and one 110 cm
    (i'm not really sure how you guys measure guns, but I measure band stretch. Sorry for the metrics.)
    The most time consuming part on this project has been handle attachment - i'm not a big fan of gluing end grain
    and have worked with different sliding dovetails, in order to create a mechanical bond/lock.
    On my next project I will try to simplify this.
    The guns have a deep tung oil finish (15 layers) which I think bring out the beauty of teak.
    The 110'er is perfectly balanced and shoots like a laser, but I was surprised by the recoil - we europeans mostly shoot single bands.
    The short gun has not been tested yet.


    - temporarily out of projects :)


    /Henrik

  • Wiseled Flashligth???

    I have the Wiseled Tactical 1500, (an earlier version) and it is awesome....
    The output is tremendous, it has 7 LED's set in lens, and it will blind you through your eyelids :)
    I would hold my horses in buying one right now, the wiseled company has come up with a newer model.
    Have a look at this... http://www.wisedive.com/

  • Need advice on barrel dimensions

    Thank you all for the kind words :)
    LunkerBuster: The handle is not pinned, but I don't count on breaking it off.
    If you look at the front of the handle, you can see that it is cut at an angle into the teak barrel.
    This will, I hope, prevent tearing the handle out when tracking vertically
    The sliding dovetail goes all the way to the mech, so it is quite deep. All in all there are so many interlocking contact surfaces, that I will have to break the wood, for the handle to come off.
    Does this make sense?:confused1: