The Armour Archive

It's been beautiful out the past few days and I'm sick of alternating between the computer and mowing the lawn, so I picked up and completed a project that's been sitting in my workshop barely touched for a couple of years - improving and assembling a late 1990's Cold Steel halberd.

The halberds came in "kit" form - a blackened (or painted, I'm not sure) steel head and a plain shaft, with an instruction sheet that said to "hammer the head onto the shaft and attach with the included Phillips head screws".

The head looked like this:



Over the course of the past few years, every time I remembered, I'd hit the head with a nylock brush mounted in my drill press, and after many sessions the black gunk was completely stripped.

Yesterday I finally dragged out the shaft and a belt sander and vowed to finish the halberd. Fitting the shaft perfectly into the halberd's socket took most of yesterday afternoon: sand down shaft, spray some oil into the socket, insert and withdraw shaft, sand down the parts where the oil touched; repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat, etc.

(If someone has a better suggestion for sanding down shafts to fit perfectly into tapered sockets I'll be happy to hear it!)

Late yesterday I stained the shaft and let it dry overnight, today I finished the stain and added a bit of wax as a protectant. I heated the socket with a propane torch to get the metal to expand, then pounded it onto the shaft. After cooling, I drilled through the CS-supplied one-side-only screw holes, pinned the head in place with knife-making rivets, then added a jaunty fringe.

Here's the final project:









The halberd is almost ridiculously sturdy and weighs nearly double to what I've seen with historical pieces, but the next time I'm attacked by French heavy cavalry I'm going be able to split armored knights from helmet to saddle with this beast.

Therion,

Very nice halberd you have there.

Therion wrote:...The halberd is almost ridiculously sturdy and weighs nearly double to what I've seen with historical pieces, ...

Why does yours weigh so much more than an original?
Is it the head or the wood of the shaft?
Just windering.

Thanks
Amalric

Therion,

What would you recommend to remove the antiqueing on a paul chen skeggox?

Well done.

Looks more medieval now -- and a lot less like a CS boar spear, which had the same kind of finish, apparently to reduce glitter and protect against weather.

Amalric von Regensburg wrote:Why does yours weigh so much more than an original?
Is it the head or the wood of the shaft?

All of the old Cold Steel weapons or polearm heads (this halberd, the "poleaxe", the warhammer) are/were much heavier than any originals I've handled or seen weight stats for. Not nearly as bad as the old CAS Iberia "halberd" heads (really a type of vouge) - that particular reproduction weighed nearly triple what it should have been!

IvanIS wrote:Therion,

What would you recommend to remove the antiqueing on a paul chen skeggox?

I really dislike the "antiquing" on the Paul Chen/Hanwei axes, so much so that I clean up/remove most of it before I send any of those weapons out to my clients.

What I've found to work best is Liquid Wrench or Blaster BP (found in automotive stores for loosening rusted lug nuts) and a nyalox brush mounted in my drill press, followed by lots of blue-shop-towel wiping and then Windlass Rustblocker or Birchwood-Casey Barricade.

Better weapons finishes through chemistry!