Zulu spear (head)

oldanvilyoungsmith

oldanvilyoungsmith

Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Messages
427
This was a custom ordered spearhead I just finished on Saturday.

The customer is going to haft it himself and then present it to his son. The idea was that it would be similar to the zulu "iklwa" spear. A long bladed, short handled spear. If I remember correctly, Shaka Zulu was particularly well known for conquering many other tribes, and this was his soldier's favorite weapon.

This one was a challenge, longest thing I forged, first double edged, first socket in while (read: first socket since I've learned to forge fairly well), too long to HT in my forge, and too wide to fit in a propane forge I was recently given. So, I went with ground forge, didn't look purty, but it worked.


Measures somewhere at 18" long, the socket is close to 4" long, but the effective socket is closer to 3" Forged from a leafspring, I wanted to do 5160, but the leafspring had some nice rustic looking rust pitting and such, and that's what the customer was looking for. After HT I did no sanding, but ran a scotchbrite belt over the flats to shine the highspots.






DSC06602.jpg
 
Too long to get in one picture... :D

What I can see looks pretty good! Are the bevels chisel ground? Sometimes spears and daggers are made that way is why I ask. 14" is a plenty long spear blade.

I need to try a spearhead one day soon...
 
It's not chisel ground, I'm not sure whether or not authentic Iklwas were or not, never thought about that.

And yeah, it's long. Before I even got this order, I'd been wanting to make one like this, these spears as a whole are interesting. They have a long blade and a short handle (as spears go), so you can slash and hack with them, but they still stab and throw well also.

You know, I've heard the name iklwa came from the sound it made when being pulled out of a body :eek:
 
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Cool! I wish I could do that! You said "...the spears as a whole are interesting." I agree. And that's a nice one above.
 
I'm not aware whether iklwas are chisel ground or not. I know I've seen Japanese yaris made that way, and any number of daggers. I was just curious how yours is done.

I encountered the general design with the Cold Steel Assegai, and liked it then. I, too, like the slashing ability on the iklwa.
 
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