Ways of making pila from easily obtainable parts at a very economical price, as well as a cheap anvil.

Note: As well as Legio IX Hispana's valuable weblink, Legio XX's "cheapy chuckers" are used as inspiration for this, so here's that link as well:

LEGIO XX ONLINE HANDBOOK - PILUM

Mithras

My money has ran out ... but I really could do with a pilum. My smithing skills are pretty poor (and my tools almost non-existent - I've just begun making spearheads by grinding out old socketed lawn edging spades) but I'm willing to give it a go if I can find a pilum find I can copy.

I'm thinking along the lines of Legio XX's 'cheapy chuckers'.

I can probably get a steel bar, create a point and seat it into a wooden haft, but that looks from my limited research just a bit 'too' basic. I need either to create a socketed mount (impossible I'm afraid) or a tang (equally impossible).

I'm into the late 2nd/early 3rdC, and I understand that styles got a little more basic. But exactly 'how' basic?

Anonymous

I recently made a "cheapy chunker" with a tang mount. I simply heated the end of the mild steel rod with a Map gas torch, let it air cool, and banged the tang flat on an anvil. I repeated the heating, cooling, and banging process till I had acheived a nice flat section.

Hibernicus

The 3/8" square stock is a few dollars at a metal store, more at a Harware store

A post hole digger replacement handle is about $8, but a 4' length of 2" ash is about $4

Total cost: $6-$15.

Instructions:

www.legio-ix-hispana.org/11_1.html

Mithras

I'm using an old iron shoe last as my anvil at the moment, not sure it will stand up to bashing a cherry-red bar of steel. I suppose I'll find out ...

scythius

If the metal is hot enough, there will be less shock to your last. HOWEVER, I would suggest finding a piece of scrap steel to use as an anvil. My very first anvil is a piece of scrap steel that measures 2 x 4 x 6 inches - it cost me about 6 USD (about 25 years ago...) and has been used for everything from rivitting, to an anvil for the first knives I made, even a couple of swords -when I was 15, some friends and I made a forge from $5 vacuum cleaner we bought at a thrift shop, and spent a happy summer making swords and other implements of mass destruction

Mithras

Would beech do as well as ash? I have plenty of thick beech planks I can use...

scythius

I think beech would work well - I wish *I* had some!

Mithras

why do you mention a post-hole tool? Is it something about the shape?

scythius

The main advantage of using the handle from a post-hole digger is that some of the stock has been removed already (the handle end) while the end that bolts into the tool is roughly the right size for the block that tang of the pilum head fits into - all you'd really need to do is use a spokeshave, plane, rasp, drawknife or <gasp!> a powertool to remove the major portion of the stock and shape the pyramidal tang block.

I feel that this may be helpful for the very first one you make, but ultimately you'll do almost as much work as just building the stave from scratch...

Which leads to another point - if you build your own pilae, you can learn to do it cheap enough to dispense with the use of non-historical pila-substitutes

Please note: I am NOT denigrating anyone who chooses to use pila-substitutes for throwing practice! I just want to point out that you CAN make pilae cheaply and accurately!