Building a pommel

Lost wax casting.

https://youtu.be/8c2xiKFLnYY

Bronze casting is so much easier than smithing.

Watch a few of his videos, they are great.

>>1110445
You could weld those layers together theoretically and then grind it to look solid it should be strong enough for your purpose. But why not get a solid piece of steel, too hard to work with?
>I usually carve pipes

I'm sorry that this is offtopic but...
I want to carve my own pipe and preferably like a churchwarden. The bowl is not what troubles my thinking but the stem. I'd like to keep this rather cheap so making my own stem is what I'd like to do. So how do you drill a very long stem with short drills? Could I technically just slowly grind out the bore or would it be reasonable to make it out of two pieces and glue them together?

Follow-up-question:
Is it anywhere near legal to smoke blank weed with said pipe and still smoke tobacco with it? I could imagine a little marijuana taste would be nice but I've never smoked pipe so I don't know.

>>1110470
I would look pretty inconsistent to have a steel blade with a bronze or copper pommel... and the pommel would be rather weak. No pommelthrowing for OP than.

>>1110478

Bronze is pretty strong, and you can blue it black like you can with steel.

Or you can polish it gold.

>>1110445
Few ideas here which explain some pro's and cons
http://www.albion-swords.com/swords-functional.htm

If you've got a drill and a tap-die set to cut threads you can bolt pretty much anything that will fit on there. Or like >>1110470 mentioned, bronze is quite good. Brass also works quite well and is very tough. Plus if you do a casting then you don't really need to cut a thread into it- just find a machine bolt with the same diameter and thread size and jam it in there before it cools.
Both are easy metals to work with.

A block of brass is pretty easy to file to into shape. It will take a while, but since you're only make one that should be fine. Use a thread tap and a normal drill to make the hole.

>>1110623

Or you could melt the brass with a propane torch and cast iron ladle and pour it into a sand mold.


Or dirt mold, cement mold, pretty much any mold that isn't plastic, silicone, etc

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>>1110476
Use progressively longer drill bits. A stem is quite thin 3mm so you'll have to have a long pilot hole in order to not break your drill bit.

Curved stems are a nightmare especially for a first attempt. Try starting small a short straight stem and build up your skills, no use in ruining a good piece of wood.
I've seen stems of split wood glued together and don't trust it myself at all, shit looks toxic although really easy to make.
Yeah you get a kind of brown weed build up in the pipe that will fade you and the pipe stinks - not allowed on this board change topic!!

Pic is of a stem I bought on eBay and a new piece of wood unfinished ofc

Buy a bar of steel.

saw bar to the approximate length you want.

file square.

clamp in vise, drill hole down it. drill wider hole halfway down.

fettle and adjust with files or a drill with a carbide burr, till it fits onto the tang.

once it fits, remove everything on outside of block of metal that's not sword-pommel-shaped.

I'd particularly suggest looking at oakeshott J or I pommels (round wheels with a bevelled edge) as they're easy. but a 2 inch dia. steel round section bar, saw off 1 1/2 inches, drill through ,bevel. sorted.

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>>1112056
forgot pic.

pommel on this one was done using exactly that method.

>>1110445
I can't really help for the pommel but about the handle I have some experience.
I broke mine few months ago during a heavy sparing.
I replaced it using poplar wood and pasted it in a sandwich way with wood glue and used epoxy to fix the handle to the tang.
This website is really useful: http://www.yeoldegaffers.com/project_grip.asp

About the pommel, which shape do you want?