Hand-Forged Leaf-Blade Spear, Raised Midrib

A short spear with a broad double-edged head, 13 inches of blade on a 25.5 inch haft, 38.5 inches overall. The head is leaf-shaped in outline, swelling to its widest point forward of centre and running out in a long taper, with a raised ridge down the centre-line of both faces and a deep concave sweep either side of the base.

It is not a reproduction of any documented type. Broad leaf-shaped heads are real and ancient — Bronze Age Europe, Greece and the Migration period all used them — but those outlines are smoothly convex. The concave waisting here is a modern design decision. An original spear in a historical idiom, which is a fine thing to be as long as nobody sells it as something older.

Stiffness, and it is the most functional thing on the head. A broad flat spearhead has plenty of width and very little depth, and depth is what resists bending. Drive a wide flat head into something solid off-square and it wants to fold across itself. A midrib adds material on the centre-line, where it buys the most depth for the least weight, turning a flat plate into something closer to a shallow beam.

It is also why a broad head can afford to be broad. Narrow heads do not need the help, their width being small enough that the section holds up alone. This is a different argument from the one our pierced kukri page makes about where bending stress sits across a blade's width — that is about taking material out of the middle of the width, this is about adding depth at the centre-line. Perpendicular problems, opposite solutions.

No, and it is worth knowing what a real barb is for. A barb faces rearward and its job is to stop the head coming back out. Harpoons use them so the animal cannot shake the head loose, and some boar spears carry them for the same reason. The Frankish angon was barbed so that once it struck a shield it could not be pulled free, and the enemy had to drop the shield or fight with a spear shaft dragging on it.

The forms at the base of this head sweep outward rather than back, in the plane of the blade. They cannot catch or hold anything. They are decorative, they look superb, and they are not doing a barb's work. If you want a genuinely barbed head with rearward points, we will forge one at no extra cost.

Because the head is heavy, not because the haft is. A 38.5 inch spear with a timber shaft runs around 700 to 900 grams. This one is half again that, and the haft is rosewood — dense for a timber, but a shaft of this length accounts for only a few hundred grams. Do the subtraction and most of the mass is in those 13 inches of broad, ridged steel at the front.

So this is a head-forward spear and it will feel like one. Real authority in a thrust, and it holds a line once moving. The costs are the ones mass out front always brings: slower to start, slower to stop, heavier at arm's length. If you want it livelier, a lighter head profile and a butt spike instead of the cap both help, and we will do either.

Rosewood as standard, turned and carved, with a steel collar and a brass band where it meets the head and a fitted steel cap at the butt. Rosewood is dense, hard, dimensionally stable and about as handsome as timber gets, which is why it is the default across most of our range.

It is worth saying what it is not. Rosewood is a cabinet timber. Shafts, tool handles and axe hafts have traditionally been ash or hickory, and not for cost: those timbers are springy and tough and absorb shock, where rosewood is stiffer and comparatively brittle and would rather crack than bend. For display and handling this makes no practical difference. For a piece you mean to work hard, ask for ash or hickory — free, lighter, and the historically correct shaft.

More than most buyers expect. The obvious job is protecting the end of the haft, which otherwise splits or mushrooms the first time you set the spear down hard. The second is balance: mass at the back pulls the balance point rearward, away from the head, which is what makes a spear quick to bring back on line after a thrust.

The third job is the interesting one. On a Greek doru the butt was a bronze spike, the sauroter, and it was a working end of the weapon — a second point if the head broke off, a way to plant the spear butt-down in the ground, and something to finish with when the fighting got close. Ours is a cap rather than a spike, which is the sensible choice for a piece that will mostly be handled and displayed. If you want a proper spike we will forge one.

They are different weapons and the answer depends on what you want it to do. A broad head like this one carries its width forward, makes a wide wound channel, and cuts on a draw as well as thrusting. The costs are real: more resistance going in, slower to withdraw, and more mass ahead of your hands.

A long narrow head does the opposite: it concentrates force behind a small point, penetrates far better against anything resistant, comes back out cleanly and feels lighter at the front. We build both. Tell us what the spear is for rather than what it should look like and we will say which one we would make you.

Yes, unless you ask us not to. Both edges and the point ship sharpened and ready to use. On a head of this shape the point does most of the work, but the edges on a broad head are genuinely useful and are finished properly rather than left as ground bevels.

Two alternatives at no extra charge. An unsharpened build leaves the edges blunt, which suits display or an awkward import. A stage combat build gives you a rebated edge and a rounded tip, balanced for the work — add the wording "Stage combat build — rebated edge, rounded tip" to your order note.

The head only. Shaped leather cut to the outline of the blade, stitched in contrasting thread, with a riveted retaining strap closing over the base. It protects the sharpest and most fragile part of the spear in transit and storage, and means you are not handling a bare 13 inch edge every time you take it off the wall.

The belt is a carry and hanging strap rather than a scabbard rig. A spear is not a sword and there is no comfortable way to wear one at the hip. Use it to carry the sheathed head or to hang the piece. A wall mount cut to this blade's profile, or a shoulder rig, are custom forge items and we will quote them.

Yes. The head is the fixed part of this design and the haft length is yours to set. As built, 25.5 inches of haft gives a compact 38.5 inch weapon that fits an ordinary wall and handles indoors. Longer hafts take it toward hunting-spear and then polearm reach.

Two practical notes. Extra haft adds weight along the whole length, and on a spear already carrying its mass at the front a long rosewood shaft gets unwieldy, so that is the point where we will usually steer you toward ash. And anything much over 60 inches ships as an oversize freight item, which changes both cost and transit time. We quote both before you commit.

No. Do not throw this. It is not balanced for flight, the haft is not built to survive impact with the ground, and a 1,380 gram weapon landing badly will bend or mark the collar joint where head meets haft.

Throwing spears are a different weapon built to different rules — lighter, with a head meant to be sacrificial and a shaft meant to be cheap. If that is what you want, ask for a javelin build through the custom forge page and we will design it for the purpose rather than adapt something wrong for it.

Nothing is held in stock. Every piece is forged after the order arrives, which is why the haft length, the haft material, the finish and the edge specification cost nothing extra to change — there is no standard version already made. Standard builds dispatch in 2 to 3 business days; genuinely custom work runs 4 to 6 weeks depending on the queue.

The spear ships in a rigid tube or a braced timber-cornered carton, head sheathed and lashed, haft padded along its length, by DHL or FedEx with tracking, typically 7 to 14 business days from Kathmandu. Long items occasionally attract a surcharge at the destination; if that applies to your address we will tell you before we take the order rather than after.