Makeshift anvil
When I started collecting DBA armies in 1:72 plastic, the moulding quality was generally very good, except for one thing – the spears. In soft plastic, very thin straight rods just don’t work very well, so I started replacing them with my own, made from wire.
Hammering the points into spear tips seems to be common practice, but I struggled to find much detail about how to do it. After a bit of experimentation, I ended up with this method. It’s quite a quick process and it’s very satisfying playing the miniature blacksmith.
First you will need an anvil. You can get little jewellers’ anvils, but I settled for this big metal hammer. Then you need something to hit the wire with. A jewellers’ hammer would be ideal, but I used an ordinary claw hammer. Finally you’ll need some solid side cutting pliers to trim the wire, and of course some wire itself. I used straight lengths of florists wire from Hobbycraft, which is about 20 gauge.
Hammering a point
Make sure you don this on something solid, not a rickety table. I’ve put the hammer on a thick cork mat to cushion it.
Place the wire just overlapping the edge of the ‘anvil’ as in the first photo and just give it a few wallops. One problem with the shape of the point is that the ‘shoulders’ of the point tend to taper out rather gradually from the spear shaft, and real points tend to jut out rather more sharply. Using fewer harder blows will give you sharper ‘shoulders’ on the spear point.
Turn it over half way, to stop the blade being on one side of the shaft.
Half formed spear point
You should now have something a bit like this – it’s a sort of flat spoon.
The final stage is to cut the point on the spear. Hold the side cutters at an angle and cut one half of the point. Then, keeping your hands still, twiddle the shaft as below, so that it is the other way up, and cut again. This will mean you cut both sides of the point at exactly the same angle.
Cutting the point on the spear
That’s it – you’re done. On to the next one.
Finished spear point
I’ve used this technique for spears, javelins and pikes. You can also use thicker wire (e.g. from old sparklers) and make 28mm javelins.
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