Mahogany Spear Gun


Brendon_t

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Today starts day one of a new project build. 

I'm building two spear guns from African/Santos Mahogany. One will be a shorter  reef type gun at 42" the other will be a blue water hunter right at 60".

Milling was first up. (Ya'll know what that looks like)  The new jointer worked beautifully on the 8/4 fauxhogany. 2" wide strips on the table saw were then resawn to 3/8".  After planing 14 strips down to equal sizes,  I have two 6 strip lamination blanks that a top lamination will also sit on. 

I can't do the glue up until later this week as I don't have enough WS epoxy to do it all. My refill should come mid week. 

This will be a slow journal as a lot of the steps require a week  to a month of the blank hanging. Once the glue up is done,  I'll get milled up pictures then the milled blank will hang for at least two weeks to ensure it stays straight. 

 

I have sized. All the pics down to 10% of original size and the forum is still saying it's too big.. Anybody got any idea?

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Building spear guns is definately a thing.  There are company's that sell teak and mahogany guns but they all encourage you to make your own by selling all the hardware and mechanisms.   Admittedly, there isn't a huge bit of wood working.  The blanks ate glued up,  machined,  mortised for trigger and the rest is shaping the blank by hand to make it beautiful and functional. 

Edited by Brendon_t
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With the blanks now out of clamps, trued up to perfectly straight and hanging for a bit, I figured I could go ahead and rough out the handels. My last spear had a plastic ar-15 type handle that was good enough but could have been more comfortable. The handle blank was a padeuk/ppl heart sammich. I'll tell you, after doing this whole thing with a half round file and sand paper, I'm very ready for good rasp and a spindle sander. Final shaping and sanding won't happen until it's mounted. 03babc878dbc6da501cdf4563fbb3a89.jpg3b9591d09ca4a930c9833cb7aac0ad15.jpg

Edited by Brendon_t
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With the blanks now out of clamps, trued up to perfectly straight and hanging for a bit, I figured I could go ahead and rough out the handels. My last spear had a plastic ar-15 type handle that was good enough but could have been more comfortable. The handle blank was a padeuk/ppl heart sammich. I'll tell you, after doing this whole thing with a half round file and sand paper, I'm very ready for a spindle sander. Final shaping and sanding won't happen until it's mounted. 03babc878dbc6da501cdf4563fbb3a89.jpg3b9591d09ca4a930c9833cb7aac0ad15.jpg

 

Not sure if its an issue on my end but i cant see any of your pictures.

 

Edit: nevermind, all good. Reloaded page and they appeared.

Edited by shaneymack
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Yes, it will actually shoot 7mm spring steel barbed spears. 

It will be used for spear fishing. In Cali, the water is warm enough to dive all year. I freedive ( no air tank) in and around kelp patties targeting calico bass, white seabass, yellowtail, halibut. 

When done, it should look something like this. e2a942561fafa768b7c0f4e6fa0a675d.jpg
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Yes, parts are easily accessible.  Spear fishing is actually a very popular sport worldwide. There are quite a few small businesses that build parts. The trigger mechanism, remote trigger, and pushrod should come in this week. I'm also waiting on a 1/2" radius round over bit from white side. I had one but it wasn't very sharp and since I only have one shot at the shaping, I want a sharp bit.

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The power is decided by the stretch length and size of the band. A 1/2" band stretched 30" will have less power than. 5/8" band.

i will have 2, 5/8" bands stretching about 40". 

 

A remote trigger allows you to put the mechanism that fires off at the very back of the gun. Giving a longer band stretch. The remote trigger sits further up and fires the actual mechanism in back with a pushrod.

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