Sunday, August 17, 2008

Wooden Speargun

Hi,
I haven't posted in a while, being busy in quitting my job, looking for a new one, and specially working on my latest project - my first wooden speargun.
I've been working on it for about 6 months, and I really love the result.
It's made out of Teak wood, that was sliced into 5 strips and then glued back together in opposite directions, for added rigidity and to avoid warping of the wood.
Then I made measurements, ordered trigger mech and spear.
Once I had them I used a router to cut out the spear's rail and trigger pocket.
Then I carved the handle from another piece of wood and glued it to the wooden block.
That was the easy part.... After that I started carving the wood, using manual tools: chisels, plane and a wonderful tool called Surform by Stanley (a plastic plane with replaceable blades).
That part took me a couple of months. Once I was satisfied with the result I designed and made the metal parts - line holder, trigger guard, handle bottom. All was cut and prepared from a stainless steel sheet using a Dremel tool.
It was then time to get it wet. I took the speargun to the sea, to measure how much weights it needs to be balance in the water, and to check if it can really shoot the spear.
The final part was applying 4 coats of epoxy mixture to protect the wood from water and bruises, and finally, 3 coats of yacht varnish to protect from UV.
I used epoxy mixed with graphite powder for the spear's rail to offer better protection and less friction.
Sorry for not sharing as the work took place, but it was too slowly and not documented enough.
The result however is right here :

1 comment:

Steve said...

Hi Ido, I see you are quite proficient with wood working tools. A nice job indeed, congratulations and you got it bloody already, very nice.
I like the lines and especially the graphite track, I'll have to try it myself. Thanks for choosing my trigger mech, keep in touch.

Steve Veros
poseidonub
California, USA