50mm steel spears

I need some 50mm steel spears tp replace the soft white metal ones that came with my Indian army. Where do you boys buy yours?

Have you tried hobby craft, they do thin wire for flowers , very cheap !!!

I got a whole bundle of florist wire on eBay quite cheaply. I'm afraid I can remember the thickness and the first lot I bought was too thin.

...but the latest tip that I found on a blog was to buy a cheap plastic broom head and use the bristles. I tried this out and it worked a treat for my Anglo-Saxon army. Look for one with real thick bristles - this took a bit of hunting - I got mine from Wilkinsons paid about £2.50 for it. Just clip off the bristles with a wire cutter and you get literally thousands of them - equipped a 150 fig army barely making a dent in the broom. Gives me lots of bristles for swamp/marsh terrain too.

Thought they might be a bit thin when I first attached them, but with a coat of undercoat and then paint and varnish, they looked just the right thickness.

I stuck them on with PVA, helped that I had well moulded hands but still a bit of a pain attaching them all. Despite having the box tip completely over twice, I haven't lost a single spear, which is more than I can say for the Gripping Beast metal ones I stuck with Superglue which come off and break all the time. Seems a combination of the strong but flexible PVA, and the little bit of flexibility that comes with the plastic bristles is a lot better for 'survivability' than the brittleness of metal and superglue.

At £2.50 definitely worth a go...

Chris,

If you would prefer metal spears ( with a spear head), Rob Broom sells them.

I'll bring one down on Wednesday for you to have a look at.

They'll cost more than £2.50p though !

Phil

Forgot to mention if using plastic broom bristles is of any interest, the blog where I found the idea also recommended flattening the end of each bristle with pliers and using a craft knife to cut the flattened end into a point for a spearhead. They flatten very easily but it is a bit fiddly cutting them. Once painted this looks a bit better than leaving them just chopped off.

If you want something even more 'spearhead-like' you can easily put a blob of green stuff on the end and squeeze and shape it into spearhead. As my experiments in 'sculpting' go one of the easier things I've attempted, but is again time-consuming.

Just a question of time versus cost - the steel ones Phil can supply are I'm sure a lot easier than messing around with pliers etc.. Just I personally have a thing about spending as much of my 'wargames cash' as possible on the figures themselves, and trying to save money on paints, making my own scenery etc, and getting everything else as cheaply as possible.

When you all start collecting your 20mm plastic armies the florists wire is ideal for spears/standard poles etc . I got 20 x 150mm lengths from a florists for 10p . You can heat the wire in a candle flame and the carefully insert into the figure and when it cools you have a very sturdy join