Belegarth

A little over a year ago I made a new spear and made a pommel out of a racquetball for it, specifically as a kind of pommel-fighting pommel for spears. I love the thing and I've started doing it with all my poles. They didn't like it at Beltaine, but they've passed at every other event I've been to, and are perfectly safe IMO.

I just put up instructions on the wiki after getting a couple requests at WPO: Constructing a Racquetball Pommel.

I should be making another glaive in the next week or two and when I do I'll take pictures to put up, but it's pretty straight forward.

On a glaive they don't have much of an advantage over a regular pommel, other than being pretty. On a spear, though, you can put the pommel in the palm of your hand and push, giving you a nice strong thrust and a little extra reach. I don't use it on every shot, but it's a nice situational option to have available.

Working link: http://geddon.org/index.php/Constructin ... all_Pommel

Thanks, fixed.

Chicken you said they didn't like it at beltaine, where else did they pass it? Does it get wobbly and, if not, how do you secure it that keeps it from getting wobbly?

WPO twice, three Rhun minis, Spring Wars, and Okfest. It's honestly softer on the sides than a pommel fighter's pommel by far since it's hollow on the sides, and the foam between the quarter cap and the racquetball on the bottom makes it plenty forgiving, it's just got a hard first feel to it. I wouldn't like it on a javelin, but on anything else it's plenty safe enough.

They can get a little wobbly, but not much. It should have a pretty tight fit to start with, and then if you have bands of strapping tape going down tight around all sides and anchored well at the base it can't pull far to one direction without it being held by the other. The first prototype I made I tried filling with great stuff to make it hold better - big mistake, it turned into a rock and didn't actually fill well when I cut it off. I thought about using the soft great stuff, but I just don't think it's really needed.

I switch between a lot of different poles and before this last WPO only one of them was a racquetball so I can't testify too well to long-term durability but they're definitely worth it to me.

Great, thanks a lot chicken. Its funny, but my first amtgard pole had a racquet ball covered in foam for the pommel.

Got any pictures?

i made a pommel like this recently, but i can't find any pictures to know if i did it right, could you post some soon?