My flail project:

Since I was a 14 year old kid playing D&D I always wanted to make a spiked flail.  Even though I had very little in the way of machining abilities, the big problem was where to find a sphere.  It just so happens that I finally found what I was looking for in the form of cast iron spheres used as ballast in a truck scale.  So far eleven 3/8 inch bolts have been inserted into holes drilled and tapped into the sphere.  Obviously I will have to trim them to the desired length and sharpen but for now I'm still deciding on the details.  For the ultimate in overkill the grade 2 bolts shown here will probably be replaced with grade 8.

            The Sphere so far:

Mounting is accomplished with a cast hoist ring.  The ring features a robust 12mm threaded end.  I turned down the rough cast shoulder of the ring on a Hardinge Bros. lathe to 5/8" and milled a 5/8" spot face into the ball so that the shoulder would be obscured from the outside view.

The Handle:

I wanted the handle of the flail to be impressive looking and at the same time my ill-fated knife project needed a happy ending.  I decided to chop the blade off of my knife and put the handle to good use.  If you don't know the story of the knife, here it is:

I was working as a rebuild tech. in a pump room.  Many of the pumps we see are used in corrosive environments.  One such pump has a very long 1.25 inch shaft that drives a impeller in an acid bath.  Often the shafts are reduced in diameter where they are directly exposed, however one shaft had been completely eaten in two.

The pattern of the steel remaining was incredible looking.  A highly pitted surface that only such a strange set of circumstances could produce.  If you look close you can tell the direction of rotation that shaft must have had by the shape of the pitting.  My co-workers tossed the shaft in the recycle bin but I just couldn't let it go.  I tried to think of something, anything I could make out of the shaft that would make it worth holding onto.  Finally I decided that I could mill it into the basic shape of a knife and the near perfect acid taper could make a pommel. 

At that point I had little experience with a mill and had to work quickly as this was not a proper thing to be doing at work, but I had to try.  As you can see I was able to rough out the basic shape of a knife, which was really all I wanted to accomplish at that point.  I figured I should get it out of work ASAP and finish it at home at my own pace.  Sadly however, a bit of research quickly taught me that this particular series of stainless could not be heat treated.  The knife was incredibly soft and would always be that way.  I lost interest in putting hours and hours of work into a knife that could never be functional.

Luckily the need for a cool handle for the flail gave life to this poor forgotten project.  The lack of hardness is not a factor.