Fixing up a paralyzer

[Nightcrawler]

I lent my spear to a friend, and he bent a prong of my jbl paralyzer on a rock. Instead of just bending it back, I decided to make try to make ti better than before. I moved the prongs so that they're parallel, and ground down the tips an inch and a half. I then ground the tips sharp so that they're spread when they hit a fish (instead of the pencil points). As I was grinding, the sparks shot off in short straight lines that ended with a burst, so I figured there must be enough carbon there to be heat treatable. I got everything pretty much finished up and I heat treated the last 2 inches (Heated to nonmagnetic and quenched in oil). The end result was knife sharp points that a file would just glide across, not really removing anything, but a diamond stone sharpens them up nicely. I'd guess that they're around a rockwell hardness of 62 or so. The points have held up perfectly against several rocks and are still sharp enough to cut my thumb when I wasn't paying attention. The parallel tines hold fish much better as well. Definitely an improvement.

I figured I'd share one improvement thats pretty easy and effective.

[Lightfoot]

Wow! Very cool!:thumps:

[Smudge]

Pretty groovy dude. Sounds similar to what Gat-Ku puts out...

[carsonwild]

Lest see some pis.
I filed my paralyzer tip the same way after I hit the rig leg with it.
I well have to try the heat treat on it.
Carson

[ocean_314]

I think the reason that the tips are not heat treated is that they become brittle, but if yours is holding up against hitting the rocks i might have to try it.
I just double banded by polespear and man what a difference in power and impact.

[Nightcrawler]

Lets see some pics.
No camera :(

I think the reason that the tips are not heat treated is that they become brittle

I tempered them afterwards. Im familiar with the metal being brittle after heat treating and needing to temper to regain resiliancy. I do blacksmithing and bladesmithing, so this was a pretty simple HT and temper compared to a knife, where the edge has to be hard, middle springy and back soft.

[ocean_314]

Nightcrawler not having much experence with tempering if i was to heat up my tines in a charcoal bbq until red hot and then quench in oil would this work without making the tine brittle?

[Nightcrawler]

A barbeque would work, but a propane torch is a little easier since you can watch the tines get hot without having to pull them out of the coals. To check that they're at the optimum temperature for heat treating, as they're glowing, touch a magnet to them. If it sticks, they need to be hotter. If it doesnt, you're golden. One thing that you should watch for is that the tines don't crack when you cool them. If they are at a nice cherry color (about the right temp for heat treating) and you put them into a cold quench, they could crack. Oil cools slightly slower than water, so thats a plus. You may even want to heat the oil a bit (so its hot, but you can still touch it).

Be sure to get the tines to a finished sharpness before heat treating them, as a file will do almost nothing to them afterwards.

Heat treating and tempering are really two different things. Heat treating makes the metal hard, and brittle. Tempering lowers the hardness a bit to relax the metal and decrease bittleness.

After heat treating, sand the tips to check for cracks. If they're good, then go on to tempering. If they're cracked, you can either go on to tempering (ignore the crack) or anneal the tines (heat up again and let cool slowly to make them soft) and grind down past the end of the crack, then start over.

On mine, I didn't REALLY temper them, figuring that the last inch and a half wouldn't undergo much lateral stress. I held them over the stove for a short time (in the dark to be careful they didn't start to glow) to reduce the chance of shattering on impact. To truly temper them, place it in a oven set to 300-400 degrees (F) for 20 minutes, and then quench again.

Thats about it. Any more questions, just ask.

[mnguy]

What kind of heat source are you using for your bladework? I built a furnace with the intention of melting brass and bronze for some projects that I want to do but I blew up the lid as the brass was beginning to puddle.

[Nightcrawler]

I use coal. I made a (crappy) forge out of a barbecue filled with lava rock and a truck brake drum. the air is piped in through the bottom. I had been planning for a lonnng time to build a better one, but now that Im going to be moving I'll probably be without any forge at all. How was your furnace set up and constructed?

[mnguy]

It was premixed refractory cement in a 12 quart metal bucket with a terra cotta flower pot in the middle to create the cavity in the cement. I ran some 1" black steel pipe nipple into the bucket and underneath the pot, with a passage for the air to come in from underneath. I can attach a hair dryer to this to force air into the whole shebang.

Just using some 1" steel pipe nipple with an end cap, I was able to melt aluminum using charcoal briquets. With real mesquite charcoal and the same 1" crucible I has brass just starting to puddle before the lid, which was just some of the refractory cement with no reinforcement moulded to fit the top, blew up.

I found a homemade castable refractory mix online that I'm planning to try out for building a new lid, hopefully I'll remember to put some wire in it this time.

I also need to get a better crucible that doesn't require more than a lifting/pouring shank. The steel pipe is too thick and the end cap is even thicker so I think I'm wasting alot of useable heat in the process.

[Nightcrawler]

If you subject concrete to high heat, the moisture inside vaporizes and it'll explode. In my forge I've melted (and burned) iron. I used to melt aluminum to cast little shapes (I was learning to make casts), and the same set up would work for brass.

[deepdestroyer]

Pretty groovy dude. Sounds similar to what Gat-Ku puts out...

I just got back from a week in the bahamas yesterday, and let me tell you, Gat-Ku tips WILL NOT withstand a direct hit to anything....not even fish:mad:

[Smudge]

I just got back from a week in the bahamas yesterday, and let me tell you, Gat-Ku tips WILL NOT withstand a direct hit to anything....not even fish:mad:


I don't own a Gat-Ku so can't speak about the strength of their tips. I was talking more about the shape of their 3 prong...

[Nightcrawler]

Mine does look a lot like a gat-ku one, but instead of ending in a rounded edge, each prong ends in a pointy...point.

[isibrigade]

I just got back from a week in the bahamas yesterday, and let me tell you, Gat-Ku tips WILL NOT withstand a direct hit to anything....not even fish

DEEPDESTROYER,

Thanks for your feedback. It is experiences like these that allow me to chime in and give some helpfull tips to those that might encounter the same problem.

My guess is that you have a longer pole (9-10 footer) and you were fighting your fish from a slip-tip shaft. I also doubt the shaft bent from impact to a fish, rather was being worked back and forth from a fighting fish.

The 9-10 footers were actually designed for blue-water spearfishing. The strength of the 7/16" bands and the length of the band pull equals a lot of force. Even a 3-prong can suffer from this much impact. This application was never intended to take impact on the reef, especially with a slip-tip.

The slip-tip is not designed to fight the fish from the shaft it rides on. Rather, the 3/16" shaft should be pulled immediately from the fish after the slip-tip penetrates and toggles to the other side. This movement helps the slip-tip to deploy and keeps a larger fish from bending the slip-tip shaft with any strong lateral movements. Fighting a fish from the slip-tip shaft after the tip is toggled on the other side defeats the purpose of a slip-tip. Also, I reccomend checking out the big-fish rigging suggestions on my website for larger fish. This rig not only separates the fish from the slip-tip shaft, but removes the fighting-fish from the polespear altogether, leaving him toggled to your floatline.

See here for more:
http://www.gatku.com/index_files/page0014.htm

If you were using a paralyzer, not a slip-tip, I find it hard to believe they would bend upon impact to a fish. However, they most definately can bend upon pont-blank impact of the reef, especially if you were using the band stregth/pull of a blue-water polespear. The tines can be easily adjusted back into place, but don't count on keeping a sharp edge if you plan on hunting rocks. This goes for ANY tip, ANY brand.
If you are hunting fish large enough to bend the tines when they are fighting, a slip-tip would have been the more ideal application. Both halibut in my avatar were taken with a GAT-KU paralyzer tip.

Once again, thanks for your unbiased feedback. Please let me know if I can help you rig your polespear for whatever the application might be.

-Dustin McIntyre
(619) 507-3860

[Nightcrawler]

After using the modified paralyzer for a while now, I notice one other thing. Since the tips have been hardened, they dont rust like they did before. They still get a coating of surface rust, but none of the deep pocks that the rest of the tine gets. Even the surface rust they get is easily rubbed of with a finger. They're still sharp, too.