Totokia War Club / Gaffi Stick scratch build - Tusken Raider

I recently received my Tusken mask kit from Godzilla (seriously nice machining!) and figured that I should make a Gaffi to go along with the costume. I looked at trying to buy a nice original Fijian War Club but found that I was going to be looking at somewhere between 3+8k AUD. Realising that would have taken too much explaining to my wife, I went on to looking at the Tom Spinna resin cast kit.

After weighing up my options, I thought I'd prefer to buy a couple of new tools, some nice hardwood and have a go at carving one myself as i really want it to feel authentic. I looked into being able to find some Vesi Wood (Intisa Bujiga) and other Fijian hardwoods but couldn't seem to find anything here in Melbourne, so opted for a hard reclaimed Australian gum.

I am making this in essentially 4 sections. The head, the spike on the head (traditionally used for skull piercing!), the shaft and the Star Wars add-on metal blade section off of the end. I set about marking and roughing out the shapes.



After roughing out the timber shapes and turning the shaft into a little more of a cylindrical stick - using a spoke shave predominantly and a belt sander, I roughly marked out some hatched lines on the head.



Using a thin Dremel carving tool, I cut into each line approx 5mm deep and worked the edges off a little using a triangular file. I then set about carving each section into a small pyramid/spike using a small chisel.



After chiseling out all of the small spikes, I cut in a little deeper around them with the dremel to make them protrude a little further.



I then plotted the centre on both the head carving and the neck of shaft and joined the two with a dowel and woodglue, this was clamped up overnight and then sanded round.



After reading lots about original Totokia and referencing screen used props, I started to carve and print some detail onto the shaft of the club. Here's a couple of images gathered of common Totokia carving and one photo of a screen used Gaffi.



I decided to go for a little dot and triangular pattern as this seemed to be fairly commonly used on the shafts from my research into the clubs.
I used a sprung centre punch for the holes and have been using a triangular allen key set into a chuck as a punch to hammer triangles into place.



In-between detailing the shaft, I started to cut out the fins of the blade from 1.5mm gal steel sheet. These were simply measured out (I'm using .5inch gal plumbing pipe for the metal rod coming out of the end of the club which has a 22mm dia) with sizing based on reference photos and the gal pipe I'm using. I cut the shapes with an angle grinder and buffed the burr off using a circular sander.



I worked out a template for vertical slots to be cut into the .5inch gal pipe. The pipe is 22mm dia which would be 69mm flat so the lines needed to be 17.3mm apart. I wasn't getting too anal so I went for a touch over 17, rather than trying to accurately mark up a .3! I used the template to mark out lines with a sharpie and then cut 4 slots 150mm length to allow the blades to be housed before welding them on.



For the spike at the tip, I used a 20mm dia steel threaded rod. I ground the diameter down 50mm until it matched the inside diameter of the gal pipe and then hammered it down tight into place (this will be welded later.) I then angle ground the edges off to form the spike before sanding flat. I rushed this a little and was a bit messy so will have to fix some problems later.



(Pic timeline is a little out of sync in line with my description).

For the pointed end of the timber part of the war club, I got another off-cut of gum and started to fashion a rough triangle. I don't have a bandsaw in my workshop so was sadly cutting this all by hand which was heavy going on this hard timber.

Once I had the basic pyramid, I chopped off some excess with a saw and a hammer and chisel and then got to work on the belt sander to create a conical spike.



I cut a rough circle of gum and put a 22mm hole in the centre then worked the edges off on the circular sander, this will be a detail on the end of the club where it meets the steel blade.



I then glued the spike onto the end of the club. There is a long hardwood dowel in the centre between the two and I used heavy duty epoxy to make sure it stays there. The edges will be blended at a later date. The joint was taped into place overnight.



The metal blades were then slotted into their rebates and welded at each end to tack them into place.



Due to my overenthusiastic angle grinder work when initially roughing out the metal spike, I took a little too much off at the base. There is meant to be a square section that comes out of the .5inch pipe but mine was quite uneven, so I have tacked on lumps of weld that I plan to square up and grind back neatly when I next get back out to do some work...

Pretty darn cool

Thanks @Broilermaker , much appreciated!

Broilermaker said:

Pretty darn cool

Click to expand...

- - - Updated - - -

Started the slow process of cleaning up the weld to become a square...

Worked a little more today on the steel spike. Have ground the weld down to create a squared off section at the base of the spike and am happy to leave it looking rough as Im going to rust the whole unit as part of my weathering process.



In my day job (I design and build lights) - I antique/rust/age various metals. Our galvanised steel rusting process is done with hydrochloric acid and then oxygen does it's thing. After grinding the weld back this evening, I left the whole metal unit in our hydrochloric solution and will pull it out tomorrow morning when I get back into work. To give you an idea of the outcome, our gal parts generally look like this when we get them...



And look like this when we have finished with them...



Apart from working a little more on detailing the wooden shaft, there's not much to report. This is home for my metal spike overnight...

Managed to get things assembled today and start on the weathering process. The spike turned out great. It was in the hydrochloric / water mix overnight. This basically just strips the gal plating and then oxygen does its thing. This is the spike straight out of the acid in the morning. You can see the line where I had it taped off (this section will be the glued part in the shaft, I didn't want that rusty to help with adhesion so masked it off in the acid.



This is after approximately 1hour out in the open air.



Today, I blended/rounded the wooden nose/spike into the club head with the Dremel, sandpaper and a file. I wanted it to look more like it had been produced from the same piece of timber.



I also worked more on the tribal detailing on the shaft with my centre punch and triangular punch.



Next step was to start carving out the detail on the underside of the club head. I have seen similar features in various reference images. I cut out lines with the Dremel and the rounded them over using a grinding tool, file, and sandpaper.



Once all that had been completed, I glued the steel spike into the end of the shaft (predrilled 22mm hole) and glued the timber end cap on the I had previously carved using super-dooper strength Araldite.



Once the glue had set, I made up a solution of black acrylic paint with turps and painted the entire thing in the sludge then removed the excess before it dried off. This will sit into all the cracks and dents which will help with the ageing process. I deliberately left the timber a little messy and wasn't worried about scores etc as all of these blemishes will collect colour and add to the effect. I also smoothed the shaft into the end cap prior to the paint stage.

After the acrylic solution had dried I applied one coat of a cedar stain that was mixed with varnish - a pre mixed concoction from Cabots. I didn't take any photos during this process as I was too busy making sure I wasn't getting runs. That dried overnight and came out looking like this.



I set about the dry varnish with some 0000 steel wool for a general all over wipe down and then started to work in some beeswax with the 0000 wool.



Once the wax was well worked in I polished it back with a soft cloth, and polished, and polished and then polished some more...



In between polishing, I applied some Langridge Rust base to the already rusted steel spike. I wanted to fill the small gaps where the blades had been slotted into the .5inch pipe. The rust base is good as it is a thick application, so ideal for bogging some of my crimes. It'l also rust up which is a bonus as I want a rusted, aged look on the spike.



Once that dries, paint on the oxidising patina and leave it to do it's work...

The rust came up well, but was a little heavy overall, so I cut it back with some steel wool - taking some sections right back to the steel and it's beginning to look great - could easily have been fashioned out of Tatooine desert scrap!



After another quick polish, I reckon I'm quite happy with the timber. The main head could do with a little more work, but overall things look pretty good.



I'm debating whether or not to add a little leather detailing anywhere, or If I should just leave it the way it is?. I plan to get some decent photo's taken soon, in the meantime - here's a photo of the whole thing taken on an iphone, so its nothing spectacular.

Absolutely brilliant build. Thanks for the detailed description and photos of the build process. Tom Spina has an excellent replica but you've really knocked yours out of the park, er, orbit. Looking forward to more finished photos.

Ted.

Prefect42 said:

Absolutely brilliant build. Thanks for the detailed description and photos of the build process. Tom Spina has an excellent replica but you've really knocked yours out of the park, er, orbit. Looking forward to more finished photos.

Ted.

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Thanks for your lovely comments Ted! - it's a little awkward to photograph well in its entirety with an iphone so I'm looking forward to see how it looks when shot well

It's always interesting to see the step by step process through to completion.
Very nicely done indeed. The end result looks fantastic.

Trilogy said:

It's always interesting to see the step by step process through to completion.
Very nicely done indeed. The end result looks fantastic.

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Much appreciated Trilogy - really appreciate your interest and comment , I like seeing the process too, always makes me want to go build the thing myself!

Finished photos available on a new thread HERE!