Tusken Raider Hardware Gaffi Stick

Okay, so you're not heading to Fiji any time soon and you don't know anyone who is. So you're staring at long odds of getting your hands on a genuine Totokia warclub. But you still think it would be pretty cool to round out a Tusken Raider outfit with a nice Gaffi stick. Well, there are other ways to do it, to be sure, but for my two dinari, melting plastic bowls into the right shape makes me nervous. I'm accident prone and I just know I would've wound up lighting my house on fire or asphyxiating on the fumes or something. So I had to find another way. Here's how I made my "hardware" Gaffi stick.

The first thing I needed to find was something with the right shape for the "head" of the Gaffi stick. This is where folks run into trouble right away. I remembered seeing some plastic Hershey's kisses that were filled with candy. They were exactly the right size and shape. Unfortunately, I had only seen these around holidays (Easter and Valentines. .maybe X-mas....I don't remember), and of course, like all things, the second you need one, you can't find it.
Enter E-bay: Answer - 1 Glass Hershey's kiss with texture. End auction price $7.95 including shipping. (Smooth ones are also available).
Textured Hershey's Kiss Crystal Candy Dish

Second thing I needed was the top part of the shaft with a "neck" that would curve around to meet the "head". The metal safety bars that keep folks from slipping in the shower work well. Hope Depot about $25 for a big one. They make smaller ones but I just bought a long one so when I cut it in half I could make two Gaffi sticks. A little Dremelling later and voila. Metal Safety Bar

Obviously, I'm not gonna stick a glass candy dish on the end of a metal safety bar. So I made a crude mold of the Candy dish using a funnel and some styrene to hold the RTV rubber. And cranked out a resin copy of it. I used Alumilite as my casting resin, because it is cheap, very easy to work with, and I'd used it before. More experienced casters may want to go with something else. My makeshift mold, the original candy dish, half of the shaft, and the resin cast of the candy dish after I gave them a coat of primer.

Next thing I did was jam a wooden 3/4" dowel up inside the shaft of the half safety bar (I had enough of them left after the fan film) and using left over resin, used the resin as glue to hold both the "head" and the dowel in place.
(The "head" you see here is actually the first one I cast. Which only really replicated the top of the candy dish. I then cast another that replicated the whole dish.)
Wooden 3/4" dowel inserted in half-safety bar and "head" mounted on the shaft. Excess Resin used as glue.

I then used a "plaster wrap" and wrapped it around the shaft so that it wouldn't look like steel and to give it a nice texture. It worked fantastic! You can pick up these "plaster wraps" at most craft stores like Michael's.
Also used foamcore to cut my fins out of. And used a turkey baster tip for my "spike". I then covered the fins and the spike in metal foil tape and glued and taped them onto the shaft. The whole wooden dowel part was then coated with spray Plasti-Dip in order to remove the wood grain look.
Assembled Gaffi, unpainted.

Then I painted up the Gaffi using two different shades of brown and a beige. The dowel part and the fins were painted using chrome paint. And Voila. One gaffi stick. Less than $50.

I hope this tutorial helped!