• 12 inch sections of 100 psi 1” diameter Siloflex. One five foot stick will make you 5 maces!
• PVC pipe cutters or hacksaw.
• Leather punch or drill.
• Polypropylene cord of 1/8” diameter or less. Poly cord works best. Nylon stretches and likes to untie itself. It can be helpful to sear the ends of the poly cord to make the tying easier.
• 5 tennis balls for each Mace you want to make. Don’t buy these new: get used “dead” ones from your local tennis club or gym. These actually work better as they have more give and are available by the hundreds as they are discarded.
• Roll of 1” wide monofilament strapping tape. Please do not use cheap strapping tape: Scotch “3M” is highly recommended. If you use cheap strapping tape you can save a few dimes at the cash register, but your Maces will quickly fail due to cheap adhesive and you will need to restrap them.
• Roll of duct tape, your choice of color.
• Scissor and single edged razor for trimming.
• Label, marking pen and clear packing tape to label your Throwing Mace.

Using the drill or leather punch, drill or punch 4 holes in both ends of the handle in a cross configuration.

Cut two 24 inch sections of your poly cord. Sear the ends if you need to to get them through the holes. Thread them through the holes you punched in both ends of the handle in a straight-on fashion. The loop shown is critical.

Step Two: Tie on the Tennis Balls.
Hold the handle firmly between your knees or against something like the table edge. Place one tennis ball on the top of the pipe. Loop the loop over the top and then bring the other ends over the loop. Remember to tie the knot on the side of the ball and not the top. Pull it tight or it will come off while you are tying the other.

Turn the handle 180 degrees and repeat the procedure with the second tennis ball.

Step Three: Tape the Tennis Balls in Place.
Pull six long (about 24 or so inch) pieces of your monofilament strapping tape and either hang them from the edge of your worktable or on your lap. Then, taking one piece at a time, center them on the top of the tennis ball and down the sides of the pipe handle, making maximum contact with the pipe. Make a star pattern of one piece after another and make them snug but not overly tight.

Important Step. Hold up the handle and get your strapping tape. Wind the tape around the neck of the pipe where the ball meets it. Pull as tight as you physically can, very important. You will feel the strips of tape tighten themselves beneath your fingers. Place another ring of strapping tape around the neck of the pipe just below your first one, for added security.

Turn the handle over 180 degrees and repeat the process with the other tennis ball.

Taped as you see here, the ball is not stable on the end of the mace. It's necessary to tape the throat of the taped structure tightly to the end of the tube, as the following pictures show:	Start just below the base of the ball, and, going around the top of the tube, tape the "throat" of the taped structure tightly all the way around, compressing the ball into a stable position atop the tube.
Go all the way around the tube once . . .	. . . and then again, securing the base of the first layer tightly against the tube.
Once you have finished one end, as seen here . . .	Then turn it over and do exactly the same thing to the other end, so that you wind up as you see above.

Step Four: Make the Throwing Mace Head:
Get out your last 3 remaining tennis balls. Choose one and with the strapping tape, make a ring of strapping tape completely around the circumference of this particular ball. Wrap it around twice.

Get the other two tennis balls. Put the three of them on your worktable and shape them into the shape of a triangle. The one which has the tape wrapped around its circumference needs to have that band of tape level and parallel to the table. Look at the photo if you’re not sure.

Get out the strapping tape. Anchor the first piece on the tennis ball circumference tape and begin to wind the tape around the triangle to lock it into a permanent triangle shape. Pull the tape tight as you can without popping the tennis balls up into the air: they need to be a flat triangle. Wrap the tape around the triangle shape 2-3 times.

Be sure you begin by taping around the equator of the tennis ball, to begin to make a stable surface for surrounding the other balls.	Putting the three balls together on the table, go all the way around the whole unit, taping them into a form reminiscent of an arrangement of billiard balls. The taped equator of the first ball provides an addition point of traction for the tape around the other two balls.

Step Five: Anchor the Throwing Mace Head to the Handle:

	Take the triangle you just made and set it on top of one of the tennis ball ends you just secured to the handle. It should set there nicely. Make sure it is level or the Mace will not balance correctly.
	Get out your strapping tape and begin to pull lengths of it again as you did before. Tape over the top of your triangle, between two tennis balls and over the top of another, again making maximum contact with the pipe as you go down the sides. Use 6-7 pieces of strapping tape, the more the better. Make sure the triangle stays level on top as you tape it, or your Throwing Mace will not work properly.
	The final structure should be a stable "cage" of tape around the head of the mace.

Cut two short pieces of strapping tape, and, just as you did when securing the tennis balls, wrap these as tightly as you can around the neck of the pipe just below the anchored tennis ball you tied and taped to the handle. The tape will tighten beneath your fingers and make a kind of tent under the Throwing Mace Head.

The Author:
Ingilborg Sigmundardottir is an 11th century Norsewoman. Her husband died long ago on a campaign, and her fair daughter sailed away on a longship to be wedded to a brave Viking prince. She spends her crone years as an accomplished healer, birthing the babies of her village and tending wounded warriors of all types. She contemplates the White Christ, whose teachings she finds sensible and fascinating. She is known as a very accomplished archer, meadmaker, and Healer. She lives away from her village in the surrounding forest and is rarely seen among the villagers, but is intensely loyal to them and offers the services of her bow whenever her village is threatened. Her cottage is rich with plants of all types and she keeps the company of wolves, and the wiser of the villagers know that in times of extreme, she is quite capable of running with them whenever necessary.

Roberta Ashley is a 21st century Norsewoman, a very accomplished anesthetist who is all too often seen in the hallways of various healing institutions in the City of Angels, where she assists in the birthing of babies and the tending of wounded warriors of all types. She is an accomplished archer, meadmaker, and practices in her spare time a very ancient form of Eastern hands-on healing when it is needed. Her cottage in the more remote canyons of the San Gabriel Mountains is rich with plants of all types and she keeps the company of two rescued captive bred wolves, Cheyenne and Mai-Coh. The wiser of her colleagues know that in times of extreme, she is probably quite capable of running with them whenever necessary.