Marinus about making a Roman furca.
To complete my equipment as a Roman soldier on campaign, I needed a furca to carry my gear during a march. Since you can't buy one ready-made, I had to make it myself. When I saw that Celtic WebMerchant also sold suitable wooden shafts, I ordered them right away and got to work on my own version of a Roman furca. In this blog, I'll show you step by step how I transformed these wooden sticks into a functional piece of Roman marching equipment.
Required materials and tools
You'll need a stick of 1.4 meters and a stick of 60 cm. You can make those from two sticks of 1.4 meters or from one stick of 2 meters. In addition, you'll need: a wood rasp, wood file, sandpaper, wood saw, and chisel. You'll also need 2.5 to 3 meters of thick leather cord, 3 mm to 5 mm thick.
The first step is to use the rasp and file to remove the green coating (protective layer) from the tip of the long central stick. While you're at it, you can also sharpen the tip a bit so you can stick the furca in the ground more easily.
If you use two sticks of 1.4 meters, you'll have two sticks afterward. If you use one stick of 2 meters, you'll obviously have just one stick.
Next, cut a 60 cm stick from the second 1.4 meter stick or from the 2 meter stick. If you use two sticks of 1.4 meters, saw off the 60 cm from the end with the rounded edge, after you've sawed that off first.
If you use two sticks of 1.4 meters, you'll be left with a leftover piece that you can use as a walking stick, for example. If you use one stick of 2 meters, you'll have exactly the two sticks you need.
Next, mark 10 cm from the end on the long stick and the middle on the short stick. Make the marking about 2 cm wide. Then draw a cross between the two markings.
Next, make notches in the long stick. First, saw a cross shape with a thinner saw than I used (preferably), and then use a chisel to chip away only the two triangles on the sides.
Make notches in the short stick in the same way, but remove less wood from the middle so the notches are shallower. Make sure the short stick fits very tightly in the long stick so it can't move vertically. It's not a problem if the ends wobble a bit; that will be fixed later with the leather cord.
Then bind the two sticks together with a square lashing ( https://www.netknots.com/rope_knots/square-lashing) and the 2.5–3 meter long leather cord. First, make a starting knot below the intersection and then follow the steps of the square lashing: wrap the leather cord tightly around the cross multiple times and then make an ending knot. The most important thing during this process is that you pull the leather cord as tightly as possible. The tighter the knot, the sturdier the construction. If you think the knot isn't tight enough, undo it and try again.
When you're done, you have a Roman furca, or at least the version that modern re-enactors see as a Roman furca. The original Roman furca was probably more often a Y-shaped branch from a tree, which is faster to make than this cross-shaped version. The advantage of this cross shape is that you can balance your gear more easily. By tying everything to the crossbar, you prevent your equipment from swinging back and forth as you walk. You hang your gear on the central stick and the crossbar prevents it from sliding down. You can also tie it to the crossbar so it doesn't move sideways.
For example, you can hang the short handle of a bag over the central stick and tie the long shoulder strap around the crossbar. You can also attach a dolabra ( https://www.celticwebmerchant.com/products/romeinse-dolabra-1) to the furca. For this, you'll need three additional leather cords: two of 50 cm and one of 2 meters.
When carrying the furca, you grab it with both hands and lay it at a slight angle on your shoulder. This provides comfortable weight distribution and prevents your gear from shifting during the march. After testing, I quickly realized how practical this design is. Not only does it make my Roman marching equipment visually complete, but it also makes carrying my gear much easier. And the fact that I made it myself adds an extra layer of authenticity to my portrayal. I'd definitely recommend others build one this way too.
