Newly built waster

[John Young]

This is the first waster I've built. Hand carved most of it with a little help from the bandsaw and belt sander during the roughing out process. Thanks to Chris Holloman for inspiring me to build one.
It's about 48 in long with POB of 5 inches. I drilled into the pommel and weighted with 5 400 grain .50 caliber bullets that my brother loads into his .5o Buewolf. I sealed the hole with superglue so that I could still the bullets. Chris, I wound up finishing it with wipe on Polyurethane instead of Tru-oil. I didn't have much Tru-oil left so I used the poly. It's good stuff too for a tough finish that can be touched up later on.
Here are some pics

[Todd Trausch]

That looks really nice. Makes me wish I had some woodworking skills.

[James Brazas]

That looks fantastic! Good job. I'm sure it will be good for a long time.

I personally prefer a diamond cross-section to the waster so that it feels more swordlike for edge alignment and half-swording, but hey. It's still a great waster from what I can tell.

I assume you used hickory, correct?

[John Young]

James,
I used a 1" block plane to give it a bit of a diamond section. You can't tell in pics but it noticable in person. Then used a piece of an old belt from a belt sander to round the edges shoe shine style. On the next one I am going to figure out how to use my table saw to cut the tapers and cross section out. I used a farrier's rasp, cabinet makers rasp and the little block plane on this one. On the next one the diamond cross section will definately more pronounced than on this one. I might could even plane this one down some more and improve the POB in the process. But practice is coming up tomorrow.
Thanks for the comments folks.
PS
yes it is hickory heartwood. I guess the reason you thought it had a square cross section was because of where the guard it attached right?
I left it square there to make it easier to fit the guard. Turns out it would have been easier to fit that part with diamond cross section there too. Hind sight is 20/20. Next time I will do a lot differently.