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Just a quick reply to some comments above.  I taper my dory by rotating it up against a vertical sanding belt and using ring gauges, but they probably shaved them down.  There is a reason that the little curved knives Spartans carried as boys are called xuele, from the root word of wood. 

If you are shaving a long straight tree, then by simply following the grain lines you get a natural taper, since the tree and the heartwood taper.  But you get one spear per tree.

Dory shafts were probably coppiced, which is a means of growing nice straight shafts, but takes a bit of investment. 

Patrick, I agree that we can reconcile the two Iphicratid accounts in this manner.  Also, if the common sword in use for hoplites was what Xenophon calls an enchiridion at Coronea, then it would have been a very short xipohos, so doubling it does not give some new long sword, but the older style, medium length xiphos which was perhaps still used by cavalry when not using a khopis.

I am not sure that symmetrical pelta need indicate a two handed grip.  As I said I think there is good reason to doubt it, and we see images of thracians with long one handed spears and peltae, and read of Egyptians who do not use two hands.  That said, renaissance partisan moves fluidly between one and two handed grips, so I do not rule out that it occurred.

Presumably ECW reenactors know how to make pikes?

But probably not from scratch - you can get long rounded poles these days from an industrial supplier.

Add : Found this discussion on MyArmoury.  OK, much use of power tools but the basics are probably similar.  Note incidentally that the project the pictures are of seems to be a two-part sarissa, complete with tube but no obvious counter weight.

I think we are agreeing on lance lathes in the late Middle Ages, mainly for the obvious reason we have evidence of their existence.  But much as I would love a discussion of medieval lances, they are perhaps a red herring, as they aren't even period pikes and their complex shape lends itself to lathe turning. 

Yes I've always understood spears were made with a spokeshave (or equivalent). A lathe is good when you have a complex shape like a chair leg or the handle of a jousting lance, but isn't necessary for a simple straight (or tapered) spear. Turning anything with bend in it (like a pike) on a lathe would be tricky.

Has anyone tracked a picture of lance lathe yet?  Pole lathes are great but, like the ones in the video, they are usually seen working on things about the size of a chair leg.  We need to envision a lathe that can handle something five or six metres long.

I remember them talking about the really big lathe they had in the shipyard here for working on the barrels of the big guns. Apparently at the lengths they were talking, even a steel barrel needs a lot of supports as you work on it lest it sag.

I suspect a lance lathe would be the same as a pole lathe but you'd probably have a number of apprentices working on it at once, and they'd each have a 'stand' supporting the lance