…Continued.

Well… I did manage to make it to 2 Festivals in the time in between. There was one in about ‘92 or ‘93… and then one a few years later in 95. I also managed to make it along to an armouring morning and afternoon fighter practice at Ashfield run by Daemon DeOrc, where I met Mouse for the first time, and probably a few other people who I don’t remember. All of these helped to spur me to get involved, but life still managed to take over.

At the start 1993 I was just about finished with my apprenticeship, and was eager to see the world. Whilst my interest in the SCA was building, it wasn’t enough to sidetrack me from my goal for the next couple of years. My goal was simple, I wanted to live and work in another country, and luckily that was easily possible with the company I was working for. So the SCA took a back seat, and though it kept popping into my head, there were much more important things that kept me interested in getting to England.

In May of ‘93 I headed off… And whilst castles and history were part of the time I spent there, the socializing and drinking and partying were what consumed most of my time. It was a good couple of years, but when it came to the crunch, and I needed to decide whether to make a life there for the next 5 or so years, or return home to Oz, and start making a life for myself here… I chose to return.

In February of ‘95 I returned to the best city in the world, Sydney (I knew this now, I had travelled, I had seen europe!). I got a job, bought a car, and immediately got myself into debt. My mate who introduced me to the SCA, Taliesin Galloglach, suggested another day trip down to Wilton during that easter, and me him and another mate of ours headed down for the Market Day. It was a great day, so great infact that at 4pm when my mate (the one with the car) decided it was time to go, me and the other guy just turned to him and said goodbye. Taliesin at first didn’t think we were serious, for him it was a long trip down there, and how were we going to get back? When we convinced him that we would make it back somehow, and that he shouldn’t worry, he finally headed off home… Shaking his head, not believing we were going to be stupid enough to drink in the tavern all night, and then crash where ever we could.

It was a great night, there was drinking, and chatting, and chatting up… Actually I seem to recall alot of chatting UP, as there was this lovely woman who was about 6-12″ taller than me, just perfect for me to cuddle her with my face in her breasts. Anyway… There was more drinking… and then there was everyone heading off to bed. The other guy found somewhere warm to sleep, I cuddled up in Taliesin’s cloak on a bench in the tavern… And in the morning, we both managed to find a lift into the Railway Station, and caught a train home.

And that was about it for my SCA involvement… Until Cold War AS-XLI. Life just took over… there were bills to pay, and life to live… and no-one saying “hey, there’s this event on, wanna go?” Do I regret not getting involved earlier? Sometimes… Do I feel I have to make up for lost time? Hell no. Is there more that I would like to do? Shit yeah! But then, I’m also happy with what I’m getting done now. ;) Don’t get me wrong though… if I won Lotto, I would be trying to set myself up so that I could do SCA stuff 90% of the time. Life? Meh! I’m pretty sure by now that the meaning of Life is just “Have fun!”, and the SCA is certainly that!

So… Is involvement in the SCA taking up too much of my time? I don’t think so… But my family and friends (Outside of the SCA) might disagree.

You know when I got back into the SCA after never quite getting involved when first introduced, I never thought it would consume me so fully. Is it right that I allow it to almost exclusively rule my life? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that it virtually does.

I was introduced to the SCA about 14 or 15 years ago, when a friend dragged me along to a feast. It was a small church hall with beautiful stone architecture. I cannot even remember what suburb it was in now, but I’m sure I would know it if I saw it again. This site seemed perfect for a medieval feast, though my memory of it may be skewed by a fantasy of such a wonderful night. Time has a way of building on memories and turning them into something so much better. My memory is of stone or slate tiled floors, of heavy wooden benches, of stained glass windows, of a podium with a high table, and huge tapestries. It was a fun night, and I met a few people who are still around today.

So what happened between that wonderful night and last Cold war that kept me away for so long? Did I get involved at all?

To be continued…

What better to do on a cold wet rainy night is there to do but huddle up around a nice fire? Specially when that fire has blue flames, and ladle full of melting metal in it…

It is true that my night did not however start off sitting by that fire… it started off in a cold room… with lights, while I slaved relentlessly chipping away at stone…

You see, yesterday I found a worthwhile project to put my pewter casting skills to good use. I offered to make a shiny new coronet to go with her shiny new Court Barony. So this evening I was playing… I carved the basic mould, and spend a few hours testing how it poured. There was a lot of tweaking going on.. and I have worked out that I might need to create a warming rack sit above the burner to allow the moulds to be kept at temperature while waiting for large bits of pewter to melt. I’m also tempted to get a small cast iron pot or something similar so that I can keep a reasonable amount of pewter in a liquid state and just use the ladle for dipping and pouring.

The mould came out better than I thought, and while there’s currently a few issues getting it to pour completely, I believe that they will not be some much of an issue when detail is added, and the mould is smoothed. With all the modifications needed to get the mould to pour right, I only get about 3 pours per ladle full at the moment… which means braving the weather and heading out into the cold with a chisel and a hammer and making bit sized bits to feed the ladle with… Hmmm… not going t happen just now. ;) Anyway, It’s amazing what you can make in a few hours, specially if you don’t look at all the faults.

Now I just need a period looking fox, and some decoration, add the detail and then get the mould to pour right. I love this job… and I love working with pewter.. so easy… yet it can make some really good looking cheap stuff. ;)

Meh! Where’d my weekend go? It was so short… I guess thats cause it was so good. :) Friday night I got home and had a sudden inspiration to create a gift for the soon to be Baronial couple to welcome into their reign. 3 hours later, after having hand-carved our baronial device into a soapstone mould to make 25 pewter tokens (yes, 1 for every year of our wonderful barony), I headed off to the airport to pick up Mette. When we got home, we spent a few hours preparing for the tourney and feast. Mette kindly hemmed a viking cloak for me out of a lovely wool I purchased in Melbourne last time I was there, and I spent the evening cleaning up all the tokens I had created and patina-ering them.

After our late-ish night, it was a relief to wake up on Saturday and find that the Tourney was cancelled, disapointing, but at least we didn’t need to rush. This turned out to be a mistake… as going back to bed became an option and then we were once again rushed. I had a pouch to make for 25 Tokens… and Mette had stuff she needed to finish. We ended up turning up at the hall about 90 minutes later than I would have hoped.

The Feast was magnificent! Loads of good simple food… it was well an truely a feast fit for a King, good thing we had one on hand. Bethan out did herself with organising and running it. There were many many awards presented, all richly deserved. Though Adam the Renegade’s award was well deserved, it is an insult that he was given an award against his wishes. I cannot get my head around it… And I must admit I was so caught up in the happiness of someone who so richly deserves an award, that I feel guilty that I went up and congradulated him afterwards… This was not a good thing, and my mind now keeps running over what I should have done instead. It’s hard respecting Adams wishes, yet thinking that there aren’t many other people who I would like to see awarded as such.

I also had an interesting proposal from a friend, one for a few months away, but one that I shall certainly be thinking about for some time. It’s very tempting, but there are things that need to be thought about. Other thoughts and feelings that need to be worked out… but there’s plenty of time… Anyway…

Yesterday was a rather short day for some reason… After sleeping in for a bit, I taught Mette how to make pewter castings. Offering a bit of soapstone up for her to carve, and then take home with her to cast more when she wanted. We made some buttons with the Viking symbol for the Tree of Life on them. They turned out very nice, and I have 10 of them to stick on some of my own garb. I was going to attempt to make a shotglass sized drinking container, but time was running out, and Mette had a plane to catch.

Ahhh well… More later maybe…

Yikes… There’s actually room in my room… Room even to put a coffee table, which is very tempting… The only issue with that is that it gives me another surface that I can cram full of half finished projects and other stuff. If I wasn’t so broke, I would concider going furniture shopping to pick up a Tallboy and maybe even a wardrobe. One of my flatmates gave me a wardrobe… but he’s been known to say “Yeah here have it, sure it’s all yours” before, and then turn around and say “Yeah only as a loan… btw, I need it back now” which is both inconvienent and well.. smacks of being used as temp storage.

The biggest issue with this share house is that it kinda comes across as not a share house… but more of a long term B&B (without the Breakfast supplied). I should probably find a better place, but I hate moving and until I have culled 90% of my stuff, will continue to need a far amount of space even just for storage… Ahh well…

So… Tonight I shall continue cleaning… And may even start on my Cloak for the Weekend. :) I should make a new tunic also, or finish off one of my current ones so that it looks nice.

So… Have you ever broken a soapstone mould when you were almost finished it? Just cracked a big bit off by mistake, or been a little heavy handed and hit a fault line? Did you know they are repairable? Did you know that with the right glue you can stick the piece back on? If you did… Thanks for keeping quiet about it. ;) If you didn’t…

You can!

By using Dow Corning 744 Silicon Adhesive/sealant I managed to fix one of my soapstone moulds and successfully take more castings from it… if the crack is through part of the mould, you will probably get a bit of a raised line along the crack when you cast, depending on how you finish/clean the edge when gluing… but the silicon holds, and withstands the heat quite easily. I shall experiment more as necessity demands, and let you all know if anything changes.

Anyway… Back to the task at hand… and put away this distraction… ;) Room cleaning tutor needed… anyone wanna sit and drink coffee and keep pointing out bits that need to be done? ;) Ahh well… it’ll be worth it. ;)

Ok… So I’m sitting here thinking Lamellar might be great in itself… but all the methods I have seen of putting it together involve lacing that holds large strips together. This seems foolish to me… why increase an area of failure, specially with something that is so prone to failure? How much evidence is there that proves that Lamellar was laced together in strips? I have seen very little myself, only people guessing at how it might be laced together.

So why is it so problematic in my mind? Lamellar lacing comes through to the outside… it become vunerable to being cut… If this lacing gets cut, then that whole strip of lacing becomes loose as the lacing slowly pulls through. This might not be a problem with a lace that holds the pieces together in strips, however if thise were to happen on a piece that holds the horizontal strips together, it could result in a large horizontal hole appearing slowly as the lacing pulls through and the weight of the lower lamellae start to pull the whole strip down.

Is it possibly that there was a way of lacing that would prevent this? Is it possibly that they weren’t laced at all, but individually tied? If each peice was just tied to the the pieces around it individually, then one of those ties getting cut wouldn’t affect the whole of the armour. Catostophic failures would be minimised. And repairs, whilst fiddly, would be just as strong as the original. This seems to me to be a far more reliable means of keeping the Lamellar together.

Another option, that there would be evidence for, but isn’t, so I’m guessing it isn’t period, is metal staples. I was concidering making these out of wire, and just bending them over on the inside. If a spacer were used, this would be just like using mail links to hold the pieces together, and a gap could be made to allow the pieces to move. Anyway… I shall be looking at at the individual tieing method for my Lamellar, as I cannot find any convincing evidence that lacing them together is infact better.

I have been thinking alot lately about Lamellar armour… research has indicated to me that Lamellar whilst probably used by Vikings wasn’t actually made by Vikings but more so, stolen by Vikings… This is good news, and well… interesting news.

It means that possibly any type of armour that the Vikings might have come up against in their period, is open for the taking… It also probably means that the amalgamation of armour types was also likely. If Viking warriors scavanged for Armour, there’s the probability that armour that was from shared kills would need to be shared, and differant bits would go to differant warriors. Whilst Vikings weren’t really heavily armoured warriors, sometimes choosing to fight without, I’m guessing there were likely to be smarter vikings who saw benefit in having some protection. this has led me to a decision about the direction my armour is heading.

It’s also leading to the development of a persona… More on that later maybe…

So, given that I’m currently a light who fights in leather armour that isn’t very flexible, I’m thinking that I would like to start fine tuning my armour, and at the same time, upgrading it. My current helm won’t be legal when the new rules are enforced, even for archery, which is a shame, as I love the openess of it, and the visability is magnificent. Adam is keen to get me into a spangen helm, both to provide me with a heavy legal helm, and be more Viking like, and I’m also keen to have a heavy helm. Alfar has almost finished my Legs, and my current armour other than my helm and gauntlets is enough to get me fighting heavy, though there are some additional bits that I would like, such as a better gorget, vanbraces. My torso isn’t a priority, though the current flexibility of it is rather limiting, yet I would still like to replace it.

Armoury list…

• Torso Armour – Replace with Metal Lamellar. (low priority, but still likely to be pushed forward anyway, through desire.)
• Gauntlets – Metal Clamshells. (high priority, 2)
• Gorget – Metal, with small bevor. (high priority, 1)
• Vanbracers – Metal and Leather. (medium priority)
• Shield – Large Round, painted with my device. (low priority)
• Sword – 5 foot bastard sword. (medium priority)
• Spear – 6 foot broad blade. (medium priority)

There’s more, and I’ll likely edit this list later… But it’s a goal to aim for for now.

Cost of Project so far…

Metal plates x 1000 = $150

Hmmm Yup, thats it so far…

So… It’s been over 2 weeks since I last posted. What have I been doing? Last you all heard was that I found a source for soapstone for my pewter casting… and that’s basically what I have been doing.

I sliced up one bit of soapstone into 6 reasonably nice slices. This is where I discovered that this soapstone can be fairly brittle in places, as I accidentally split one of the slices. The 2 pieces were luckily still usable, and were utilised in creating Wulfcynn some pewter rings. Rings are easy to make as they are basically made flat, then bent around and into shape. I did some experiments and discovered that soldering pewter is ,whilst fiddly, possible.

Some of you are also lucky enough to have a sample of a Thor’s hammer I made also. I’m thinking of changing that design very shortly, so those will become limited items.

I have a number of pewter projects that I shall attempt over the next few months. And whilst I was tempted to make the easy stuff first, such as pendants and buckles… I’m more interested in making fun stuff such as games and drinking vessels. I’m guessing though that there will be bits of everything involved. Medallions, pendants, coins, buckles, brooches, game pieces… Everything one needs to start up a period market stall. :)

OK… So today my 22mm x 70mm x 1mm bit’s of metal turned up… This has taken a while, as I originally wanted them before the weekend, but it was forgotten about a few times. About 1000 in total, though I suspect that I shall only need 500 to 600 of them…

What are they for? My new armour of course. I have a bit of work to do first though… each piece needs:

8 holes drilled into it.
The top and bottom rounded.
The corners rounded so there no sharp bits.
To be shaped…each one will have a ridge running down the centre of it.
To be buffed to remove and burrs and tool marks giving them a nice smooth look.
Oil Blackened.

I have constructed a jig for holding 20 of them at a time whilst drilling. This should decrease the drilling time. However shaping, rounding and buffing will all need to be done individually for each piece. If I estimate about 5 minutes spent on each one, and have a decent set up so that it can be done right, then it’s still going to take about 50 Hours of solid work just to get them through those stages. Plus the oil blackening.

Ahhh well.. Time to duck home and grab the box so that I can see how the drilling rig goes.

Yes… this is a backdated entry. ;) I’m slack so I forget to do updates, and then do a load in one day…

Had a great weekend this weekend with , we spent Saturday in Manly sleeping in for most of the morning, then getting out to Ocean World, walking along the beach, being totally shocked at how small WaterWorks is… I’m sure it used to be bigger. ;) That wasn’t the only bit of childhood nostalgia going on that day either. In the evening we went to Luna Park, and I had fun in Coney Island just like a big kid… Though that Wheel of Fun now makes me quite ill… even just thinking about all that spinning. ;)

Sunday was a quiet day, with a great Yum Cha lunch in China Town, followed by wandering around Paddy’s Markets and then heading back to the hotel to relax for a few hours.

Today I phoned work and asked if I could have a day off. After sleeping in, I headed out into the city. The plan was a quick look around, and then head home to pick up my van, and then go and pick up a bike I bought on ebay earlier. As I was heading down to Circular Quay, I realised that I could drop in and Visit Tyg at HOJ, and then drop next door to A&E Metals to get some more Pewter… Oh what a lovely place that HOJ is… I could spend a small fortune in there if I had one… Toy’s galore, and friendly faces as well.

Anyway… all in all it was a busy weekend, but one that I enjoyed alot. So I now have more pewter to play with, A bike to clean up and adjusted, my new armour to make, finish some other projects… OH! And I have to complete my warm cloak before Invest, as I would like to have that to wear instead of my travelling cloak…