Swords

These pictures are of one sword which has taken me a whole week to fix. The bell needed to be totally stripped of nickel plate, dents and scratches sanded away, the incised designs needed to be deepened, and the whole bell was polished, ready for plating. That was a long, but fairly straightforward job. The scabbard is of course, a little more interesting, in that it was badly damaged. We suspect a horse stepped on it. The scabbard is steel, with brass tips, drags, and ring holders.


The above two pictures are of the left side of the sword, and you can see the deep crease, (deep enough to interfear with the sword inside!) and a totally unwarranted scratch in the plating. The nickel has done its job of protecting the steel though....no rust, and because it is harder than the steel, it seems to have shrugged off a lot of abuse. At this stage, I have laid it out on the bench, and am selecting which of the several irons I will have to use to get those deep dents out.

This is the right side of the scabbard. There are two major dents in it, and a lot of wrinkled metal. Sometimes things look less damaged in real life than they look in the photographs, but no...these dents look just as bad when you have them in front of you. The metal in the higher crease, that is, the one closer to the bottom of the picture, is almost bent double.

Here I have placed my tools all together just to give some scale to the job. Tomorrow, I'll post a few pictures of what they look like after the first 20 hours of work to bring these swords back to life.

Graduation Advanced CS March 08

This is Bill carefully describing the sequence to yet another nasty trick...this one involves pushing the pommel over the shield, and placing it on the opponent's shoulder. The next part is the "step through", as I step to my opponent's right side. The sword will slide around in front. Looks nasty, because it is. The attacker had better step lively though since there are way too many openings in his defence to hang about.

And here we have the fine looking graduating class. Marcus, Jay, Andrew, John, Dan, Karen and Ian.

And me and Shayne in the front of course.

Graduation Class

click on the image to enlarge.

This was the March 2008 graduation of the Basic Chivalrous Swordhandling class at Algonquin College. A fine group of warriors.

The basic class is a course created by Jean V. and myself, and Shayne D. (on my left) has been "in" on it from the beginning, and this class has had an unprecedented three instructors for every class since. We teach 2 hours per night for 8 nights, the first half is all Kenjuitsu, the second half is all Chivalrous Swordhandling. We have the best "retention" rate of any general interest class, and have graduated well over 500 students in the last few years.

The basic Chivalrous Handling class is a prerequisite for the Advanced Chivalrous swordhandling class, and the advanced Feudal Kenjuitsu class, each of which run at the same time as the Basic classes, but of course, on separate nights. The advanced courses are a bit more techniques intensive, with a lot more drills, and a lot more sparring. The "Basic CS" is a lot more fun...all fundamentals and straightforward techniques, no philosophy, no history. We occassionally bring in armours and swords for a show and tell session, and it provides a perfect introduction to the skill involved in handling a sword.
Note that we don't teach sword "fighting"! The fighting comes within yourself. I don't believe that I can teach you how to fight, but I CAN teach you how to handle the sword with grace and skill, avoiding dangerous muscle and tendon pulls, and how to be light on your feet.

The Last Samurai

The back story of "the Last Samurai" (the movie that is) is quite right....the Emperor of Japan, a young and progressive individual wanted to do many things, including modernizing the military. This involved an upset in the status quo which was great fodder for a movie. The part where delegations from Japan went all over the world looking for really good military training cadres is accurate enough....they went to America, Italy, Germany, England, and to France. France was the country they eventually chose to guide their army into the 20th century.


A delegation from Japan arrived in Malta sometime in the middle of the 19th century, and as part of a general gift exchange, the Japanese donated a pair of Samurai armours to the collection in the Palace Armour.

I had seen pictures of the Palace Armoury during the latter half of the 19th century, and the museum was upstairs, in the sunlight, where the members of parliament meet now instead of downstairs in the damp stables, and the samurai armours were proudly displayed along side the Wigancourt Suits and suits of armours from Grand masters and infantry men alike.

World War II had a great effect on a lot of musums all over Europe, and much of the material which was stored upstairs was hastily crated and stored in safe places all over the island. In the general re-building and confusion of the post war period, these samurai suits were overlooked, and to make matters even more difficult, Malta became a republic only 20 years later, and they needed a parliament. The old Imperial Palace was perfect...the Governor General was sent packing, and the armour which had not been unaccoutably given away, or was not needed as statuary was sent downstairs into the stables to form a shadow of the great Palace Armour Musum which existed in the last century. And the process of looking for, and finding bits and pieces of the armours began. Some were in excellent shape. Some were in deplorable shape. But there is still lots of bits and pieces of armours stashed away in people's basements, and some of which has been lost for years.

In the mid '90s, Mr. S, the curator found these Samurai Suits, and was aghast at the damage which half a century of poor storage had done to them. All that is left are one helmet, and the fragments of the armour you see in the pictures above. It is actually not quite as bad as it looks, clearly the silk is crumbling (it would have done that even in good storage conditions) and the neat hexagonal silk sewn plates are as delicate as can be. Rust has penetrated the protective paint, causing it to bubble and blow off the thick patterned lacquer.

I won't talk about each of these pieces in detail, rather, I suggest you click on the pictures, enlarge them, and perhaps think of this as a sort of "grey's anatomy" of the japanese armour making craft.

Ron B. helm

Nice simple Viking helm. I used old steel, which looks IMHO kind of antique-ish. I like the effect. The template is a standard one I have used for years, and normally the occulars project outward more than this. Without the fancy shaping then, the corners stick up like horns. A horned Viking helmet at last? Nah...thats just the way it turned out. Its got me thinking though of making the sides into wings maybe. Why not...I have deviated from "period" plenty already.


I fire coloured the skull....it came out this nice deep rich blue colour. In the sunlight, it is VERY striking.

Not much to see here on the inside, except of course for the welding. This was made by cutting the bowl in half, and welding each half together. One thing is sure, this is a very strong helm. You can see the thickness of the steel really well in this picture.

Once upon a time, the top had a bead of weld on it just like the underside. A lot of judicious use with the side grinder, and it all ends up coming up smooth. In fact, you have to turn it over to see that it has been welded. And no, this is NOT my welding...this was a professional up the road that welded that. I just grind the weld nice and clean and flat, and look for voids.

And a nice shot of this armour from the top quarter.

I am not quite sure yet how to finish this armour. It is a real helmet...that is, it is strong enough to soak up a hit from a baseball bat without denting, but it might yet need some flaring at the base of his neck, and maybe some chain maile hanging from the occular (spectacle looking mask) Hanging chain mail will mean lots and lots of little evenly spaced holes in the occular, so I made it nice and wide on purpose.

Paul Hackett's Helm

click on the images to enlarge. This is Paul Hackett's helm....a little bit customized, but still, pretty much simple and straightforward. It uses a standard spun top which I sanded clean, cut in half, re-shaped, then applied some decorative pieces.
As you can see, it comes in neatly at the sides, but still has plenty of space front and back. Some people have called me on the use of spinnings. All I can say is "Dude! These things are TEN Gauge! You don't pay me enough to bash 10ga. out by hand!!!
Besides, spinnings are perfectly period. The Sutton Hoo helm is built on a spinning. One could say all the Sutton Hoo helm is decoration applied to a spinning!

And a couple of close ups of the applied bronze piece which fits so neatly on top!
I think it is a decorative bronze for a door way. Oh well, recycling at its best. This cute little bronze piece has been kicking around the shop for a couple of years now, just waiting for Paul to take it home.

What you "don't" see is the leather suspension system I put into this helmet. I was anxious to get pictures while there was still some natural light, and gosh, its not like there is much to see inside anyway. A leather suspension system. With a little lace at the top to provide adjustment.

Josh C's Helmet

click on the images to enlarge. Above is the barrel helm from the front. I am using nice warm incandescent light, the real colours are actually pretty much what you would see below.

Not a bad looking helm. Not ever going to get used to a barrel helm with a grill face though!

Here it is from the side. The clean up from the welding meant the black of the metal got scuffed away pretty thoroughly. I thought about colouring it with a blackening agent, then simply decided to go with the shiny surface. I used the blackening agent on the top, because I ran out of hot rolled 14 gauge steel. It doesn't quite match, so rather than going with the near-match, I went with the total contrast. Seems to work.

Above is a close up of the lion and nasal in front. Looks mean doesn't it?

And a three quarters view of the finished helm. The eyeletted holes on the sides are where laces anchor the chin strap. The sport that Josh is going into, they hit pretty hard, and I really like the idea of a chin strap which a paramedic can cut from the outside. Without bending his head back...which could be fatal if there is a neck injury.

This helm is 14 gauge steel throughout, with 3/8 inch bars spaced 1 inch apart on centre, and will stand up to anything the SCA can throw at it. I should point out that I didn't do the welding, that beautiful welding job was done by local artist-gate maker here in the village. (I'll put your name here if you like...I know you read this blog....not a void or a bit of bad metal anywhere in all those joints! Kudos.)

The Stibbert Museum

The armour above is surprisingly not terrifically complex, but thw simple and basic lines provided a canvas for the finest repouse work I have ever seen!

The Stibbert Musum in Florence, Italy, would be considered a world class museum in any city of the world except for the city which is top heavy with museums....Florence. The armour in Stibbert's Tuscany home is the most amazing I have ever seen, rich in its diversity, and stunning in how complete it is. These pictures need to be clicked on to see them in their full glory, but it is obvious from these pictures where I got the inspiration to design my own own armour.

What a great collection! These are three major different styles...it will take me years to be able to develop most of the armour pieces from this small grouping alone!

Later period, with those really cool tassets that turn into knee cops. 15 lames! Oh my!

The old standby Milanese armour used by the Knights in Malta. Like meeting an old friend.

They gave me only 5 minutes in this room, and I was not allowed to take pictures! What torture!!! These pictures are from the Stibbert Musum's web site.

Spaulders.

these images look better enlarged.
This shows the articulation of the armour even with my hand raised, like I was about to strike somebody.

And across the body. Normally the problem is that the front wing will slide up into the neck in cross body shots....this seems to have minimalized that effect a lot. There is still a little of the "neck gouging" going on, but hopefully, my gorget will stop most of it. It is a lot less than a real period spaulder though, which were notorious for banging into the neck.

Here the articulation is not too bad...fairly standard. The bottom piece (called a lame), the one with the chunk taken out, technically should be the top part of a two-part rotating cannon arrangement. I didn't bother with that....

Here you see all of it. I think the wings should have been bent in a bit more, but then, they were made to fit a big guy like me. And actually, considering that they are supposed to fit over the body armour, this might not be too bad. Easy for the client to bend them in a bit if he wants though. So possibly a little more curvature in the wings..... hmmmmm???? Always thinking of ways to improve.

And as you can see, it provides zero underarm protection against thrusts. But then, they all have that flaw.

So here is the armour, as worn by me, and delivered to Mr. Merino last Friday. Hope he sends me a picture of him wearing all his armour.

This armour took about 30 hours to design, build, re-fine, and get almost right. It took 7.5 hours per side to build. So, a full long day, about the same as a breast plate or a back plate. It should be selling for around 400 Canadian dollars, (which come to think of it, is pretty much the same in US dollars right now!) but that figure might go down a bit as I get to making them faster. Though I dunno....it might be hard to shave off an hour from this job! I was working pretty fast, and not much went wrong. Maybe after I make a dozen more of them, I'll learn a few shortcuts.

Breastplate

This breastplate is a little different in that I put all the deep compound curving into the breasplate, and made the belly nice and flat. There is a 10 foot radius in the belly (plackart) and a 4 foot radius in parts of the upper breatplate. Should make the client look good.
Other details, double sliding rivets in back and picadills attached to the outside plates...those are the little bits of leather which keep the armour from scratching itself....they are held on by the copper rivets you can see in the above picture. The holes to lace the fauld into place are eyeletted....and should last a long time.
Not bad for what amounts to my "bottom of the line" armour.

Mr. Merino's Armour.

This is the collection of backplate, breastplate, faulds, elbows and vamraces which I am getting ready for delivery this week. Customer may yet choose some more straps instead of all those laces. What is missing is the shoulder armour "spaulders", the knee cops and other leg armour.

A close up of the vambraces. They fit over the forearms, and are pretty straightforward....heavy enough to take the shot, light enough to be able to swing a sword. A dichotomy which makes for a considerable amount of dispute on what makes for a "good" vambrace.

These are the tassets which hang off the faulds below. Rounded at the bottom and flared out a bit. Nice gentle compound curves should keep them from caving in under the first blow. I have seen them curled up like old shingles on a south facing roof. All you can really do is make them so that they are fairly easily repaired, because even dented or curly, they protect the gap between the top of the leg armour and the fauld which seems inevitable.

These are teh faulds. The way they come from the shop. Each piece has a good overlap, and is finished with a "ten foot" radius ball on the wheel. One of the most gentle curves.

The elbow cops. Simple, one piece elbow cops. Note how the edges have been flared by stretching the metal with the cross peen (wedge shaped) hammer.

Back plate is fairly standard. I included an extra strap in the middle...not sure if that was a good idea or not. In this backplate, I put the picadills on the underlying plates.