renfaire in canada

click on pictures to enlarge Jeff G. and Andrea G. putting kids into chain maille.

Lorne really does like kids. He has the heart of a small child. He keeps it in a jar. On his headboard.

They didn't tell you about this in teacher's college did they?

Her shirt weighs more than fifty pounds.

Andrea made that armour, and this young prince seems quite taken with it.

The crowds just keep on coming!

Yup....it got crowded. Of course, all those kids were excited, screaming at each other and generally haveing a helluva good time. Boy oh boy, were WE glad to see the end of the day. TG for a hot tub and a cold beer.

Sexy Armour

The first ten whacks of the hammer indicate how things are going to go. The second ten put those tell tale flutes and wrinkles into the metal.

Below you can see where I have "set" the edges of the wrinkles. After which the steel will simply oil can outwards under the push of a 16 ounce hammer.

Flattening the wrinkles doesn't really take all that long...but the hammer arm gets a good workout. The wrinkles are almost all gone on the edge closest to the camera, and I need to work on the far edge.
An examination of the profile. Not near enough by a long shot. Oh well, perhaps some more metal bashing is in order.

And another pass of the heavy hammer makes the profile look a bit nicer. It needs to be tighter at the right, and only a couple of passes with the hammer bring us a much nicer profile.

The below picture shows the semi-finished piece after yet another pass.

The piece is now ready for the wheel. Here, I use a two inch radius wheel.

It puts a nice shine on the metal too. This is about as tight a radius as it is possible to create. now, lets check it against the first one I made. Right...they have to be identical, but opposite.

a close up side view shows that the right hand cup needs more hammering still!

So I hammer it some more. This can be depressing when you are so close to being finished, and you discover that one more pass needs to be done. On the other hand, it is only after the piece has been wheeled that you really know.

So after another hard wheeling, I am happy that the pieces are identical. They are made a little large, about a half inch in all dimentions, to allow for trimming. Below you can see the application. I am using this as a wallpaper for my computer.

Of course NOW, I have to see about decorating them all, and creating all the "add on" bits.

comments are welcome.

(image used by permission, copyright Clyde Caldwell 2009. Check out "clydecaldwell.com", and "southtower.on.ca" )

Phone call

Got a phone call yesterday. Made me think. It went something like this.

Hello, how may I help you?
>Yeah, do you teach Japanese Sword fighting?
Well, yes.
>What style?
That would be Kyushu Ryu.
>silence...for a bit, then "Yeah, I want to take that course."
Well, that should be no problem. I teach it at Algonquin College.
>I don't have a car. Anyplace closer?
Well, Kenjuitsu is only taught at Algonquin College.
>How much would would it cost for private lessons?
forty dollars an hour plus room rental. Cheaper to take it at the college.
And it wouldnt be ME teaching it, it would be my co-instructor, Jean V________. He's good.
>How much does the college charge?
(I thought it was settled that the college was too far away. Hmmm...suddenly the college looks like an option...grin!) Um...they charge about a hundred and fifty for a full course.
>How do I pay for that?
Well, get on line and sign up for the course. We are starting a new one in the fall. Maybe sooner if there is any interest.
>Well, I got a black belt in Karate when I was with the US army in Okinawa.
Go on line and see what the college schedule is...the courses are offered, and if there is not enough sign ups, they get cancelled.
> So do you do private lessons?
Yes, but they are expensive.
>So what bus do I take to get to the college?
I guess that would depend on where in the city you are...the college is on Baseline Transit station. All busses go there.
>Okay then...that course in the fall sounds good. Bye.

A black belt in Okinawa. On a military posting.

Remarkable.

Curiosity

Curiosity is a human trait. The number of people who are actually ON the cutting edge of any skill set, be it sales, production, engineering, or social studies are very few.

I asked in an open forum a few months ago "Why should I train my competition?" That being a question which can be applied to almost any business or profession. Though I felt it was a rhetorical question, I was a little curious about what was going on in people's minds when they wanted to come to me and "be my apprentice". (It happens every week...to every single person on that blacksmithing forum.)

The answers were quite illuminating, and I am glad I asked it. Generally speaking, the blacksmiths were united in their answers which were a variation on "I'll do it if I get paid/praised/laid."
The students however seemed to be of three camps....

1) So that the skills don't get lost to perpetuity forever,

2) so that they could massage an arts and crafts bump to do a hobby, and

3) to learn enough that that they could do this as a living instead of working at the fast food franchise.

Answer 2 and 3 were expected and are totally praiseworthy of course, but I was a little surprised at the large number who answered with number one.

Its kind of funny that none of the professional blacksmiths actually said "I want to teach this because otherwise the information will be lost forever." I don't think any blacksmith, metal worker, or pretty much any professional is actually on the "cutting edge" of even re-discovered information. Perhaps people on the outside of the trade feel that that continually developing a new skill set is analagous to being on the "cutting edge", that if there are no new discoveries in the world, there are at least new discoveries in their own life.

It is really not too hard to imagine a black smith or a metalworker who does such stunning work that it stands out like Paul Anka writing and singing "My Way" . We all want that flash of genius and would love if it happened to us! I fear most will simply have to become comfortable with the metalworking equivalent of singing in the shower. The important thing, of course, is to get out and DO IT. Even a shower song is better than no song at all.

Visor'd helm

A fairly standard 10-G-a helm. Called by that designation because it used to be on page ten of the old catalogue and it was the visored version of the seventh one on the list. This is one of the nicer looking helms I make in the "not very expensive" style of helms that I make. The top is made from an 11 gauge steel spinning, and it is all nicely blued in the oven. The rest of the helm is fourteen gauge that is pretty much the way it looks when it comes from the factory...they call this "hot rolled" steel. Personally I like h.r. steel. Some people don't. To ME, it looks like iron "should" look. And it is hard to mistake it for those stainless steel lids they are calling helmets nowadays.

I was asked once if I found the black iron to be really hot in the sun. Interestingly enough, I think it radiates the heat as quickly as it picks it up...there is really not all that much difference in internal temperature between a matt finished "shiny" helm, and a black finished "brain bucket".

I made this helm to fit a little lower on the face than usual. I think that face plate could be raised up some three quarters of an inch and still function. And I will do that if the customer feels that there is just too many layers of padding on the top of his head for comfort. Two layers of half inch foam should be enough. If we go to four layers, well, I'll move the face plate up a bit.

The hinge points are 3/8 in rivets, and the face plate is kept from being driven back into his chin by a pair of solid shoulder rivets, clearly shown in the above picture, although perhaps better shown in the middle picture. The strap is considered to be sacrificial, and extra holes are drilled to enable the customer to tie the visor down with a spare shoe lace if the strap breaks.

And I notice that the buckle is on the wrong side...it is "supposed" to be on the right hand side, out of harms way. oops. Well, I just noticed that now, and I'll just go and reverse that. (tsk tsk, what WAS I thinking!)

Drew's helmet

All Black. All the Time. A fairly standard 10-G-A helmet like on my web site. Tough. Simple. straightforward. All ready to assemble.
This afternoon is too hot to finish this up. It will be done tomorrow morning. The big stuff is all done and there is, what...2 hours left on this helm. Unless Drew wants a bunch of brass bits on it...

Viking Sword

click on these images to enlarge. The upper picture is a mockup of how the sword parts which survived the ages would have sat upon a real sword. Below is what the detectorists actually found. The whole story of the find is here... http://www.gov.im/mnh/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/mnh/rarevikingswordu.xml&menuid=11570

What we are looking at here are some very nice castings in bronze, the deep incisions would have been lovely and were present in the mould. The space in between the "lobes" were filled in with silver wire (now corroded away), making them a little less prominent. The symmetry of the designs is quite stunning, and I have found that they don't appear on the back.

This find was made by licenced metal detectorists Dan Crowe and Rob Farrer, in the Isle of Man last year.

Manx National Heritage Curator for Archaeology, Allison Fox explained:
“This is only the 13th recorded Viking sword from the Island – but Dan and Rob knew what they were looking at and what to do next, in notifying MNH. Even though they had done exactly the right thing by not cleaning the surface dirt from the finds, when they brought them into the Manx Museum it was clear straight away that we had something very special indeed. Once the artefacts had been initially cleaned by our Conservator, the wonderful designs have really had an impact on all the people who have seen them.
The most decorative part of a Viking sword was usually the handle, or hilt and it is part of this that has survived over one thousand years in the soil. And the decorations are really superb. The pommel (the top part of the sword) looks like a set of knuckles - it is divided into 5 parts, or lobes, each with intricately carved designs. In between the lobes are sets of finely twisted silver wires – this is a technique that we’ve seen a few times on artefacts from the Island. But the shape and style of the pommel hasn’t been found over here previously. Unfortunately the blade of the sword has not survived.”

Placquart part deux

The backplate all leathered up and ready to go. Below is a side view of the plaquart. A sixteen gauge maltese cross toasted in the oven, and mounted on the face of the plaquart. Not too shabby.

And above you can see the fresh laquer, reflecting the light. I wanted the lac to dry over night before I drill out those temporary pop rivets and install proper rivets. So its not "quite" finished in this picture. Doesn't look too too bad.

Placquart

Next to last step of making a fancy placquart. The top edges are all rolled, and the mid sections are all properly ballooned out. Don't look so difficult do they? The bottom edges have a proper medieval flare which will sit neatly on the hips. Well, thats the plan anyway.
All that is left is to install the fancy cross on the front, and of course, to hang the buckles on the sides. I like to let the lacquer really really dry before installing the buckles....that way there is a physical separation between the leather and the steel, which inhibits rust.

The flare at the bottom will allow the client to strap on a nice big wide "weight belt" to supplement the smaller one inch strap and buckles. A big weight belt will simply add to the cool look.

This placquart is made from sixteen gauge cold rolled steel, worked over the anvil, and finished on an English Wheel.

Simple knee cops part 4

After wheeling, another check on profiles, curves and edges is in order. Also filing of exposed edges, and any other last minute details have to be taken care of. The wheel leaves the workpiece in a very shiny condition. I do my final finishing with quite a severe pressure, which cleans up any last hammer marks, and does some final shaping. Note that the wheel was not used to create the dish, it was only used to clean up the hammer marks. This is sixteen gauge, and although you "could" do the whole thing on the wheel, it would take several hours to get such a deep dish into sixteen gauge steel. And of course, the metal would be thinned dramatically, likely to well below "legal" requirements.

The last thing is to raise a little lip on the edge, just so that it won't dig into the nice leather greaves and cuisses Ted has. A rolled edge would not be appropriate, however, the nice little flare is easily documented.

The curve is not too deep, and I think it is quite elegant. Now to do the second one exactly the same....

And above is the finished product, with the eyelets installed. All ready to go.

The whole process took me about 5 hours, and I sell them for a measely 85 bucks a pair. Hmmm...may have to see about that price.

Simple knee cops part 3

And repeat as necessary. Take out the wrinkles... Smooth the inside surface on the wood

check for profile top to bottom, adjust with the big hammer in the background as necessary.

check for profile from side to side.

Most basement re-enactor armour makers quit at this stage since of course, technically it is ready to use for its intented purpose, which is to protect the knee joint. If I was going to cover this knee cop with leather, then I would quit right here as well. However, Ted told me "I want it shiny", so we move on to the next stage.

And if you own an english wheel, take the last of the little wrinkes out of it with a two inch ball.

This will take about 10 minutes out of a two hour job. On the other hand, if you had to planish it all out on a finishing plate, that might take you an hour or two right there, so the wheel really speeds up this job.