Pole Arm Haft Repair

First major project of the year... I have to repair a pole arm haft that is in need of repair.  The top got mangled but the rest of the haft is still good wood so I'm going to attempt to save as much of the original piece of wood as possible.  I'm planning on splicing a new wood blank onto the top of the old haft and remounting the halberd head and banding.

I'll be documenting the progression of the fix so I can reproduce it if I need to.

First I made two cuts in the haft just below where the banding ended about 1/3 of the way through.  I will be removing wood from the original haft to make a post to affix the splice to.

 

Next I cut off the un-needed and damaged part of the haft.  I will start shaping the splice from the remaining material.

This is a closer look at the remaining material that I will shape the splice from.

I cut two shoulders for the splice using the two original cuts I made.

Continued to shape the splice.



The finished splice on the original haft of wood all cleaned up.  Total length of the splice is roughly 8 inches long.



I cut two new pieces of wood to form the other part of the splice from 1"x2" oak.  The new part of the splice will add a new two feet onto the original haft to help repair the damaged part.  In the new pieces I routed out  the negative profile of the splice so that when glued together they will form a cavity to slide over the haft.

Test fitting the splice.

Everything all glued up.  I'll wait 24 hours to make sure everything is nice and dry before I remove the clamps and start shaping the wood to blend the splice into the haft's original lines.

Next Steps:

• Shape haft to match original shape
• Chanel and fit the halberd head onto the haft
• mount halberd head onto haft and finish wood and metal accordingly

Warning: Construction Site!

So the construction of our period oven has finally begun! We are three weekends into the season, and have gotten a lot done so far. Let's back up a bit...

Over our rehearsal weekends, the great guys and gals of GSM built a terrific stand for the oven in the kitchen. It measures 36 x 38 and is placed into the ground about 8-9 inches deep. We filled the the top of the stand with good ol' dirt and then laid brick on top, all of which will work as a heat and fire wall. We will hopefully be getting new (and even) bricks for the top, but here are a few shots of the stand:



The next step was to start on the actual wooden frame of the oven. In many of the resources that I am using, they suggest using a wood frame first so that the the clay has something to grip on to and you can avoid cave-ins. When you fire the oven for the first time, the wood frame will burn out of the inside, leaving the clay structure behind. An excellent suggestion was made that we should use willow branches for this structure because they are very flexible and will not leave much of a residue behind when it burns out. We started with a simple cross frame and added cross supports on the bottom to keep the round shape. I found that eye-balling the size of the oven is not as easy as it looks: some actual math is involved to make sure everything is the right size and you leave space for clay to be added on in the future. Once the cross pieces were in place, it was time to weave! We wove the branches much like you would if you were making a basket, starting at the bottom and working our way to the top, all the while alternating thickness of branches and which way the branch was woven. Here are a few pictures:


We have a little bit more to do at the top, and then the frame is done! The next step is putting the clay on, and there is some debate over what we should use. We have some great artisan clay to work with, or we were thinking or trying to mix our own using mud, sand, and a little bit of concrete. More to come!

Back to the workbench

I have a couple of pieces I'm hoping to move fairly quickly. I have some bills to pay and I want to pick up a couple of things before this year's season hits full swing. So I cut out and did the base profiles on a few knives that I'm going to be offer up for sale shortly.


They are ready for heat treat, which I hope to do this weekend. After that, they'll be scaled up and have leather sheaths made for them. I was given a couple pieces of ebony and holly from Mark of OlliN swords to play with so I'm thinking that two of them will have those as grips. The other two are up in the air. I'm also being tempted to do a wood sheath for the Mary Rose knife (one with the lobed handle and short blade at the top). There were a couple of fish shaped sheaths found on the wreck, and it would be a nice addition to a piece already based off of that find.

A nice Tudor beverage please

Some friends and I have taken to brewing beer. I gotta say, I'm hooked. I enjoy beer, and not in a "Whooo! Let's get ripped off of a couple cases of Milwaukee's Best Ice" way, but in a "I really like these flavors" way. Beer is good food, and really life is too short to not experience as much of it as possible. It really only seems natural given my love of history that I would try to combine history and beer.

Luckily for me there are plenty of folks doing just that. From wonderful programs like Kevin Cullen's Ale and Archeology sessions at Discovery World Museum to full production run brews by places like Dogfish Head Brewing, history is alive and well in the modern beer scene. Also luckily for me, the internet is filled with research and documentation on history and gastronomical culture. My two brewing partners, Scott and Rick, are also members of the Trayn'd Bande group I'm a part of and have an interest in this line of though too. All avenues began pointing to producing some historic ales.

The one we chose for our first group brewing session was our of William Harrison's Description of England. This is a 1577 recipe (based on the publication of the book) and covers a household ale brewed by Harrison's wife. Now the recipe itself makes enough beer for a household, as in a crap ton. We needed to scale it down to fit into our modern equipment levels of 5 gallon (US) batches. So using math from the help of Bob Davis's site on some historic brewing, we adjusted the grain and additive levels to the following:

11 lbs of Marris Otter Malt
1 lb of Wheat
1 lb of Oats
1 1/2 oz Cascade Hops
Pinch of Orris Root
Couple of Bay Laurel Berries
1 tsp Wheat Flour
Wyeast London Ale Yeast



Following the recipe recommendations we boiled off 3 gallon batches of water and added it to the mixture of grains. This was to steep while we set another three gallons to boil. The steep time varied a bit from cycle to cycle but ended up being about 50-60 minutes per steep. The first running didn't give us a whole lot of liquid. We really weren't expecting that though. Having all that grain, you expect a bunch of water to get sucked up.


The subsequent steeps and runnings gathered substantially more liquid as the grain was already saturated. The wort we ended up with had a nice cloudy golden color and smelled wonderful. We did a total of three runnings to get the 6 gallons we needed for the boil.


Once we had our 6 gallons we did a fourth run to gather any left over sugars the grains may have been hanging on to. The goal for this was to create a small ale. Small ales are low alcohol versions of regular ales that were consumed by all levels of society as a common drink during the 16th century. Our aim for this was to create a VERY low alcohol version that we could use at events. Here's a look at the super pale color the small ale had before boil.

We proceeded to do our hour long boils with both beers adding our additives as needed. We did use a bit of Irish moss to clarify the full version of the 1577 in the last 15 minutes of the boil. We then got the batches into the fermenters and pitched the yeast.

Saber Hanger

A couple of folks I know are working with a group focusing on early 17th century central/Eastern European portrayals. They passed word and introduced me to a couple of their fellows who were interested in getting some hangers/pieces made. One project that I took on was for a saber hanger. Instead of the sliding buckles I'm used to on the belt (which allow the wearer to adjust as they feel comfortable), the saber's downward straps are fixed. Luckily the customer who wanted the piece was extremely good with communication and a pleasure to work with. He provided all the measurements needed, and I was able to put something together.

Instead of a pad hook like the 16th C hangers I'm used to, the two downward straps are attached to the belt through loops. I decided to create a piece based on a period example I purchased from Talbot's Fine Accessories. What I ended up with is this:


It works really well, and is fixed in place solidly.


Here's the whole thing:


For some reason the picture isn't working well, but in normal gravity things look and hang very nicely. This one is out the door and I'm looking forward to some cool new projects!

Olive knife, or don't get cocky with wood

I've done a few knives now, I think more than a dozen. I've worked with paduak, walnut, oak, ash, and a few others. When my friend Mark showed me a piece of olive wood in a bargain bin at the local Woodcrafter I went for it. I then proceeded to become that wood's b!@#$.

Olive has beautiful grain, a lovely warm color, amazing feel when polished up and amazing smell. It is gorgeous. It works by hand pretty well, and I now know why all the sources I have since found for it are in the turning sections of wood stores and online catalogs. That beautiful grain makes cutting the stuff into scales for a scale tang knife interesting. I had a customer who wanted a knife with an Italian feel. My wife suggested I use the Olive, and I thought perfect! This is what happened four times, including after I had it scaled and polished up ready to go out for a deadline.


As you can see the wood cracked. A lot. It split on the grain very easily. After much swearing, running out to buy another block of wood, and throwing one of the broken scales violently in my garage (its the one NOT pictured), I got it to work. By cutting the scales thicker than I normally would and trimming down after they had been mounted I was able to get a clean and stable piece on the knife. After sanding and polishing this stuff looks gorgeous. Mark was right, it cleans up brilliantly. The grain stands out and it is warm and soft to the touch.

Here's the final product:

With flash-


and without -


Sheath is black veg tan and is going out the door tomorrow, in time for the customer's needs.

It's Been a While

It's been quite some time, but I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. School and work do a number on free time unfortunately, but I'm itching to get another couple projects off the ground. I figured in lieu of some grandiose research thing, I'd break down what I've been up to lately.

I'm well on my way to producing several pairs of cut cloth stockings/hose in wool; one pair blue, one yellow, and one gray (which will be overdyed with dark green or black to produce a "poor black"). A brief overview of their use was detailed in one of my previous posts. The goal is to fully phase out the knit stockings I have, as the kind that I had been wearing, though wool, aren't quite correct for the late 16th century. Some kinds of knit wool stockings were probably worn, but they were dissimilar to what's available at a reasonable price (let alone on a college student's budget!) I wore the cotton stockings that are favored by the reenactment community for several years before I saw the light and shifted to wool. Now I'm at the next step. We all have to start somewhere and the trick is to continue learning, improving, and moving on rather than just sit at "good enough" or fall into the thinking of the "ten foot rule" or worse when working with the public.

Also on the list is making a new doublet, but I can't quite decide what to make. It'll definitely be "early period" for Elizabethan (1560's-mid-1570's), but the material is the big choice now. I can do a dark brown worsted wool, a white linen canvas, or an unbleached linen canvas. I love the undeyed white wool one I wear now, but it's approaching the end of its days... I work with armor a lot and I'm afraid of destroying a nice white linen doublet with rust and grease right away. We'll see.

Last month I began building a six board chest (with a lot of help) in the style of the late 16th-early 17th century. My woodworking skills are...bad...to put it lightly, so things will go slow and sloppily for some time, but I'm very excited to finally have an awesome box to lug around all my junk in. It should be done by the summer.

I've also been commissioned to sew a 16th century Italian suit for a good friend of mine. I'm thinking a black worsted wool doublet guarded and trimmed with black velvet to achieve the textural contrast often seen in portraiture, with slashed/pinked black wool breeches. I'd like to line the doublet with some good Italian fustian, face the collar and possibly other smaller areas with some white silk satin I've got, and use hand-worked black linen thread buttons. I think that if it turns out the way I'm picturing it, it'll give off a sort of an rakish feel to it- perfect for the sort of man he portrays.

Lastly, I've been trying to brainstorm a topic for in-depth research. Last year I looked into the myth of detachable sleeves in doublets in 16th century Western Europe and the uniforms of the trained bands (militia) of the city of Bristol at the time of the Queen's visit in 1574. I'm at a loss. I have a small project going about the truth behind "lace-up" men's body garments from the same time period, but I want something epic. If you have any ideas or suggestions for topics, let me know!

Anyways, I'm off for now. What sort of projects do you have lined up? If you need sources for anything, I'm sitting on a mountain of them, so post up here if you need some help finding information to get you going.

Best,

-Dan