Good News! Starting a Rivited Maille Project!

Hello all and thanks for dropping by!  My birthday recently past and I was graced with some wonderful gifts one of which is some rebar tie wire.  To those of you medieval hobbyist out there this means one thing...RIVITED MAILLE! Yes, I have in my possession several hundred feet of blackened, annealed, 16ga steel rebar tie wire. 

Yes, it's beautiful but what it is to become will be even more spectacular.

The process:
I will wind the wire around a 1/4" mandrel into large coils about 1 foot long. It then look like a large spring. I will cut the ring individually with a pair of modified bolt cutters. The modification allows me to cut the rings so that there is an overlap.  Then I will re-normalize the rings and begin the flattening process. That steel bar in the photo will be used in this step. With a tube just big enough to accomodate the bar I can place a ring at the bottom of the tube upon a steel surface and proceed to drop the bar upon the ring and flatten it. This will give a nice uniform flat ring. Then I will either punch a hole in the ring and use a cylindrical rivet or drift a hole and use a wedge rivet. The wedge rivet is more historically accurate, however.

So thats the crash course on rivited maille. I am so excited to start on this! Once I have a large enough piece of maille I plan on conducting some long range (50-100yards) armor penetrations test with my warbow :)

Thanks again for viewing! feel free to comment, ask a questin or two, and please let me know your reaction below!

Making a Warbow: progress report 1

Hello all,
Easter, April 24th, happened to be my birthday and my girlfriend graced me with a wonderful gift. A new 4 in 1 rasp! It works like a charm and I my muscles are very grateful to have a tool that does most of the work now, haha.

Below is a short video of me showing the current bend of my stave. The upper limb is on the righthand side of the video.  I hold up 8 fingers to indicate that this is the 8th tiller video I've recorded. However, I've decided to stop using videos as a guide to the tillering process. After reviewing video 1 and 8, very little difference is visible in the bending of the stave. I believe the video scews the angle and therefore the viewpoint of how the stave is bending. If you'll notice how stiff the upper limb is near the tip, I have been scraping and rasping my heart away there, and noticed very little difference throughout the videos. As other people have suggested I will be getting a tillering stick at the least to help with the tillering process.  Also, I am using a shorter string in this video as others have suggested.

On the whole, I'm glad with the way this stave is turning out. I wont be working on it any further until I get a tillering stick, just to avoid ruining the stave with my current methods.  Thanks for checking in!

Robert Hardy on the Medieval Longbow

The Military Archery at Neville's Cross, 1346

By: Robert Hardy

I found the following article to be a fascinating and insightful read.  It brought up several interesting aspects of the medieval archer and logistics of military campaigning that I not previously thought of.  Give it a read I'm sure there is something to be learned by all. Enjoy!



http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pdfs/hardy.pdf

"The Military Archery at Neville's Cross, 1346." Medievalists.net. Themebuilder, 27 Jan 2011. Web. 4 Apr 2011. <http://www.medievalists.net/2011/01/27/the-military-archery-at-nevilles-cross-1346/>.

Making a Medieval Arrow Bag, Part 2.

In this post I will provide the pattern and  method for sewing a medieval arrow bag.

Materials needed
-At least 2 yards linen or canvas fabric. Linen being historicaly preferred.
-Appropriate needle for fabric weight.
-Pins, I only had two but more will definitely benefit you.
-Thread of similar color to fabric.
-Your arrow spacer
-A string for the top drawstring
-A leather string, aprox: 6 inches

Here is the pattern...

A- This is the circumference of the arrow spacer and will be the width of the fabric. This is where the spacer will be sewn into the bag.

B- This is where the bottom of the bag will be tied to hold the arrows in.  It is the same measurement as A.

C- Fold the fabric down along this line to make a space for the drawstring. It is the same measurement as A.

Step 1. Measure the circumference of your arrow spacer and add 1/2". As you can see mine measures 22" exactly. Mark measurement A.



Marking measurement A



Step 2. Figuring out where to mark B and C.  To do this it is very handy to have an arrow on hand.  Place the arrow on line A as if it where in the arrow spacer.

Now we can mark measurement B and C in relation to the arrow.  B should be marked about 3 to 5 inches below the tip of the arrow. Be sure that there is enough arrow above line A so that when you mark line B the arrow wont fall through the spacer when the bag is completed.  The distance from A to B should be about 26 inches

Marking line B



Marking line C. Line C would be the one that is farthest left. The other two are not needed, I was just experimenting.

Step 3. Cut out the pattern. It should look just like the pattern up above. A simple rectangle with your lines A, B and C drawn on it.



The pattern as it should  look before cutting out.

Step 4. Fold the entire pattern in half length-wise.  Starting at line A whip stitch all the way to the bottom of the bag.  



The whip stitch almost completed.

Step 5. Now that we have the whip stitch completed, turn the bag inside-out. It will actually be outside-in but, ya know. Now we want to hem the bottom of the bag. To do this I turned the bottom edge of the bag inside on itself twice, so I would be sewing through three layers of fabric.


The double-rolled hem.

Step 6. Sewing in the arrow spacer. Place your spacer inside the bag and align it with line A. Spiral stitch the spacer into the bag.



View from the top.

View from the bottom.

Okay, so that is all I can manage for the time being.  Please let me know if this was helpful and if needed what do I need to change.

Thanks all!

Military Archery In Medieval Ireland

Introduction: In studying Irish medieval warfare the bow and arrow is of particular interest for many reasons. It is by far the most frequently represented weapon in the archaeological record and unlike other weapons it tends to occur in datable contexts on excavated sites. This is largely accidental, because bows and arrows were of little monetary value and easily broken and lost, but the fortunate result is that a more comprehensive and reliable archaeological study is possible for the bow and arrow than for any other medieval weapon. There is also a greater wealth of useful historical information available than for other weapons of medieval Ireland. Thus it is possible not only to study the bow and arrow as archaeological artefacts but to place them in their natural context, which is the history of warfare. A study of the history of the weapon reveals that it is particularly appropriate, and not entirely accidental, that the bow and arrow is so well represented in the archaeological record of medieval Ireland. There is probably no other period in which the weapon was of comparable military importance.

Read the rest here:

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pdfs/halpin.pdf

Halpin, Andrew. "Military Medieval Archery in Medieval Ireland: Archaeology and History."   Medievalists.net. Themebuilder, 29 Jan 2011. Web. 30 Jan 2011.

Hand Forged Bodkins, Part 2

Hand Forged Bodkins

I have recently begun blacksmithing and finished my first bodkin arrowhead.  It's fairly crude but it will get the job done nonetheless!  It was forged from 1/2" diameter steel round stock in my coffee can forge.  I'd like to thank my friend Joe S. for use of his anvil, coal, and more. I'd also like to thank Matt P. for some tools, and great knowledge of smithing.  I plan on making more and hopefully better looking ones by the end of this week.

Warbow Pictures

Here are some pictures of my favorite English warbow archers of today!



Jaro: Czech Bowyer




Mark Stretton




Marlon Torrez:
Recently pulled a warbow of #225lbs made by Rudderbows!




Martin Harvey of the Company of Hollyrood



Nick Birmingham of the Company of Hollyrood

Forum name: Thimo

Thimo



Thimo



Simon Stanley: Very well known in the warbow community.



Steve Stratton of DIY Archery, Bowyer in the U.K.

Warbow Strings vs. Draw Weight

There is a school of thought within the English Warbow community that the warbows rarely, if ever, went over #100lbs in draw weight.  The argument is made using evidence from the artifacts recovered from the sunken Tudor ship the Mary Rose.  Since no bowstrings have in fact survived the centuries under water, scholars and enthusiast have looked to other aspects of the medieval archer's aresenal for support of this theory.  The evidence they use comes from arrow shafts recovered from the shipwreck.  Scholars and enthusiasts have looked at the nock (the portion of the arrow that is mounted upon the string) to determine that many so called "warbows" were probably less than #100lbs.  The nocks on the recovered arrows were only 1/8 of an inch wide, therefore, only able to accomodate a string 1/8" thick or less.  They theorize that it is unlikely a string of 1/8" thickness can support more #100lbs of draw weight.

Looking at the string of my warbow, I measured the thickness of my string at the nock point.  The thickness was exactly 1/8".  At the nock point there is and extra layer of cordage know as the serving, so I measured a portion of the string without the serving and it was less than 1/8".  The string material I use is called FastFlight and is a modern manmade material.  Warbow archers of medieval and Tudor times would have used natural linen or hemp fiber bowstrings.  I have a linen string for one of my #55lb bows.  Upon measuring that string, it too is less than 1/8" thick.  No doubt that a #55lb bow is going to require a less intense string than that of a #100lb+ warbow.  However, Myself and other warbow archers believe that warbow of draw weights greater than #100lbs could indeed have strings no more than 1/8" thick.  Here is a link to a forum thread on this very topic...
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/39555

As the topic is still in debate, I believe that warbows of the medieval and Tudor times were often over #100lbs in draw weight.  Please add your thoughs and comments...