Humor

Humor

The Viking Weave

This is a very old and simple method of weaving wire that can be used to make necklaces and bracelets. Whether you are looking for some accessories to round out your viking garb or you just want to make some cool looking jewelry this is fun and easy requiring a minimum of tools to accomplish. Here is a really simple piece that I made using some copper wire and a polished stone that I got from the aquarium section of walmart.

Ok so you only need a few things to do this. You need a pair of pliers, a dowel rod or tube, a board with a hole drilled through it, a roll of wire, safety glasses (highly recommended), some beads and/or decorative pieces to add to the wire.

Start by taking some wire and wrapping it around a credit card or gift card. Make six complete loops. Then remove the loops and make tight wrap around the bundle about a third of the way down.

Now spread the loops out into a flower pattern like this and put it over the end of the dowel rod. Make sure to get them evenly spaced then tape the jig in place so that it doesn't move.

Next start looping the wire like this.

You can estimate that the finished length of the chain will be around double the length what it is on the dowel rod. This may differ slightly depending on the size of the dowel that you use verses the size of hole that you use for pulling but you will figure it with a little experimentation.

Once you have the weave to the length that you desire then you feed it through the hole drilled in the board and pull it through with a pair of pliers. This narrows the weave down to the desired diameter and stretches it to length.

Wire types can be almost any wire but some wire will oxidize and turn colors on you. It is possible to find gold or silver plated wire. From craft stores you can find multiple colors of wire and copper wire can be found from most hardware stores. You can also find clasps and beads at craft stores to decorate  your jewelry. Feel free to alternate colors in the weave or you can add yarn, ribbon, beads, or stones to the inside of the tube before pulling it to give color contrast.

The weave can also be wrapped around stones like this to create a center piece or an amulet for the jewelry.

Cool amulets, end pieces, clasps, and beads can be found online or at craft stores. I like Fire Mountain Gems as a resource to get a lot of this stuff.

with a little imagination or some research on line for ideas you can come with a lot of really cool ways to utilize this ancient method for making fine jewelry. You can even experiment by mixing unconventional style together, changing up the number of loops, or doing extra wraps of wire instead of single loops to give a different look.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial.

Thorne the mercenary.

Humor

Christmas Tourney an SCA Event

I just came from Christmas Tourney and it was a blast. This is an SCA event and this year they held it indoors at the community center in Elizabethtown, KY. That is just a short drive from Louisville, KY and well worth it. It only cost me $5 to get in and lunch was $5 in the kitchen. They had beef stew, berry tarts, and biscuits. Believe me I ate so much that I had to loosen my belt up a notch. The fighting was action packed and non stop all day. They tournaments of heavy armored fighting like in the fierce battle that I filmed below

They also have Fencing competitions with multiple styles of fencing like single rapier, rapier and main gauche (dagger), and rapier and buckler. I have been told that they do fencing with rapier and cape but unfortunately I didn't see anyone doing this style. It would be interesting to watch.

The real reason to attend one of these events is for the merchants. There are a lot of merchants at SCA events, even a small local event like Christmas Tourney. It is a great opportunity to find high quality and hard to find garb, leather work, crafts, armor, etc. Much of this stuff is one of a kind and the prices are reasonable. I walked away with a nice new pouch for $40 and I found some wool fabric for $5 a yard that I just couldn't pass up. I've been wanting to have a piece of winter garb made for some time and this stuff will be perfect.

Daily Rant

Ok tell me if this bothers anyone else as much as it bothers me. You go to a busy store and they only have one or two registers open so you have huge lines waiting to check out. Then they want you to give them your bonus card or loyalty card or whatever the frack they are calling it but you don't have it with you. So they try to look it up but they can't find it in their system so they try to talk you into filling another one out. You get through that conversation then they try to get you to donate to whatever cause they are supporting, and then to add insult to injury they try to get you to apply for a store specific credit card that you don't want. I really hate that and it seems like so many store chains are going to this extremely annoying and frustrating business model. I makes me loath shopping.

Humor

My Own Skygazers

Finally about a month after my initial post on how to build a Sky Gazer Chair I have built one for myself. I decided to decorate it with a dragon design surrounded by rose vines. Here are the results.

Camping Wash Station

So you are going to an event that doesn’t have running water. Well that doesn’t mean that you have to suffer through unsanitary conditions. Part of the fun of camping is being able to have that BBQ or dutch oven cookout and who wants to eat that with out being able to wash your hands. 

Sure you could just scrape by with hand sanitizer and baby wipes. But that isn’t really the same thing as just being able to wash your hands with soap and water. So what if you could build a simple foot pump washing station like the one in this picture for around $15-$20?

How it works is simple; the foot pump transfers clean water from the bottom bucket out of the spout where it lands in the upper bucket. There are no faucets to operate, and while the station in the picture is made of plastic buckets with a little luck and a few extra dollars wooden buckets could be substituted and adapted into this design to give it a more medieval look. note: Also this design calls for drilling holes into the bucket as an alternative it is possible to feed a tube through the lid into clean water bucket and to simply have a tube attached at the basin instead of a riser as shown.

The materials needed are as below.

(3) 5 gallon utility buckets

(2) 5 gallon bucket lids

Marine fuel primer bulb and hose assembly

3/8" brass fittings

Rubber O-ring

3/8" tubing

various 1" and 1/2" plumbing pipe sections and fittings

Automotive steel fuel/brake line

Door hinge

Scrap wood

Step 1: Drill a 3/8 hole hole in one bucket about an inch above the bottom then feed the male end of the 90 degree fitting through the hole.

Step 2: Slide  an o ring over the male thread then screw the female half of the 3/8 hose fitting onto the male half of the fitting.

step 3: Take the other 3/8 hose fitting and thread it into the 90 degree fitting inside the bucket. Make sure that the barbed end of the fitting is pointed toward the bottom of the bucket.

The basin is constructed from the upper portion of the third bucket and a lid. While it isn’t necessary for the function of the system it does prevent the grey water from splashing out while you are washing your hands.

step 4: Remove the rubber seal from the bottom of the bucket lid and cut along the bottom of the trench that the seal was in. Cut all the way around and remove the outer rim. Drill a 1/2” hole in the center.

step 5: Cut off the top of the third buck about three quarters of an inch below the last flange.

step 6: Attach the cut off lid to the cut off portion of the bucket using hot glue, rivets, or screws  Basically this should look like a shorter bucket now.

step 7:  Optional: Build the foot pump foot pump using scrap wood, door hinge, dowel rods and a tennis ball. If this looks to complicated don’t worry about it. The pump will work just fine if you simply step on the marine bulb, but the foot pump kind of looks cool.

You could use the buckets like this but if you want to add a support table and a spout here is how.

step 8: Buy or Build a small support table. Coming up with a table makes the whole structure more stable, gives you a place to set your soap, and it gives you a place to attach the riser tube. The easiest way to do this is to find a small used table at a second hand store or yard sale that you don’t mind cutting a hole in. But if you are handy enough you can also just build a table.

step 9: Cut a hole in the center of the table big enough for the bucket to slide into but small enough that it doesn’t fall all the way through. Optimally we want the clean water bucket to be off the ground a little.

step 10: Drill a one inch hole in one corner of the table

step 11: attach a 1 inch galvanized pipe flange to the table.

step 12: screw 1 inch galvanized pipe into the pipe flange. Then a reducer and a 1/2 pipe onto that to make the riser.

step 13: Purchase some generic steel fuel brake line from an auto parts store to form the spout.

step 14: Bend it into a 180 degree cane shape.  

The diameter of the bend should be 1/2 diameter of the bucket.  This will position the Spout nozzle over the hole in the bottom of the Basin.

step 15: Slide a 2" section of clear hardware tubing onto the other end of the Spout. 

step 16: Slide a 1/2" to 3/8" galvanized reducer fitting on the Spout.  

step 17: Then slide about a 24" length of tubing onto the Spout.  

The reducer fitting will be trapped in location on the Spout by the two sections of tubing; yet free to spin and thread onto the Spout Riser.

step 18: Feed the Spout, and Tubing Assembly down through the Spout Riser pipes and thread the reducer fitting onto the top of the 1/2" Spout Riser Pipe.

step 19: connect the tubing from the pump to the riser tube. This can be done with clear tubing or directly with the pump tube.

For more information and the site where I learned about this project please refer to this instructables site. 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Field-Sink/#step0

Coming events what they may look like.

It is great to look on you tube for events that are on the calendar. One you can see what the action was  like at prior events and see if it might be something you would like to try and they can be entertaining. Just because the weather is turning cold doesn't mean that you have to miss out.

Coming up this weekend we have the Amtgard event Rising Winds Midreign/Bridge Wars 2014

Christmas Tourney and Candlemas are both coming soon. They are both tournaments. One of the nice things about these two events is they are indoors so even if it is cold or the weather is bad the action can continue.

Winter wars looks like it is a pretty fun event here is a little video of the action.

And of course our a Belegarth event Beltaine is just around the corner.

Alyssa Beaton Photos of practice

My thanks to Alyssa for taking these and sharing them. They are some great shots of the action.

Thanks again Alyssa, you have an impressive talent. If anyone else would like to have some of your photos of the action posted on DA Guardian please send them to m.sauls1969@gmail.com. I would love to share them.

I hope to see you out on the field so that I can get in on the action myself.

Where ever coin jingles or plunder is promised you will find a mercenary. 

Thorne

How to Make a Rope Grip For Your Sword or Shield

I know that you have been on the field and seen that friend who either knows how to make a really nice rope grip or purchased a professionally made weapon that has one. Many people love this style of grip. It fits comfortably in the hand, offers a fair amount of shock cushioning, wicks off some of the sweat from you hand, and it looks very sharp.

Today I am going to show you two simple methods to not only wrap your handle in rope but to do it in such a way that it won't come loose on you after the first couple of uses. The first thing that you are going to need is some supplies. For demonstration purposes I am going to do my wraps on this piece of wooden dowel rod. It is probably a good idea to do this yourself for practice purposes until you are comfortable with the technique. Note: If you plan to use method one then you need to use a rope small enough to feed through a drinking straw.

Method 1: This method is a little tricky to master. It can be done without an adhesive but for best result a basic white adhesive like Elmer's Glue or Aleene's Original Tacky Glue works just fine. First I like to tie a clove hitch on the handle and I tape one leg into place like this. I then spread my adhesive all over the wrap area.

The next step is a trick I like to use. If you try to simply wrap the surface then you will end up with a twisted mess like this.

To avoid making a twisted mess I use an ordinary drinking straw like this.

Make your wraps loose because you do not want to crush the drinking straw. You are going to need to be able to feed the rope through it. Once you have the handle surface completely wrapped do just that; feed the end of the rope through the straw then pull the straw out with the rope. This is now the pull string that you will use to pull your wrap tight.

The tricky part of this is that you will have to keep working the loops tighter and tighter as you pull the slack through with the pull string. Once you have your handle wrapped down tight trim off the excess with a pair of scissors. If you are using a nylon or plastic rope you can keep the ends from fraying by melting it with a lighter. Put the weapon up for a few hours to allow the adhesive to dry and you should now have a handle that will last you for a long time.

Method 2: This method is a little simpler. It involves the use of double sided carpet tape. I have the E-Z carpet seam tape here and it is an incredibly strong. Start by cutting a length to cover your handle then pull off one side of the non stick paper. Wrap it around your handle.

Now what I like to do first is to secure one end down with a little electrical tape. Then you tightly wrap the rope around the double sided tape. When I get the tape off on the other end I again secure that end with a little electrical tape. Then I trim it off with some scissors and you have a very simple and functional rope handle that should last for a very long time without coming loose on you.

I hope that you found this article helpful and I hope to see you out on the field.

stay tuned for the next episode of The Bald Foot Curse coming soon to DA Guardian.

Thorne the Mercenary