A winters hard work

For me, the winter is a pause in the living history season. There's no events and no enthusiasm to get together for a clout-shoot in one feet of snow. The snowy landscape is very beautiful and scenic but it's hard to gather people from all over the country just to take some photos.

I use the cold winter months to improve my medieval kit. This post is about the "hard" work that I've done, metal and wood. I have been doing some textile work too but that's another story.

At the end of 2013 I ordered some new arrowheads from Medieval style arrowheads, https://www.facebook.com/MedievalStyleArrowheads?fref=ts.
ThenI  started to plane some shafts for these, you can never have too much arrows! ;) I use ash, birch, aspen, poplar and oak for the shafts, depending on the type of arrow I'm making. 

The fletchings for some of these I made from a gees I shot in November. This was the first time I made my own fletchings from scratch. For the cutting I used a fletchertool(don't know what it's called...) made by Göran Landström. And for the first time, it turned out great, I think, haven't  tried them yet...

I used the gees feathers for a EWBS welsh-class arrow and a bobtailed war arrow with a small nasty broadhead. the 1/4 pounder, the livery arrow. two standard arrows and some other war arrows turned out great as well.

After the summer I started with HEMA(Historical European Martial Arts) at Skaraborgs Historiska Fäktskola( https://www.facebook.com/skaraborgsHFS?fref=ts ) and hopefully in the near future I will be practicing some sword and buckler techniques. The sword and buckler was the tool for every soldier in the late middle ages, especially a sidearm for English archers.

I have a decent sword but I needed a buckler, and why not make it myself!? After two failed attempts(too thin metal or my lousy hammering?) I managed to form a good shape. I attached a birch handle and a leather strap for carrying it on the sword scabbard. It weights almos as much as the sword, which is good. Hopefully the handle is good enough, there might be a crack at the rivet, the future will tell...

Between the hammering on the buckler, when it was in the forge, I continued practicing on my caltrops project. This batch is the best so far, small and elegant with good geometry.

For all you Swedes that's reading this, check out Sarah's blogg; Som när det begav sig. There you can find good reenactment advice for beginners and veterans as well.

http://somnardetbegavsig.blogspot.se/

This is Robin from Comapanie of Saint Sebstian. Out.