OK... I've been bad.
I haven't posted anything for nine months. and honestly, I've been super busy making a lot of stuff. I have made the chausses, a bocksen man's tunic (15th century),
caligae, calcei, lots of tunics, a quiver, arrows, baldrics for sword belts, a Thracian
parma, a
murmillo's scutum, a Mongol thumb ring a warp weighted loom... well I've been busy. I'll try to post photos soon.
I'm going to make my students keep a blog so I will too. More cool things to make and do.
Sean got the murmillo's shield or scutum and requested it say "Via ad Periculum" "highway to the danger zone!
While his brother requested the thraex parma say, "edentulae" or toothless...
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My two eldest wearing Roman slinger's kits. tunics are hand sewn wool, as are the trousers, veg-tanned leather work as well.
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I had to finish my kit too. folcae, caligae, and bladric (scarf, sandals, and sword belt) all needed completion.
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As stated above I worked on some armor. I made a Caesarian era chainmail doubler to be mounted on a 6mm ID roman chainmail shirt. My friend and I are making kits for that era namely for legionaries of Legio X Geminae, Caesar's favorite legion. SO why not paint Castor and Pollux on the armor AKA the Geminae... the brothers are based on a sculpture dating to the first century BC. I used veg tanned leather as the cover over the mail and then painted with historically accurate egg tempra. then I sealed it with bees wax. As my friend is also a Scotsman, I threw on the boars on the back of the doubler to celebrate his heritage.
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| castor |
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| Pollux |
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| complete doubler |
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| a star |
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| the back |
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| hand painted boar based on a Roman sculpture |
I had also done what affectionately called a death march along the central California coat line close to Botcher GAP!!! We wore nothing but first century Gallic equipment... this is what I carried on the third day heading back out. kit bags, and an accurate shield were made fairly quickly. Bags were made from brain tanned leather, hand forged iron ring, and waxed linen thread.
the shield was made of hardwood plywood, and hand carved wooden spine, hand forged boss, nails, and handle reinforcement, covered with hide, and backed with linen. the painted with egg tempra paints. the edge was stitched with linen thread, hand hold covered with hare skin for padding and the the handle was wrapped with leather after it was sealed with bee's wax.
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| hand carved Mongol thumb ring. made from cow's horn. leather strap is veg tanned . |
It was also science fair this winter. my son wanted to test the effectiveness of armor. He barley lost out due to a few technicalities... but I' impressed with him anyway. I helped out with a few of the design elements... but you can see he's learning.
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| chainmail over padded underarmor, and wool |
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| the contraption for testing |
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| learning to rivet chainmail |
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section of linothorax
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various pieces of Roman furniture for a forge stand and small work tables...
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cobbler's bench and yarn rack.
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SO in all the chaos of the last few weeks, Kathy Lowy and I built a warp weighted loom... It was a challenge as neither of us had built one. but using douglas fir, and a lot of sandpaper, We made a pretty effective piece of equipment.
