Last November, I was Marshal in Charge at a rapier event, and I wanted a fancy garment to show that I was acting as a marshal. For years, I’d always heard the phrase “marshal tabard,” but I never wanted to wear a tabard. Then a member of my barony made a gorgeous marshalling German capelet,
Crafting
Custom Tooled Phone Case
This is a custom phone case I made on commission. I really enjoy making custom new pieces! The strap on the back is to thread onto a belt. This design is the heraldry for the Cavendish Knot, the first rapier award you can get in the Middle Kingdom in the Society for Creative Anachronism. The
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Crafting
Neck Coolers as Site Tokens + Largesse
Neck Coolers make awesome gifts, largesse, and site tokens for people in the SCA – or really, any other group that spends a lot of time outside in the hot summer sun, especially when mixed with exertion (armored combat, rapier combat, archery, equestrian, Habitat for Humanity/volunteering organizations…). What is a neck cooler? It’s a long
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Crafting
Fits Like a Glove
I’ve been using these as my rapier gloves for over four years now. In fact, these gloves are the very first piece of rapier gear I made. I didn’t realize that making your own gloves was odd until I showed up with them and everyone started oohing and aahing – it just seemed like a
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Crafting
Leather Dagger Handle and Hand Guard
I made the handle of my fencing dagger over a campfire at Pennsic, a two-week medieval camping event I go to every year. My campmates were thoroughly entertained. 🙂 The handle was made of many compressed leather discs. The first step was to soak leather scraps in beeswax. I bought beeswax at the Pennsic marketplace,
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This, That, + The Other
Rapier Notes: How to Deny a Flank
At Baron Wars this past summer I had a great discussion with our rapier general, Peter, on what is the best way to deny a flank. This is a tactic that occurs during line fights. Below is a picture of two lines fighting, orange versus green. The black markings are their swords, dagger, shields, and
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This, That, + The Other
King of the Throne and Bowser’s Castle
In this post, I’m going to talk about a couple fun rapier melee games you can try with your fencers! Previously, I have talked a lot about the game Fox & Hound. This post explains King of the Throne and Bowser’s Castle. King of the Throne Optimal Number of Fencers: At least 20. If you
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Crafting
Commission: Sword Belt Spreader
Medieval sword belts were often made with many buckles so that they could strap down onto different sword sheaths and be re-used (if you had to make everything from scratch, you’d make sure it could be re-used, too!). In the Society for Creative Anachronism, which does medieval recreation, many rapier fighters use this type of
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This, That, + The Other
Expanded Notes on Rapier Fox & Hound
I was at Baron Wars, an SCA event, in June this year. This is another great event for rapier melee – one of the best held near south-eastern Michigan all year, with about four dozen fencers fighting in the melee games in the morning. Baron Wars is held at Fort Meigs near Toledo, Ohio, and