RomanArmyTalk
Howdy. - Printable Version

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Howdy. - Jack Svendsen - 02-09-2018

I've not done re-enactment or anything like that, however I have been doing a bunch of practice for when I actually manage to get a job and can manage to buy all the fancy wool and linen. 

I hand sew everything  that I make, even if I work with inauthentic materials at the moment because I am a traditionalist, why use those damned infernal machines? Which is to say  that I've made a gambeson of fifteen layers of bed sheets. Not authentic, but totally awesome regardless. I estimate 60 or 70 hours went into making it. And I plan to make more, and even one for my dog.

I can braid, though only for the past six months and I've only just figured out how to loom with a pvc frame. Pretty good for not doing any of that 'girl' stuff before. I say this sarcastically because I literally didn't know how to braid until I wanted to make a sling and forced my mother to make me one and thought that girls did that stuff. Then I tried it myself and went "This is awesome."... And now I have too much crap around the house. I've made woolen slings, woolen cat-chew toys and long braids with absolutely no purpose except because I was bored one day and made them.

I plan to make braid tape for winingas and similar leg-wrappings that were likely used by Northern legions, learn nalbinding and in the future, once I start to go a little crazy and full-on-masochist, make my own woolen clothing with a loom, from my own hand-spun wool, from sheep that I don't yet own. 

I also plan to figure out how to make straw hats, because they were seemingly popular in both the Ancient and medieval world and apparently not many people wear them nowadays, even within reenactment circles apparently. I'm already waiting for Autumn because we get a ton of wild oats, which I will harvest to make the hats from. I shall then braid them and then whip-stitch them to form the hat, which surviving 14th century German medieval straw hats seem to show was done, and likely the ancients used a similar construction.

I will also try my hand at making my own bow within the future, though I am not sure which Australian woods would be good for that. I can always have fun and experiment with different woods though.

Somewhere in the far future, I believe that I will be the crazy guy who lives out in the forest... Likely because I cracked when trying to make said clothing from above and screwed something up. I'll also try my hand at blacksmithing, using my own wrought iron that I made myself from iron ore in a bloomery which I will then try to make into steel by adding carbon.

I live in Western Australia, so there isn't much chance that I will find a roman group here, So I guess I will have to hold the Castrum here and wait for reinforcements. Or I'll join a medieval group. Either way, I will be having fun making stuff anyway, and putting up pictures for anyone interested in that kind of thing.

I'm also likely one of the few slingers in the whole country too other than a few guys on Slinging.org, so I guess  I will be a good Auxiliary once the reinforcements get here. (Albeit I am a novice slinger, so don't expect me to put Xenophon to shame and throw stones 400 m). I don't think too many people do slinging anymore, and the local indigenous population used spear-throwing technology rather than slings, so there is no slinging tradition here.

Here is an image of me with a slingstone.

[Image: ouC2Gez.jpg]


RE: Howdy. - Robert Vermaat - 03-13-2018

Sounds good! Keep us posted