fredk

These days you can no longer reckon that more expensive = better, cheap = poor. Nearly all my oval punches are from China. They each were a modest price. And all are perfectly ok. Some needed a wee bit of sharpening first but nothing too bad. Buy some modest priced punches. Buy just a couple of different sizes from one place. If they are ok, then buy more from them, but even that is no guarantee the next ones will be as good

all of the above

The buckle tongue goes thru the hole at an angle and in use it deforms the circular hole into an imperfect oval hole, which eventually looks not-nice. If you start with an oval hole there is virtually no deformation and the hole will still look better after much use

Does the 362 'diamond' shape look better than the 361 'square' shape? Personal preference obviously, but what do youse think? Edit; PS, I've found larger versions of these stamps in Sergey's catalogue. They are 361B, 362B, and 362BB

Sergey has an advert at the top of LW pages

I got a message back from Sergey. The square stamp is 10 x 10mm

I've bought at least 2 stamps, perhaps more from that chap. afair it took about 1 week to get to me in UK. All the stamps are of 1st rate quality edit to add; I checked my records, it took 12 days. And oddly, he has not put the sizes of these stamps. On nearly all the his other stamps he has put the size, so I've messaged him asking the size of the square one

This; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333549358924?hash=item4da9174f4c:g:VgsAAOSwoQlecQwl or this; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333549359609?hash=item4da91751f9:g:l-MAAOSwmwhecQxz

Nfo will soften the leather and make the gloves easier to pull on but not make them stretch to a larger size which the OP wants

I had a thought on this; try wearing several rubber or latex gloves. That should build up the size of your hand easier and quicker

Don't use nfo. Wrap your hands and fingers with a layer or two of duct tape or similar. Soak the gloves in water, really soak them. Then pull on and let them dry out on your hands. Wet moulding them. Then when they are dry take off, take off the duct tape and the gloves should be a bit looser

Doc says it. You can do some holding stitching for the edge clean-up, take the holster apart and then do the grooving using that good edge as guide. I'd advise using a wing divider to mark the groove lines first then go over those lines with a groover, taking a little bit of leather off in multiple passes rather than trying to dig it out in one pass

Is the sewing just decorative or is it two pieces?

It wasn't 'conscription' but just regular volunteer joining up. You 'took the Kings shilling'. Legend / myth is that recruiters would buy potential recruits drinks until they weren't sober then they'd drop a shilling in a drink. The recruit would drink and find the shilling, thus they'd not only 'taken the King's shilling but had 'drank to the King'. The legend / myth is that glass bottom tankards were made so that you could hold it up and look to see if there was a shilling in the bottom. It may or may not have been done as GB has always had a good volunteer rate and rarely needed either such tricks or conscription

Things were suspended due to numerous meetings during the week. Travelling by bus has its downsides; the time wasted whilst waiting on connections or allowing time not to miss one I have some 3 inch wide elastic. But I think its too wide so I've ordered some 2 inch wide The SCA are grand but they will not tell you these things; fletch your own arrows, use only real goose feather. Why? because when you trim the goose feather down you'll find it has a bend or twist to the rachis. Plastic 'feathers' don't usually or normally have that. Mount the goose feathers on the shaft so that that twist is used. Then the three feathers will give the arrow a spiralling course in flight, just like rifling on a firearm, which gives it a straighter flight. Each wing of the goose has feathers which twist in a certain direction. Match all three feathers to be the same. For competition shooting trim the vanes as short as possible. Long vanes are good for clout, but for closer target, trim the vanes till they are only about 1/2 or 5/8 inch long. Then when you use the stand-off hold the hens will hardly touch the stave, just about eliminating the paradox. When you use thread to tie on the feather, use a fine thread such as silk and have it wrapped around the shaft extended about 1 inch forward of the feather. When its glued down rub in some beeswax and rub that in really well and real smooth. This will help the arrow pass over your hand very smoothly. If you use a glove with a pad on it for the arrow to ride on, use leather and polish it really well Many times I have heard, even in the SCA, that the fletching feathers should be put on perfectly straight PS. we now regularly call the feathers the 'fletching' but in medieval times 'fletching' was the making of the whole arrow, the feathers were called . . . . feathers. The local fletcher had the legal rights to all flight feathers from every goose in his/her area. That is, every time a goose was turned into food its wings had to go to the fletcher