fredk

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

That looks just grand so it does Would really like to see some close-up pictures too

Its ok for me edited to add; its still ok for me

A. the Welsh invented the Long Bow as we know it now. The long bow goes back into Roman history. The Welsh bow was made of Elm. They drew it only to the tip of their nose. Edward 1st fought the Welsh in the late part of the 1200s. He defeated them. He was so impressed by their archers that he incorporated Welsh Long Bow archers into his army. Gradually the English improved the Long Bow. First by making it of Yew and then, about the same time, drawing it to the back of the ear. That extra 5 inches or so adds about 25lbs to the draw weight. The infamous William Wallace, of 'Braveheart' film, was actually a Captain of Archers in Edward 1st's army in roughly 1292 - 1302. Because Edward 1st defeated the Welsh and killed their clan princes he gave them his new-born son as the first 'Prince of Wales'. The man in the centre of that picture is King Charles III, who until just a few days ago was 'Prince of Wales'. Now his eldest son Prince William has been gifted the title. 2. The four men at the corners of the catafalque, and many others positioned out of sight, are the Kings Royal Body Guard for Scotland, the Royal Company of Archers. They do practice archery but their body guard duties are just ceremonial now. Policemen/women and soldiers with big noisy loud guns do the real protecting now. But not as many as the POTUS needs. King Charles will have at most 3 body guards near him. The late Queen Elizabeth only wanted one PPO Both the late Queen Elizabeth and King Charles III are experts with the long bow. The late Queen once took part, actually several times, in an old traditional archery competition where you have to shoot at a small bird on top of a Church's spire weather vane. She always hit her mark And before anyone says it; the famous English two-finger salute is not to show that the archer still has his fingers for drawing a bow. All that is a myth I knocked up this bracer the other evening. Its for #1 dottir to test. Its just some thinnish 'dragon skin' embossed leather on the outside, some felt padding making that raised portion and some upholstery grade chrome tan on the inside. Just all glued together. With lacing hooks riveted on. Elastic cord to lace criss-cross between the hooks. I posted it to her yesterday. She'll test it out and let me know what has to change for the next ones

thats crazy. without an arrow rest by shifting your grip you can increase range or penetration. iirc, if I move my hand down by about 1 inch I can get about 100yards extra distance on clout, without having to lean backwards. If I move my hand up about 1 inch it increases my bow power and I can penetrate thicker plate steel at 50 yards Also, by having the arrow rest on your hand, having it about 1/4 to 3/8 inch out from the stave the hens will get past easier and reduce the 'archer's paradox' I was taught all this by, not one, not two, not three, but four Long Bow Archery World Champions I met 'Siegfried' briefly, once, at the Mary Rose Museum. I saw him and said hello to him and guess what he said ? He said 'Hello', then he rushed on. Just months later he was dead. I have his books as well. Great reads

dems iss niiiiice !

No long bow I know has an arrow rest. You rest the arrow on your hand, on the last knuckle of your thumb actually

Most of us in my family are slightly ambidextrous. I used to fence both right and left handed. I used to change hands at the end of every touché. That really threw the opponent off their stool. I can shoot pistols with either hand - I'm a rotten shot with either though! I'm now thinking, because of what you've said, about not getting a leftie glove, that is why No.1 dottir wants me to make one for her Are bows handed? my long bows aren't. I can shoot just as badly with either left or right hand with them

Thanks, that is brilliant. I think that is the sort of thing No.1 dottir is wanting. I neglected to mention that although she is right handed she shoots left handed

A good question. I'll text her and ask yeah but, no but, yeah but, her ladyship wants a glove. I've made literally dozens of tabs over the years I never used either a tab nor a glove. I used long bow of 55lbs and used bare fingers. I never needed a tab

Thanks, good advice there

Both good ideas, except, she is borrowing different tabs and gloves from the club. Thus she wants her own. And she doesn't really know what she wants either. Its a case of 'dad will know and sort it out'. She did say recently that she doesn't really like the tabs. I think what she wants is a cross between a finger glove and tab

My #1 favourite dottir texted me earlier today; can I make her a glove for her archery ? A 'finger' glove I think she wants, not a full glove There are so many variations on the theme I just don't know where to start so any ideas or guidance would be most welcome for extra info; she is using a re-curve bow and is a 3-finger string puller

We have no name for them here as no one uses them. I made some, tried to sell them, ended up giving them away, afaik they ended up as desk top pen pots

yup, only with me its No.1 son as the 'client'. Every so often he says 'when are you going to start on my steering wheels?' He's lost count of how many he needs doing but he reckons he has got rid of about 150 of very bad ones. So its still about 500 s/wheels need doing. My problems are there are about 4 or 5 different styles and a pattern needs making for each and I just cannot get that pattern right And I bought in three sewing machines to do them. Actually need only one but I bought one, gave it to someone to use on these, that person disappeared, so I bought another machine for another person and that person buggered off as well. I'd lost 2 machines, so I bought a third and within months I got the first two machines back

Another grand idea. Thanks. I'll look into 'miniatures'. Not shure bout Guinness but the whiskeys usually do them Here, as aside; about 230 years ago Guinness introduced a specially shaped bottle. It was called the 'Soldier's bottle'. It was specially designed to fit into one of the pistol holsters that the Inniskilling Dragoons had a pair of on their saddles. Allegedly, and according to legend, just before the battle of Waterloo an officer complained to the Duke of Wellington that the Inniskilling Dragoons had only one pistol, the other holster had a bottle of drink and most of the men were drunk. Wellington is supposed to have replied 'Sir, I'd rather have the Inniskillings half-armed and half-cut and here than not here at all' Also, during the battle, Wellington continuously rode up and down his lines. At one point he stopped by the the Inniskillings and said to a sergeant ' This work makes me devilishly thirsty. Give me a drink of your porter you have in your holster' The sergeant tried to deny having the drink, as it was against regulations but Wellington said 'Come man, I know you have it. Don't deny me it' Allegedly he got his drink, and rode off with the whole bottle!

Don't feel bad about it. I've done nothing about those steering wheels. And I have a large number of BMW torches to rebuild as well (but that ain't leather)

Tandy supplies a lot of its patterns in a very large page size, but also broken down to A4, or US letter size. With these I sometimes print out the A4 and tape them together. On the odd occasion I've taken the pattern PDF file to a print shop where they can print out to A0 size. To help other not used to A sizes, Start at A0, then each halving of the paper is the next A number up, or double its size to get the next lower number. One side is always common to the size on one side of it eg. A0 = 841mm x 1188mm A1 = 594mm x 841mm A2 = 420mm x 594mm A3 = 297mm x 420mm A4 = 210mm x 297mm A5 =148mm x 210mm

What jc means is that the arrow marking on the parts of that plough gauge is the 'Tower of London' UK Ministry of Defence marking. Everything made for the MoD and approved is marked with that arrow

How big is this hide?