Training as a sword/weaponsmith, sometimes do a bit of jewellery or armour. Just here to chat about metalwork/arms & armour. Mostly feral 😇
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Extremely grateful to anyone who can help me sustain this, help support an endangered heritage craft. ⚒️
I stay away from politics on this account, mostly because this is purely about my trade, promoting business and tracking my progress as whatever kind of artisan I am but because it’s my birthday, I’m allowed to say:
Free Palestine, trans rights are human rights ✊🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
Visby is fascinating… we think the reasons so much armour was just straight-up dumped into a mass grave (it would normally be stripped off and looted) is a mixture of quick burial bc heat, the armour being a bit outdated and also the victorious Danes needing to move on quickly.
Remnants of a
#Maille
#Coif
fused to the skull of a soldier killed at the battle of Visby on July 27th, 1361. Osteological estimates place this man between the ages of 30 and 35.
Recovered from Mass Grave 2 near
#Visby
,
#Gotland
, housed at the
@historiskamuse
Here’s some more detail on the kastenbrust breastplate by the way… my boss and master armourer at Lancaster Armoury made this for himself, wore it to a couple of trade shows and is looking to find a forever home for it. Great for anyone portraying the first half of the 15thC
Okay, we got a bit of a fire sale on at work… some of this has already been sold, some of it hasn’t. We have multiples of some things, other things are sold out. The glaives are £350, the kastenbrust is £950, the blades can be hilted as you want for about £250 each… DM for info
broke: hurr hurrrr this sword sucks bc of reasons that are probably racist!
woke: oh, it’s sharp af and optimised to point the tip in the same direction as your hand? neat, let’s try it out 🥰
Them: "that sword sucks, there's no hand protection!!"
Narrator: The sword in question saw military use for hundreds of years alongside blades with more complex hilts—so it was obviously worthwhile.
It was used by the Janissaries, highly trained and elite Ottoman infantry.
good morning! let’s have a look at this weird beast.
once believed to belong to robert the bruce (because the victotians were mental), since carbon-dated to prove otherwise. probably a 19thc frankenstein (because the victorians were mental).
FOUR QUILLONS!
Okay, we got a bit of a fire sale on at work… some of this has already been sold, some of it hasn’t. We have multiples of some things, other things are sold out. The glaives are £350, the kastenbrust is £950, the blades can be hilted as you want for about £250 each… DM for info
15th Century Pollaxes.
Foot combat became more important during the late middle ages and so did axes both for the field and tournament.
We picture axes as barbaric weapons but they have long and complex martial systems recorded in manuals (treatises) that survive to this day.
time for my regular reminder to feel good about your heritage craft work even if it’s a bit janky, because people in history sure wouldn’t have given a fuck:
original v repro… check the quillon with the finger ring. this repro was made from all the measurements of the original, too… damnit. i yearn for medieval quality standards 😩
my probably already worn-out theory of the day is that the “senior member of house lannister” armour from The Show was based on these 2 harnesses and intended to look like an anima cuirass but didn’t quite understand the function of that…
A Half Harness belonging to Carlo Gonzaga, circa 1540.
The surface has been decorated with embossing, blueing and gilding. The breastplate is articulated from chest to waistline.
The armor is 13kg (28lb).
Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, A 632
lmao i talk a big game sometimes about wanting to make authentic Real swords/sharps, etc, but a lot of the time, the HEMA kid in me just wants to fuck around with stuff like this 😅
over 900 followers 🥹 hi everyone!
i’m katie, i obsess over historical weaponry, sometimes i try to make it myself and sometimes i learn how to fight with it ⚔️
you’ll find a mix of metalwork, HEMA and museum posts right here.
have an awesome day, drink water & buy a sword! 💜
Lancaster Armoury are looking for a home for this lovely blued globular breastplate strapped in a 14thC style. Red veg tan leathers and in-house cast bronze buckles. £650. Shiny ✨
and lo, from my humble grinder did fall… a fuckin’ gnarly axe. 630g, not polished it yet ‘cos it’s getting heat treated so i’d only have to do it again.
got a 1796 light cavalry sabre (repro) arriving today, very kindly gifted by a friend… i will be sharpening it and then i’m gonna cut bottles in the back yard but this time pretending i’m a peninsular war light company/rifles officer.
so this is a field armour for maximillian, apparently… and it’s like great, it’s very fancy but… it’s a fucking jousting armour. it’s obvious that the idea is “max pretends to lead a charge and then fucks off” ‘cos this cunt gets unhorsed and it’s utterly fucked?
working on some pure mall ninja shit because a neighbour handed me some kind of probably illegal scythe thing with a wrist cuff and a side-handle, kept miming two hands and saying what i can only assume was slovakian for “katana”…
baby’s first go on the proper grinders at work.. trying a (reenactment-style) hollow grind… the first blade i’ve ever ground, hopefully the first of *many* ❤️🔥
been a bit of a shock development, it’s a little bit earth shattering and a little bit exciting at the same time. I’m gonna be setting up shop at home again for the time being, but this time with a ton of new skills and equipment… commissions for weird small blades are now open.
something slightly different down in the sword mines this morning… somebody should buy this so i can finish it, get paid, not be overdrawn and maybe even eat… and the best part? you’ll have a sword! ✨
time to play with brassing again… got a commission to make these gauntlets look like a brass and white version of the brass and black ones on the rights
when i look at original armour vs good modern reproductions, it always makes me feel a bit weird ‘cos like we’re actually being held to a *much* higher standard than the the originals… if i’d made the helmet on left (the original) it’d be rejected ‘cos customers want perfection
hardly any of the rondel daggers in royal armouries look anything like what we tend to think of when we hear the term (or what people create when they make reproductions, what people fight with in HEMA etc)…
crystal pommel sword on the left is in the solingen blade museum, metal pommel sword on the right is on a mannequin at the royal armouries… trying to find out if the royal armouries one is a reproduction or if it’s mebbe from the same manufacturer or something…
not peened yet so we can shorten the grip (you get your choice of leather wrap, too)… workshop scales need new batteries but I reckon about 1.2kg or lighter. can include a scabbard starting from £150, will ship to wherever ✨
got a reenactment cluny-style falchion coming up for £350, super light, delft-cast bronze pommel from out new casting rig… more details and pics to follow!