Viking Shield Progress

After careful research, the viking shield project has turned out nicely. I opted for as much historical accuracy as possible. Shield body was constructed with 1/4" poplar planks, joined edge to edge with glue and dowels. The back was covered with canvas. Initial canvas placement caused a lot of bowing in the planks because I had forgot to varnish the wood first. I removed the canvas, wiped off the glue, waited for everything to dry, sanded, varnished and reapplied the canvas with glue. Bowing still resulted but I managed to remove most of distortion by pressing between two pieces of plywood for a few days. The shield should be completely straight after the handle is added. Tasks remaining: sew leather edging around interior and exterior rim, attach shield boss and handle, paint back canvas, paint design.

Degreasing Mail, Round 2

After quenching, the mail had quite a bit of burned oil and required another round of degreasing with mineral spirits, followed by a vigorous sloshing in soapy water, several rinses, and another trip to the oven at 200F to dry it out quickly. A fair amount of oil remains after this round of cleaning, but for now it is what it is. At a later time I might try wiping it down with a sponge and alcohol because whatever grim remains will need to be wiped off.

The heat coloring is not as irregular as it appears in these photos. Some of the variation is due to differences in the way different areas of the mail are stretched, and when worn the color will appear more uniform

Oven Blueing Chain Mail

After degreasing the mail shirt, I let it air out for about 2 hours and started to preheat the oven. It seemed impossible to remove all the grime with mineral spirits, so I decided to risk a soapy water bath using my trusty 5 gallon bucket. Much to my relief, after 2 or 3 water-soap-swish cycles, the water started running clear. I rinsed the mail 4 or 5 times until there were no more bubbles in the rinse water, then transferred to a towel for a quick dry.

Moments later the mail was in the oven. I figured the mail would be difficult to heat evenly through-out, and therefore color unevenly if not careful, and I was right...

I set the oven to 375F (75F below my desired temp) and let the chain mail come up to temp for 30 minutes before progressing to 450F. I had planned on rotating and flipping the mail every 10 minutes, but we had unexpected guests and I let the mail sit in the oven at 450F for an hour. Big mistake! Most of the mail turned out perfectly with a nice golden-orange hue, but the links around the neck and some others on the back obviously hit somewhere near 525F due to uneven oven heating, and turned to a dark purple color. The rings are very small and those exposed to the exterior will heat up quickly.

In a panic I pulled the mail out and quenched in water. I was able to partially repair the darkened links by using a fine buffing dremmel attachment to knock the links back to their starting state. At this point the mail shirt looked like crap.

I put the mail back into the oven, this time at 450F, and watched them carefully. The blued links did not darken any more, and those I had buffed darkened, unevenly, though not as bad. Finally, I quenched the mail shirt in an oil/water bath of about 4 gallons total, dried on a towel for a few minutes then placed back in the oven at 200F to remove the water. I am happier with the result than I was with the plain mail shirt, so I'm going to call this a success.

In the future, I would heat the oven to 415F and turn the mail shirt shirt often, every 5 to 10 minutes, by taking the shirt out of the oven (using oven mitts), place into a large metal bucket, refold and then reposition in the oven. Go slow!

Be warned: ovens may not heat evenly. If you have a convection oven, good on you. If not, be very careful about areas near the top and sides reaching +50F the median temperature.

Note: I noticed a very small amount of corrosion on about 20 links. I should be able to clean this up quickly with a dremmel & jewelers cloth polishing mandrel. In light of this finding, I would advise quenching in 100% vegetable oil.

Chain Mail Care & Maintainence

Chain Mail rusts easily and can be a pain to care for, so I set about doing some research on how to clean and maintain a mail shirt. The $114 mail hauberk I received was covered in oil and grim, apparently a result of a graphite spray applied by the manufacturer, and I really wanted to clean it before wearing it. But how?

Historically, mail was cleaned by putting it in a barrel with sand and rolling the barrel down a hill, but this seemed a bit dramatic to me so I reviewed my options. Some people recommended a barrel of sand on a treadmill, others recommended kitty litter. One person suggested using a bath tub filled with soapy water, rinsing well in a shower and placing the mail shirt in a 200F oven for 10 minutes to ensure prompt drying. Through all the chaos, one person's voice of reason rang clear: degreasing was a no-brainer: put the mail shirt in a 5 gallon bucket with 1 gallon of mineral spirits, let the shirt dry and then soak the shirt in acrylic floor polish (such as Future) to prevent corrosion. Ok, I thought: done and done.

But I was not completely satisfied with the nice shiny appearance of my mail shirt. I wanted something that looked old, and lived-in. Fresh off the success of my shield boss experiment, I figured heat-bluing a chain shirt would be a great way to add some depth to an otherwise uninteresting piece, and also protect it against the elements...

Photos: mail cleaning process with bucket, mineral spirits, and towels. Note the amount of grime removed during degreasing, and my failed attempt to filter and reuse the mineral spirits.

Bronzed Shield Boss

I'm really happy with the way this shield boss turned out: I'm not even going to bother etching or engraving it.

The boss was baked at 475F for about 30 minutes, then quenched it in water, dried it, and treated it with a fine mist (spray bottle) of vinegar & salt solution to corrode some of the finish. After 30 minutes of corrosion, I washed the shield boss with soap and water, wiped it down with alcohol, baked at 520F for 40 minutes, then quenched with water and oil I poured about 2 cups of vegetable oil into about 2 gallons of water, and the oil formed on the surface).

The result was a very interesting patina. There is a very fine dark lacing / marbling on the surface, though it's hard to tell from this photo.

Oven Bluing Steel

The shield boss arrived today from Windrose Armories. Rather than just slap it on the plank shield, I'll customize like I've done with previous hilt work.

I removed the nice, shiny finish it had with a pad of scothbrite, then went over that coarse finish with a fine dremmel buff to give it satin, hammered appearance.

Next step will be oven bluing -- this should be no problem with this mild steel shield boss.

I may try to buff a design onto the boss, then re-blue, or possibly etch something using the carved wax and 9 volt battery process.

Temperature in Celsius.

Viking Shield

Historically, Viking shields were made with a wood similar to basswood, and designed to be lightweight with a typical thickness of 1/4", diameter ranging from 24" to 30", and weighing about 7 pounds. Cut for a center grip with a metal shield boss to protect the hand, shields were used to parry rather block. A linen or leather cover greatly increased the durability of the shield by preventing splitting: without linen, a shield would split and become useless after about 4 solid axe blows, with linen, the shield would not split, and could still be used effectively after many more blows.
My goal for this project will be to create an authentic looking shield that is as historically accurate as possible, lightweight, but strong enough to be useful during a Zombie Apocalypse. For the core I will use a combination of 1/8" plywood, 1/8" poplar planks, and canvas, cut to 24" diameter.

Westmalle Tripel

Westmalle trappist ales are world famous, and their tripel scores a 99 at ratebeer.com

This 5-gallon batch was brewed with ingredients from High Gravity brewing. Grains were mashed a bit high at 158F for 45 minutes, followed by a 60-30-5 hop schedule and a 1 hour boil.

Oxblood Baldric

This baldric with attached sword frog was made with 2" vegetable tanned belt strap blank and brass hardware. Belt was grooved, embossed then hammered. Oxblood dye was applied liberally, then a top coat of tan gel antique applied. Three coats of atom wax and this was done. The frog is a bit awkward and will probably switch it out for a more durable suspension system.

Sword Antiquing

A $70 carbon steel Practical Hand and Half served as the basis of an antiquing experiment. After stripping the fake leather off I disassembled the hilt by removing a small portion of the wood handle, tapped the pommel down about 1/8" then filed the mushroomed peen off with a dremmel. The wooden handle was epoxied to the tang and required some careful work but managed to come off in a reusable form.
The blade was antiqued with a vinegar salt solution of approx. 4 tsp salt to 1 cup vinegar that was sprayed as a fine mist and allowed to corrode the blade for 18 hours. The heavily corroded blade was washed with soap and water and a brillo pad and then most of the rust was polished away, leaving a heavily worn but cared for patina. A satin sheen was applied on the high points with a dremmel satin buffer mandrel.
The cross guard and pommel were fired in an oven at 500F for 2 hours to produce a slight golden bronze tone, then hot quenched in vegetable oil.
The custom sword handle is cord wrapped 2 oz leather over waxed thread with latigo risers.

Customized CAS Hanwei Practical Single-Hand Sword

I'm still in the experimental phase so I went quick and dirty again. I'm more or less satisfied with the results of this project given the money and modest time investment. I'm almost ready to make a bit more serious attempt.
I stripped off the fake leather grip to reveal a hardwood handle with pronounced lathe work. Rather than rework the wood I decided to simply cover it. I measured and cut 2 oz leather to fit then soaked it in hot water for about 5 minutes. I did not skiv and overlap the leather so again the lacing looks a bit amateur, but it is mostly straight. I will be pre-dying and skiving all seams and gluing the leather down in the next few handle projects, and if I get another lathed handle like this I will rework or replace the wood.
While the grip leather was wet I wrapped the handle with cord and brought out the woodwork detail. After dying the details were hard to see, so I lightly weathered the grip with steel wood then applied gel antique. Finally I added two thin bands of lighter leather at both ends.
Rather than create a wood core scabbard from scratch I just wrapped the stock fiberglass scabbard in 4 oz leather, and left a small amount of the throat and chape exposed. Next time I will make a new wood core. I would have preferred 2 oz leather but the price of 4 oz was 1/3 the cost. I carefully measured the scabbard diameter at 6 inch intervals and cut a piece of leather with an extra 1/4 inch width. The leather was very stiff so I had to soak it in a pot of warm water for about 10 minutes before I could wrap it.
I glued on 2 mm cord risers and wrapped the leather. I stitched up the back and let it dry, then did an experiment and removed the leather, re-soaked it and added some simple leather tooling details. This worked OK though I may try to carefully measure the riser locations and do the tooling before applying the leather to the scabbard.
I dyed the 2mm leather cord a dark brown and restitched the back. Next time I will definitely skiv the leather and allow 3/8" of an inch overlap because the butted seam on the back looks a little amateur.
The suspension system will consist of two dark brown straps that run between each pair of risers.

Custom Hand-and-a-Half Sword Handle

My first attempt fell a bit short. I was very pleased with the lacing effect the packaging twine had, but the leather shrunk considerably on the handle when it dried and came up short on the edges. I think the risers added about 1/4 inch additional length. Also, the lacing was twisted and looked sloppy. Growing weary of failure, I made multiple careful measurements and created a pattern to be used to cut the leather for this Hanwei Practical Bastard Sword. Also visible are the additional 2mm leather cord risers. I soaked the leather for about 1 minute in warm tap water, let it dry on a towel for a few minutes, poked twice the number of threading holes as before, and lace.
I will let it dry over night and will probably need to trim and re-lace the lower half, soak with a sponge and wrap with twine.

Wood Core Scabbard II

Rather than trying to chisel a hollow sheath out of two pieces of 1/4 inch poplar, I realized it would be much easier to build up the interior space using additional wood. The interior space is a little too thick but I will line the top with either lambs wool or leather. Once the wood core is assembled and glued I will be able to shape the cross section into an oval shape.

Leather Gorget Pattern

Scale is 1/4" squares. When cutting out each pattern, fold the pattern in half and cut so the sides left-to-right are equal. Included is the metal gorget (baseline) and leather gorget.

Leather Belt

Brown leather, basic tooling, beveled and burnished edges, brass findings.

Scabbard Wood Core

Both halves after chiseling and extensive sanding. Next step is trimming down to size and shaping exterior.

Scabbard Wood Core

Step 1: Poplar wood, 1/4" thick, traced sword outline on both halves and chiseled out core. Next step will be sanding and shaping interior to ensure best fit.

Embellished Mail Shirt

This mail shirt is an incredibly cool "canvas" for my next project. Mail was used from the time of the Romans through the Renaissance. The mail pictured here is not quite historically accurate because the rings are round instead of flat, and the rings are butted together instead of riveted (or welded) for added strength. The rings are 16 gauge, round wire, zinc plated, with 8mm inner diameter.
I had planned on lining the edges with leather or suede, and doing some Celtic, Saxon or Viking knot work using real leather cord. The leather could be folded over the edges and stitched through the rings. The mail is zinc coated to prevent rust but it should still be kept oiled, so I'm not sure how leather will work out with that. Maybe black or very dark brown leather, with a slightly lighter cord for the knot work?
I'm not quite sure what to do with this piece so I'm looking for comments, thoughts and suggestions.

Sword and Scabbard

I decided to go with a brown scabbard with cranberry accents. The only things remaining are the two suspension straps (cranberry) but I don't have the correct rivets yet. Before and after photos.

Frankenscabbard

I need a smaller hole puncher thingy, but this actually looks better than I thought it would. If I had it to do over again I would have spent the extra $20 for a whole piece of leather. The back doesn't look so nice, however. I think in the future I will wrap the leather first, hold it in place with a few stitches during the molding process, then cut the seam down to size and stitch from the bottom up.

Custom Scabbard

Leather wrapped, (manufacturer) fiberglass core scabbard, molded and stitched. The suspension straps will go around both sides of the top fuller molding. The leather is from an $8 scrap bag and I had to stitch 4 pieces together to cover the length of the scabbard. Hopefully the stitching effect will look artistic and not end up evoking a Raggedy Ann motif.

Custom Sword Handle

Removed existing fake leather handle. Cord wrapped, covered with leather, stretched and stitched, dyed cranberry and antiqued. Matching scabbard this to come.

Lamellar Front

Construction phase is very time consuming...

Lamellar first row construction

"What was a I thinking" moment: this is going to take a long time. I've started constructing the first row. The overlapping lames have been cemented together and all that remains is punching about 60 holes, stitching the lames together and at the same time stitching row 1 to row 2. Cutting the shapes and dying them was not very time consuming, but the construction phase is slow!
Pictured here are the last two rows of the front of the breast plate. The top row is piece of tooled 9 oz leather, the bottom row is the overlapping lames.

Antiquing Leather Lamellar

Huge breakthrough today! Here are the secrets to leather with an antique finish: 1) water based earth tone dye, worked in pretty good and excess wiped off 2) gently bend and twist leather while it is drying to prevent stiffness and open up additional leather grain 3) darker water based dye 2nd coat 4) a darker stain (not dye) worked in to the grain thoroughly then excess wiped off the higher surfaces and polished to a satin sheen 5) a vegetable acid polish applied with a sponge (think faux plaster walls) 6) a moisturizing polish finish to restore the leather's pliability. Steps 5 and 6 are omitted from this image.

Lamellar Dye

I learned a couple of things about leather dye last night. I am using an alcohol-based dye that tends to cause leather to stiffen. Stiff leather won't be an issue if I plan to boil the leather in bees wax, but for clothing this will be a problem.

To keep leather soft and flexible use a water-based dye and manipulate the leather a few times while it is drying. Also: before dying use a leather bleach, let that dry, then dampen the leather with a spray bottle or damp sponge. After the dying process is complete apply a leather oil to increase flexibility.


I'll use water-based dyes for the remainder of the lamellar colors. Luckily I had opted for a varying earth tone pattern, so it shouldn't be a problem if I switch dyes half way through in applications of first, second, and third coats.

Is there too much variation in the colors now? I think the differences in color needs to be more subtle: noticeable but not eye-catching!

Lamellar Front

I can't decide if I like the middle ground between clothing grade 6oz leather lames and 12oz armor grade lames. The 9oz strap leather I've used may turn out to be a bastard hybrid ill suited to any use! If so, I can always use this as the back piece. Next task is figuring out how to sew these rows of lames to a suede backing, with vertically overlapping rows. Twelve stitching holes per lame, 72 lames, 3 holes per minute: I better fire up some some reruns and settle in for a long night of hole punching!

Leather Lamellar

There's a really cool looking lamellar styled vest I've seen that uses hour glass shaped leather plates. It's a spin on traditional lamellar that uses a lighter weight leather without any metal plates or scales. The vest I will attempt will have slightly thicker leather so that it can be hardened, and the plates will overlap more to increase the average thickness to about 1/4 inch. Here's the start of the bottom row of scales that will be stitched to a suede backing and the row above. If this turns out well I might try a different version with even thicker lames!