15th c. Belt Hardware -ideas and sources
Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 11:38 pm
I got a wild hair the other day to make a late 15th century styled belt buckle that could be worn on a modern belt. Having nothing appropriate in the way of materials, I grabbed a piece of 3/8" bar stock and started smithing.
Sometime around the two dozenth upsetting and drawing down, I seem to have taken leave of my senses, and decided to eschew any blatantly modern tools like welders and grinders and flexible shaft tools and do it all by hand with techniques the medievals would be familiar with.
It still needs finish sanding.
(pics are links) 
Holy smokes, what a project! That much forging on this small an object ought to be against some kind of law!
Never Again! ...or at least not until enough time passes that I forget how much fiddling with this little thing sucked.
...turned out kinda nice, though.
Even more recently, a series of unusual events has given me cause to want to use the buckle in a reenactment/SCA context.
In the late 15th, a 11/2" belt would be considered unusually, unfashionably large for a man, except, it seems, on certain swordbelts made around the turn of the century. Could be worse.
Fortunately, studs, keepers and bezels seem to be present, if not common, for both women's and men's belts in the late 15th.
I'm done smithing tiny hardware for a while, and given the big steel buckle, I don't think I can get away with using brass. yea, nay?
Are there any sources of steel/cast iron belt hardware out there? Or hardware that can be adapted for use on a belt? I'd really prefer not to go with pewter, but if I must, what would be good sources for it?
Sometime around the two dozenth upsetting and drawing down, I seem to have taken leave of my senses, and decided to eschew any blatantly modern tools like welders and grinders and flexible shaft tools and do it all by hand with techniques the medievals would be familiar with.
It still needs finish sanding.
(pics are links) 
Holy smokes, what a project! That much forging on this small an object ought to be against some kind of law!
Never Again! ...or at least not until enough time passes that I forget how much fiddling with this little thing sucked.
...turned out kinda nice, though.
Even more recently, a series of unusual events has given me cause to want to use the buckle in a reenactment/SCA context.
In the late 15th, a 11/2" belt would be considered unusually, unfashionably large for a man, except, it seems, on certain swordbelts made around the turn of the century. Could be worse.
Fortunately, studs, keepers and bezels seem to be present, if not common, for both women's and men's belts in the late 15th.
I'm done smithing tiny hardware for a while, and given the big steel buckle, I don't think I can get away with using brass. yea, nay?
Are there any sources of steel/cast iron belt hardware out there? Or hardware that can be adapted for use on a belt? I'd really prefer not to go with pewter, but if I must, what would be good sources for it?