The Armour Archive

I looked in the rule book, no information to come of it that I found. All sorts of specs on what a weapon can and cannot be. Just saying this might be good information for someone to know.

I dont like cup hilts, they just dont look, good. So I wanted to make a basket hilt, Yes makes a basket hilt. I'm all about DIY. I'm really looking for no shit specs on what a Basket Hilt has to be to be deemed legal.

Tips, hints, Hacks? Lets hear em'...

*gauntlets*cough cough cough

ehhh. I have had my fingers broken enough...
Good looking out though

What gauntlets were you using? I've never had worse than a sore nuckle

Look at a gauntlet, try to have similar coverage with your basket hilt/demo gauntlet combo.

As the hands are not legal targets and blocking with your hands is a bad practice that should be unlearned you can start with bar grill specks from a helm.
1" max gap with 3/16" bars and/or 16 gauge steel.

Once you have a prototype have someone model the piece and looks for gaps in coverage.
Then do some testing against the pell.
I would tape dead basket to the pell and then attach it to the rattan and beat on the pell some more.

Look for places that need more reinforcement and inspect the welds.
Put the basket into service and design the mark2 version.

buddy of mine made a hilt that resembled a closed full gauntlet.

A bare minimum basket hilt is pretty easy to make. If you f*ck up the design and construction, you don't die. It makes it a good project.

Spooky, can you weld? Bar stock basket hilts are usually welded in some way or another.

I'm not a Marshal but the things I would want to see as a craftsman and fighter would be:

Bar spacing that will not admit a sword tip to contact the fingers. A couple people I know have had fingers damaged when a sword struck an unprotected tip of a finger or had a sword slip in between bars and crushed a finger through levering action. I use a 1" standard since our rattan has a minimum of 1 1/4" requirement.

Sufficient back of the hand protection to protect what a demi gauntlet does not. Also make sure that the interior of the basket is large enough to house the hand, demi gaunt AND the rattan.

A strong means of attaching the rattan that will not break in combat. If welding tabs to the top and bottom of the basket- Don't use radiator hose clamps to hold the rattan. They break. Some make duct tape rope with a para cord core in its place. There is a thread on it here somewhere.

A muffler ubolt welded to the top of the hilt with a cup and bolt arrangement at the bottom is one way that has been sucessfull.

I like there to be a flat at the top of the front of the basket to catch downward blows. Some do not.

Johann ColdIron wrote: A strong means of attaching the rattan that will not break in combat. If welding tabs to the top and bottom of the basket- Don't use radiator hose clamps to hold the rattan. They break. Some make duct tape rope with a para cord core in its place. There is a thread on it here somewhere.


I like there to be a flat at the top of the front of the basket to catch downward blows. Some do not.

After trying hose clamps and motorcycle muffler clamps, I use only strapping tape to secure my baskets. Take end of the tape an stick it where you want it, then twist into a 'rope.' Wrap that baby tightly a few times and then finish with flat tape.

I've never had one fail in use. The joint may loosen up with wear and tear, but you just redo it, or add more tape.

Leif
Old Tired Squire

losthelm wrote:As the hands are not legal targets and blocking with your hands is a bad practice that should be unlearned you can start with bar grill specs from a helm.
1" max gap with 3/16" bars and/or 16 gauge steel.
. . .
Look for places that need more reinforcement and inspect the welds.
Put the basket into service and design the mark2 version.

But you needn't necessarily build it as tight as for a helmet, for a couple of reasons:

• No part of your eyeball nor your central nervous system is at stake
  With a basket hilt, you need to stay careful of weight; too heavy is bad, slowing your sword

The thing I learned with my first basket hilt was the bars don't need to follow helm standards, and the bars should especially not be overly heavy. Repeat, avoid bars that are too thick. You can build densely spaced bars without getting too heavy if they are thin bars. It's worth the fuss to make the design look pretty. That's what they did back then -- schiavonas, later there are Stirling hilts, other Scottish hilts and seventeenth-century ironmongery in general for backswords and broadswords; these two were similarly furnished.

In the sixteenth century, there were often lesser amounts of bars sweeping around the hilt; more than a simple crossbar, sometimes as much as a rapier's. Rapiers of necessity featured the most -- swords of war using gauntlets might manage with less and often enough did. Oakeshott is a good ref on the developments of the "arms of the hilt," complete with diagrammatic sketches. These ought to inspire.

Wide bar spacing in a basket can always be compensated for with a strongly sewn in liner of light leather or cloth. Red is a bright, traditional color. Don't suppose there's much wrong with deep blue. Black is rather boring in this context, purple, um, imperial. Some Scottish hilts seem to have used brown, and we don't think the brown was simply the result of the dye fading. No grounds for thinking multicolor, nohow.

Some wrist coverage to the back-edge of the sword. Some like to give it a cutaway to accommodate the wrist in some techniques, keeping the more extensive coverage toward the knuckles. (Such basket hilts can come right- and left-handed.) Even incorporated quillons to the front of the basket if the all-up weight of the guard is not too great.

If you use tabs on the basket to fasten it to the rattan, try putting the forward tab on the back edge -- at the wrist guard part of the hilt. On striking with the blade, the basket tends to continue the rotational motion of the strike. This easily bends a tab located down on the true-edge of the sword. It doesn't bend one on the other side of the rattan.

I like to rasp grips with a somewhat rounded rectangular section into my rattan for edge orientation and feel, and a little relief for the base of the thumb. I like having a basket whose bearings upon the rattan are also straight-sided, U configuration, or anything with straight sides intended to sit on flat rattan and have an open side or two (top or bottom) to allow for even the thickest rhino-hunter rattan. Both bearings, blade-side and pommel-side.

I'm all about DIY. I'm really looking for no shit specs on what a Basket Hilt has to be to be deemed legal.

The sole no-shit spec is that the hand, wrist, and fingerbones be hard covered -- by one means or another, gaunt, basket, even fingershields, God help us. With that accomplished, they are all "deemed

• legal." A mitt gauntlet may combine with as little as a single-bar knuckle bow like a plainass cutlass guard. More a bit of extra reinforcement of the mitt than a complete coverage, conveniently limiting how much dent maintenance you're stuck with.

Johann ColdIron wrote:Spooky, can you weld? Bar stock basket hilts are usually welded in some way or another.

Yes, I weld.

losthelm wrote:
Look for places that need more reinforcement and inspect the welds.
Put the basket into service and design the mark2 version.

We think alike, I dig it. Already thought about that whole blurb actually. I have been looking at the design and structure of these pretty close. I think I have a good plan in my head

Caius705 wrote:What gauntlets were you using? I've never had worse than a sore nuckle

I have been fighting and doing other horrible things with my body for years, I Dont like Gauntlets, simply put, they are uncomfortable. And I dont punch block. But some ass hats using two handed weapons like to "redirect" shots to the hands, And I'm not about that.

Thanks again for the feed back. Yall are really making me regret joining the SCA 11 years into my fighting career.

When I'm done I'll post pics and whatnot. Stoked

If gauntlets are that uncomfortable, I get the idea SpookyEgill has never ever tried on a good one that fits his hand. Are the gaunts around Fayetteville all really that bad?

If you don't like a certain beer, would I be right to jam that it is the best beer in the world down your throat? No, it wouldn't. I appreciate your input, I don't like them.

Da' shakur

Which does nothing to clear up the mystery of it all, nor the mystery of why you're working up that degree of vehemence about it. I appreciate it's a matter of your taste -- now since I like both baskets and gauntlets for different reasons, none of which are centered around the style of the things (it's that way for many who post here), I'm still at IDGI.

I have found it both cheaper and easier to do a mock up of the wire work using wire.
the big fuzzy pipe cleaners from the local craft shop are a lot cheaper than trial and error.
If I like the design I use urethane to make it a bit more stable.
acrylic floor was may do the same thing in several coats.

Good idea, I just might use it.

Konstanin, I use a lacrosse glove with a Basket, I just like the way the basket feels, and it gives me a sense of " I'm more likely not to break my hands".

I have never put on a pair of gauntlets and been like "wow, thats perfect" And who knows, I might one day, Til then I'll stick to my baskets. Thanks though

Spooky,

Since it doesn't appear that you have been welcomed to the archive yet, Welcome to the archive!

On the archive, most folks will do whatever they can to help you. Mostly, they help those that are willing to help themselves first. Folks make suggestions based on years of experience. We don't know you, we don't know what skills, tools, etc you have. When you reply, be aware that we don't know what you are thinking when you type it. Im sure you don't want to come off like a douche to someone trying to help you.

I suggest, however, doing some research:
- I know that there are patterns on the internet.
- I am sure that someone in your local SCA group has a basket hilt that you can take basic measurements from to come up with your own design.
- Try experimenting

More help might be found in the Design & Construction section of the forum.

Wot Fred sed, 'cos Fred Said Right.

Well, to baskets. Lostie's post about design exercises with big pipe cleaners is among the best suggestions. Sketches, too. They need really be no more than diagrammatic lines; that's enough to go on.

Schiavona style can be sketched in round stock, but looks a lot more like itself in piercework in plate. Mixes of round stock, half round stock etc. with plate parts are frequently encountered in later sorts of baskethilts -- it doesn't all have to be linear forms. Again, looking at a lot of sixteenth-century sword hilts will give you a real feel for the arty things they got up to in hilts then.

And later, too, such as seventeenth (lapping back into latest sixteenth) and into eighteenth like the below examples... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schiavona-Morges.jpg


Sinclair hilt, or the similar Pappenheimer (L), Schiavonas with their cathead pommels, other hilts.


Sinclair.

In 2003, Joe Pittman of the SFI wrote:But for my own clarity, my take on it is this. The S shaped guard is the Sinclair part. May or may not be accompanied by a variety of knucklebows, i.e. sailboar, clamshells or one of a variety of baskets. Back swords, broad swords, cutlasses,or sabers may be considered Sinclairs according to the guard. So the MS SECS is a Sinclair guarded backsword.

Multiple views of one

From here on Sword Forum International.

S-bar Scottish. I picked this modern repro effort out of the cloud for its simple form, easily read in the views on this page.
Same outfit, different piece -- earlier style.

http://fallingangelslosthighways.blogsp ... asket.html

And more English hilts from Brian Moffatt's blog:
http://fallingangelslosthighways.blogsp ... erers.html
http://fallingangelslosthighways.blogsp ... ost-2.html
Putting the 'Scot' in Scottish Rite.

I have ideas, I just wanted to know what the actual specs are.
Looked at patterns on the web, but they dont give specs of what rod to use and how far apart they should be.
I have asked a few guys at the park, and looked, but at the time I was just gonna buy them.

And most of the time I'm thinking "please give me a short answer, with less filler" people take that as me being an asshole, but its really just me trying to get an answer, thats all


thanks for the help again.

Egill, the short answer began with "The sole no-shit spec..." There are no "actual specs," as we've not found a reason there should be, in forty years' experience. We've been trying to tell you to seek your own comfort and taste in baskethilts -- I'd assumed you'd want to design something prettier than the basic gridwork of an Ashcraft Armory style simple basket.

SpookyEgill wrote:And most of the time I'm thinking "please give me a short answer, with less filler" people take that as me being an asshole, but its really just me trying to get an answer, thats all


thanks for the help again.

If I was going to make one, I would use the armor specs for a bargrill
From the marshal's handbook

3. Face guards shall prevent a 1-inch (25.4mm) diameter dowel from entering into any of the face guard openings.
4. The face guard shall extend at least 1 inch (25.4mm) below the bottom of the chin and jaw line when the head is held erect.
5. Bars used in the face guard shall be steel of not less than 3/16 inch (4.8mm) in diameter, or equivalent. If the span between crossbars is less than 2 inches (50.8mm), 1/ 8-inch (3.18mm) diameter bars may be used.

Ignoring #4.

Get so a 1" dowel won't enter and 3/16ths with no crossbars or 1/8th with crossbars at 2".
I have seen rings as the 'crossbarss', they look cool.

Figure "Hey, if it is good enough to protect this pretty face, it's good enough for my booger-hooks.

Again, if you go building it bargrill-tight, make sure it isn't also as heavy, or you won't like the results.

SpookyEgill wrote: Yall are really making me regret joining the SCA 11 years into my fighting career.

BTW I mean, I really wish I could have started sooner... just to make more sense.

Come to any conclusions about what you'll try?

I'll post pictures when I have a prototype ready. Just bought the steel.

Spent last week at a dagorhir event, so that stunted progress abit, but hey, gotta get those fights in.

So how does the pennsic site look?
I know dagonhir uses a lot of the same structures.