The Armour Archive

I want to make a ring hilt for a great/hand and a half sword for SCA use. I already have one of Jean Paul's, now I want to make one.

I do not want to use flat stock though, I want to use 3/8 or larger rod. My question is how can you do this and not violate any weapons standards. I know a 1" ball on the ends covers this, but what about the rings?

The only thing I can think of is to put a 1" ball in the middle of eac ring. Shape the ring, cut in half, cut 1/2" off each side and weld the ball to each half. Make sense?

What if the ring is flat enough to not allow protrusion into a face grill?


------------------
Herr Winther der Trüwe

"Zu sein anstatt zu scheinen"
To be rather than to seem

<FONT SIZE="1" FACE="Courier">
Hey Winther, when I was doing mine, many people suggested that instead of doing the flat stock, use the bar stock and shape the ring shape.

Then, take and weld a half circle of the bar stock to the top of the ring on the outward side of each ring and a half circle on the bottom.

From the side the hilt would look like this

........./\
......../..\
......./....\
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
.......|....|
......|------|
......|..__..|
......|./..\.|
O=======|==|=======O
......|.\__/.|
......|......|
......|------|
........|..|
........|..|
........|..|
........|..|
........|..|
........|..|
........\__/

With the sword behind it going from top to bottom

The "=" are the bar stock and the circles are the "make the damn thing legal" device.
</font>


[This message has been edited by Jean Paul de Sens (edited 02-06-2003).]

read the rules again if i rember right you can make you ring and then add half a ring on the botom.
i have often sceen circle guards done in 5/32 rod with a smaller circle ring at every 3 hours around the clock or every 90 degrees.
so the question is not size but how far will it fit in to an sca legal helm. or does it look like it would cause much damage to either you or more importantly me one the field.

I've seen them made where the rings are flattened ovals rather than circles, so the bars don't project very far from the rattan. Also, most marshalls I've spoken to take into account that you'll have your gauntleted hand on the sword, which will prevent the bar from going into someone's helmet.

I have a tsuba made of bar stock. It's about 4" across, and has 1" diameter circles of bar stock welded at right angles to the tsuba's edge at 12, 4 and 8 o'clock. I think putting a 1" ring on the farthest-out point on the large rings would make it legal. Whether or not it also makes it look ugly is a different matter...

whats the trick to getting umlauts (the 2 dots above a vowel) when typing?!! would you ahppen to know how to get an esset (the german "B" shaped thing meaning 2 "S"'s

ß type &-#-223-; without the dashes
ä type &-#-228-; without the dashes

see http://www.asciitable.com/ for all availible characters.

[This message has been edited by Vogeljager (edited 02-12-2003).]