Q: Building an SCA legal Rene style kloben.

[Sean Powell]

As part of my new kit and shift in persona I want the opportunity to spar with more authentic weapons for my time period. Specificly I'm looking to recreate an SCA legal equvilent for the kloben (clubs, battons, whatever...) depicted in the Rene de Anjou tourney book. For reference they look like:

http://www.princeton.edu/~ezb/rene/mace.gif
http://home.armourarchive.org/members/v ... 20Club.JPG
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... ns_799.jpg

Part of me says: "Hey it was a solid wood club. Just find a 3" diameter piece of rattan and carve the thing." but I'm concerned that even if it were legal it might hit too hard on account of it's weight. I spar with friends and don't want to break them. It looses friends too quickly.

Another thought was to build up foam on a rattan core. I'm afraid that they may act too much like a boffer weapon and I want people to FEEL that they've been hit.

If it's a "sword" then all it needs is taped rattan. If it is a "mass weapon" then it needs to have 1/2" of give in padding on all striking surfaces which pretty much means 1 1/4" rattan plus 2x 3/4" padding giving me a 2 3/4" MINIMUM diameter above the cross (european suba? what would you call that thing) and tapering out to almost 5" in the head resulting in a giant pillow to fight with.

I'm looking for some outside thoughts on how to build something like this.

Thanks in advance,
Sean

[Winterfell]

Use leather, not rattan.
Or have you considered making a whale bone looking sword instead?

[Guenievre]

The other thing to consider, check the rules in your kingdom. Girard was wanting to make one of these for the recent pas, and checked into this. The trick is that if it's a "sword", even if you carve it to look like the example, it only gets to have 2 edges. If it's a mace, and padded, you get to have 4 or 8 or whatever. Not sure whether this is true everywhere though...

[Cet]

Form the batton from thick rattan and step down the striking area 1/2 and pad it. Cover the whole thing with a stitched leather cover.

[mattmaus]

Shaving down 3" rattan to that shape probably wouldn't last you very long anyway.

The skin makes the rattan a lot tougher.

Seems like most sticks mush from the inside out.

[jester]

Marshals reading this thread:

Can we alter the weapons construction standards to allow weapons of this sort? It seems that simply shaving a thick piece of rattan into the proper shape and covering it with leather would be fine.

[Sean Powell]

Marshals reading this thread:

Can we alter the weapons construction standards to allow weapons of this sort? It seems that simply shaving a thick piece of rattan into the proper shape and covering it with leather would be fine.

Well as a Marshal myself I can give you part of the answer. We can change the rules to anything we want IF we convince the society marshal that it is deserved and needed. That devolves into a larger more complicated discussion but a lot of it boils down to "Is it safe?"

Honestly I'm not yet convinced that a rattan baseball bat is 100% safe. I may build a pair and seek experimental weapon status to test them but right now I wouldn't back a petition to change the rules... not yet anyway.

I did take a look at the 2006 Marshals Handbook and I believe that the East Kingdom (where I am) defaults to society minimum's for both weapon and armor standards. I found 3 sections that may pertain to this:

V. Acknowledgement of blows.
E. All fighters are expected to take into account the nature of the weapon being used by their opponent...

Which implies that if I call it a "sword" my opponent should treat it like a "sword" and take shots from only the front and back edges but not the flats. They should also not take hip shots as "kills" although this is likely to be a pas only weapon so kills are likely to be counted blows.

VII. Weapon Standards
A. General
5. All weapons shall have all cutting edges and thrusting tips marked with contrasting tape.
6. The striking surface of all weapons, including the tip, shall be wrapped in a manner that allows no rattan splinters to protrude.

So if it is a rattan "sword" I could mark 6 or 8 "cutting surfaces" and nothing precludes me from doing it beyond a marshal telling me not be be an idiot and banning the weapon anyway. The striking surface COULD be covered in leather without duct-tape which would at least give it a more natural color rather then grey duct-tape.

VII. Weapon Standards
C. Single-Handed Mass Weapons
2. ... The head shall allow at least a 1/2 inch (12.7mm) of progressive give between the striking surface and the weapon haft.

Which means that if I call it a Single-Handed Mass Weapon where I don't need to mark edges on it I need to build it like a giant poofta. I'm not a fan of maces other then clacker maces because most foam maces arn't recognized because they don't have as sharp of an impact. And the worst part is to get 1/2" of compression you really need 3/4 to 1" of foam. Maybe if I only pad the thickest portion and have "courtesy padding" making up the rest of the shape it wouldn't look too bad.

Any other ideas please keep them coming.

Sean

[jester]

I only ask because the current rules (and the rule-sets that came before it dating back to at least 2000) do not allow for the construction of kolben or whale-bone simulators.

In the case of the kolben, I understand the hesitation. But a whale-bone simulator is essentially a rattan sword with no marked edges. As our understanding advances and we can more closely approach accurate simulation of medieval tournaments it seems a little silly to have rules that require, in all cases, that our clubs be marked as swords or padded as maces. Particularly since we allow unpadded glaives.

That's just my opinion and it's worth every penny you paid for it.

[Vitus von Atzinger]

Master Cad has one- it hurt me.

[BdeB]

Master Eldred made one, though I doubt it was ever fought with. It's just a really big stick of rattan that he planed down.

[Sean Powell]

Master Cad has one- it hurt me.

Vitus,
Would you (or Master Cad) please describe how this Klobben was built so I DON'T duplicate the design. I'd like not to knowingly hurt my worthy opponents.

Thanks,
Sean

[Ivo]

Dear friends,

thus speaketh the SmartAssNativeSpeaker(TM): It is KOLBEN!