MarkG

The term "squib" meaning a firecracker, goes back 400 years or so. Theaters in Shakespeare's day used squibs for sound effects. William Bradford's Of Plimoth Plantation describes the Billington boys finding an open barrel of gunpowder on the Mayflower and making some squibs. They started setting them off without covering the barrel!

I have found from experience that a loose ball can develop a spin going down the barrel. This will make it veer to one side. I use a patched ball, even with a smoothbore to prevent this. As for shooting stance, pistols were short-range weapons. Barrel length has a major effect on ball speed with black powder. The muzzle velocity of a pistol ball is less than half that for a musket. Pistols typically shoot smaller balls which means lower mass to surface which also affects the range. Bottom line - if you have time to assume a Weaver stance then your target is too far away.

Apparently the operative word is "wade" instead of "swim". There is still talk of using small boats. Mine are too big.

Candles were expensive in the 17th century and they take up a lot of space. Ships usually used oil lamps. As far as I can tell, these were short with a wide base and a wick on the top. Very few lights were allowed on a ship. Typically the only lights would be a running light in a lantern hung from the stern, a light for the captain and/or navigator to use, a light in the binnacle, and, possibly, a single light below decks. Even four lights constituted a fire hazard and many ships burned.

At Plimoth Plantation, if someone asks about herbal remedies for a cold they advise smoking tobacco. It is hot and warm so it dries the lungs. The way that tobacco was used changed over the 17th century. Early in the century pipes had small bowls and a large hole through the stem. The tobacco was consumed in just a few deep puffs. The referred to it as "Drinking tobacco". The tobacco at the time was very strong. A friend who tried smoking an early strain said that it had him talking to spirits. As tobacco became more common, smokers took more time. The bowls became larger and the hole in the stems became smaller. When dating an archeological site, archeologists will base the age on the size and shape of the bowls (preferred) or of the stem holes (they tend to survive).

Knife throwing is not really suitable for combat. Normally you throw from a fixed location, trying to time the rotations of the knife to the time it takes to reach the target. In combat your target would not be a fixed distance and probably would not be still. That makes it very undependable. There is at least a 75% chance that the knife will hit at the wrong point of its rotation and bounce off harmlessly. The same thing is true for tomahawks. You can throw them at a fixed target at a fixed distance but you are better off keeping a hold of them in a fight.

If Silas comes, he can bring his portable shower.

Do you have any specifics? Will the event be open to the public? What are the amenities? Is there running water? Showers?

If it heats up fast, it cools down fast. Also the loading process is critical to your own ship. Mythbuster's treatment of the splinter effect of ships guns is deeply flawed and ,unfortunately , is one of their less thought out episodes. Land gunners don't always know what they are talking about when it comes to the tall ships. I like the MythBusters and agree that sometimes their testing and research is not enough. The episode in which they tested a sword breaking and called it Busted was greatly inaccurate. I have been recreating Medieval times for 17 years and have seen my fair share of blades breaking on each other, shields, armor, etc. I need to take a road trip to these maritime museums to see all this cool stuff I read about on these boards. I think I will try to hit the San Diego Maritime Musem within the year. The Mythbusters sword-breaking episode was one of their worst. They were using the strict definition that one sword had to cut another. Just breaking it wasn't enough. They also propagated the idea that you only parry with the flat of the blade. You have to go back to 15th century two-handed swords before you find anyone doing that. The later parries just don't work unless you use the edge.

You could get them to go out of the barrel but you would be hard-pressed to hit anything with them. The coals would scatter every which way. You might even set your own ship on fire.

You're back in the contest for next year.

What Lob really needs is a spatula. Michael and Jessica know why.

Whenever I'm doing pirate I'm wearing a rigging knife and marlin spike with a hemp lanyard I braided connecting them. But, I wear them on my belt under my waistcoat so they are not obvious.

Last year was a good start. This one should be better since the organizers show every sign of learning from the first one. We thought that Teslacon was more interesting that standard cons. It is an immersion event with a story line - almost like a murder mystery. We were at World Steam Expo and very few people tried to stay in character. At Teslacon several people are in character all weekend.

Setting us up to break our hearts...........again.....anyway i need a fiddle player....im bringing the guitar and printed out numerous sea shanties...... I'll bring my Pirate song book (from No Quarter Given).

When I was in college I remember reading a book called The Columbian Exchange. It spent a chapter tracing Syphilis through the centuries. One thing I remember from it was that the sores were visible for the first century or so after it appeared in Europe. There are lines in Shakespeare referring to someone with a bad acne being unable to get women to kiss him for fear of catching the pox.

Last year for the display we set up one of my wedges and a fly. There might have been something else. We were a bit crowded trying to find shade. I expect this year to be cooler with a greater chance of rain. With more people it would be nice to have at least one more fly or wedge that could be opened up. I'm not going to bring as much display stuff this year. We ended up with more stuff than we could properly display so I will concentrate on canvass, tables, and boats.

Anything from the Beggar's Opera should be appropriate for the late end of the GAoP. It was published in 1728 and used popular broadside music from a few years earlier.

The episode was a classic Dr. Who plot - something bad is happening, the Doctor appears, more bad things happen, the doctor figures out how to minimize the deaths but more people die anyway, the Doctor figures out what is going on and stops it. The main difference with this one is that everyone survived. Usually there is a high body count. They have been using variations of this plot since the 1960s.

For those in the western Ohio area, the Kitchen Musicians usually come to the Faire at New Boston on Labor Day weekend. All of these pieces and more can be bought from them there.