Hawkyns

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Mattt-

Is there any further information? Specifically camping and merchanting for the festival? We're interested in bringing the sutlery down.

Hawkyns

Got my new sword from Armour Class last week. Its their Schiavona Re-enactment With Shark Skin Grip but I had it modified with the blade from the hanger they sell put onto it instead of the broadsword blade it originally had.

Ahh, great stuff!

By reenactment blade, do you mean that this is one with blunted edges and a rounded tip?

Love their work. I've got 3- an irish hilt backsword, a halfbasket mortuary, and a pikeman's hanger- all combat blunts. I'm waiting for them to come up with a cutlass that I like.

Hawkyns

I'll be arriving around noon on Saturday and staying through till the end Sunday. Not wearing pirate rig, I don't think. Probably my ECW officers rig. It packs smaller and I will NOT pay for checked bags.

Hawkyns

Pyracy pub towne in Crows Nest

Hawkyns

I've been trying to edit my post from this morning over in the Pyracy Pub Town thread and it won't let me. It shows the edit as part of the thread, and not as a separate screen, then it will not let me end it.

Hawkyns

Oh, no question about it. A tavern with attached brothel. Isn't that the dream of all old soldiers?

This is actually a pub from the village next to the town where I was born. Best damn game pie and cider in the West Riding.

Hawkyns

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/8464194.stm

Seems a small crew for a ship that size.

Hawkyns

Interesting. Does he at any point specify what he means by carbine? That is one of the most widely used terms in the 17th and 18th c, and means just about anything other than a full musket. I've seen it used to describe anything from a coaching blunderbuss with a 14 inch barrel, really a pistol with a shoulder stock, to a musket with a 42 inch barrel.

Based on the date, I would guess that he is referring to the dragoon carbine, similar to the Littlecote Carbine, 30 inch barrels and about .64 calibre. Note that in in the following pictures, the dragoon sling is a clip hook that attaches to a single ring on the side of the stock opposite the breech. This allows the carbine to be reversed to allow loading on horseback without taking the weapon off.

http://www.royalarmouries.org.uk/learning/online-learning/littlecote-house-module/explore-littlecote-house-without-flash/great-hall-in-littlecote-house/english-civil-wars-flintlock-carbines-blunderbusses

Hawkyns

I've always been rather fond of Admiral Sir John Hawkyns, myself. Privateer, merchant adventurer, harrier of the Dons, Vice Admiral of the Fleet against the Armada, and the Queen's slave trader.

Altogether an excellent fellow.

Hawkyns

Interesting. I've never known Gerry to be wrong, he's my best secondary source for 15th C stuff. That said, he is in conflict with Tincey in his "British Army 1660-1704" which shows the reconstruction of the uniform from the Boyne- blue coat, oragange cuffs and facings. It is also in conflict with Barthorp in his "Marlborough's Army 1702-11" which shows a reconstruction of a gunner from 1709 in a blue coat.

(space for an hour in the library)

Right, I think I may have an idea on some of the confusion. There seems to have been some shifting of coat colours. Some of this seems to come from the fact that there were Dutch and German units in the army at this time. Dutch and German units frequently wore blue, so for part of the period, blue uniforms for artillery would have been period. this would have been a direct result of William of Orange assuming the Crown. There is one reference to a "shift back to red coats" in the early part of the 18th c, but this does not appear to have been universal, especially in the foriegn units.

Hawkyns

My primary persona is that of Elizabethan privateer/Border Reiver. Few people know that George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, was not only Queen Elizabeth's champion, but Warden of the West March and an admiral. He equipped ships as privateers to raid Spanish holdings in Puerto rico. Some of his borderers were recruited as privateers on those ships.

My basic kit for that is slops, hemp shirt, hose and latchet shoes, either a wool pullover cassack or a leather jerkin, and a grey/blue wool flat statute cap. Belt and bollock knife, and either an Irish hilt sword or a short shell guard hanger, depending on what the venue is. For armour, I have a mail shirt and a morion. Firearms are a wheelock carbine and a wheelock pistol, both functional. I'm working on the jack of plate, which will replace the mail shirt.

I think when you do any festival, whether ren fair, festival, or reenactment, you should always dress to the period. It bugs the hell out of me when I go to a ren fair pirate festival and see the majority of people in GAoP kit. I don't care if it's correct to the last stitch, or a costume from the local sex shop, it's still wrong. When I went to PiP, I dressed 1700, because that is what the rules stated, even though that is not my primary impression. Piracy has variations in kit, just like the clothing of the people, and I think you should always adjust your kit to whichever date the fair is based on.

Hawkyns

It all depends on country and culture. Mid calf length skirts date back to the Tudor period in the Germanies. The "bodice" that is so common at 18th C events is actually a corruption of a French fashion, the justaucorps du femme, a garment cut somewhere between a bodice and a man's waistcoat, with or without sleeves and figure hugging. Hair covering could depend on marital status or profession.

One of the things I've been fighting in the 18th c has been the attitude that all the people were respectable and dressed according to the fashions of Boston and Philadelphia. Many people were not respectable. Whores were a part of society, just as were those who were on the low end of the curve and wore cast offs. Not everyone wishes to portray the respectable wife, officer's lady, or gentry. To much of this is based on the myth and pedestal that has been attached to the founding fathers.

If we are talking about pirates and their ladies, I would hope we would look at Dutch genre paintings of taverns and engravers like Hogarth, rather than the portraits painted for people with money. Uncovered hair, stays worn openly, chemises off the shoulder, even clothing cut below the nipple may not be the fashion in Boston or Philly. But it would be alot more common in Port Royal.

Hawkyns

Kathryn makes hers with a linen layer and a canvas layer that are sewn together to make the channels, then another linen layer for the lining. Hers are all back laced, using handsewn eyelets in a spiral pattern. At least a dozen eyelets on each side, more for longer stays. She uses reed for the boning and they are completely boned, no unboned space anywhere except the shoulder straps. I say lining, but that is not strictly true. To keep the reed from taking a set and not properly supporting, she will alternate which side is out.

Hawkyns

One thing that absolutely made me twitch at PiP was seeing redcoats working artillery pieces. Gunners wore blue uniform coats, not red. Facings would change and the weskit colours would occasionally change, but it was a blue coat. I'm trying to put together a blue coat with orange facings for William's artillery from the Battle of the Boyne.

Hawkyns

Gunner, Royal Irish Artillery

OK, lots of points. First, the spike on the top of the linstock is to provide a defensive weapon for the gunner. It would be too big to fit down the vent. Spikes were generally soft copper spikes that would be pounded into the vent until there was no head left, or the head was cut off, and then the rammer was sent down the bore hard to bend the spike under, thus making it impossible to pull out.

It depends where you get your match. The stuff that Dixie sells (worthless in my estimation) is thinner, 3/16 or so. What I get from Practical Goose is 3/8 or so, and is braided hemp. My Rev War unit uses a heavy match from twisted cotton cord that is near to 1/2 inch. Depends what you get and where you get it, but making the loops or apertures small will limit your choices. For naval linstocks, I prefer the type used on the Mary Rose, which have a V shaped slot which allows near any size to be used.

The direction of the tines on the worm depends on which side of the gun you are worming from. As long as when you are holding the worm with both hands cupped underneath and your thumbs NOT on top, it really doesn't matter. Most people find that that means the worm should turn with the tines pointing towards you. As you grip the worm and turn it your fingers rise and the heel of your hand drops.

Hawkyns

The BOOM BOOM GIRLS, however, are a whole other matter....

Oh I don't know. One of my all female gun crews styles themselves The Babes of Boom.

Hawkyns

What's the story for those of us into KW before Weds AM. If GPS and mapquest are right, I should arrive Tuesday evening.

Hawkyns

I prefer the mint myself

Hawkyns

Whole Foods carries it, and so do most organic or natural food co-op type places.

Hawkyns

Two other places to go. The Leather Museum in Northhampton had a few pieces last time I was there. Also, the York Museum. They had quite a few ECW swords and muskets with their associated equipment when I was there a couple of years ago.

Hawkyns

Too many variables for a single answer. As always, date and country make a difference. In the mid 17th C, they tend to be wide, 3 or 4 inches even. This is to carry the weight of the heavy cavalry and basket hilt swords that are common. This tendency remains with the Scots, northern English and a number of the northern European countries that retained the heavier blades going into the 18th century. The vast majority of these heavier baldrics were of leather. Officers, the French, and the more aristocratic moved to the lighter court swords like the colichmarde and the light rapier. Not having nearly the weight of the broadswords and backswords, baldrics also lightened up, going down to about 2 inches. This is where the fabric baldrics appeared, though many of them were also backed with leather.

The sword belt of the GAoP seems to average 2-2 1/2 inches, mostly done with double d buckles, the French being a fatter buckle and the British being thinner.

I'll have a couple of styles with me at PiP, for sale and as examples for orders.

Hawkyns

The picture of Anne Bonny is just wrong. For an axe head of that size, the helve would have to be huge to counterbalance it and let it hang like that. And slung loose like that? It would flop all over the place and do more damage to her than to anyone else.

Yeah, stuck in the belt doesn't work so well either. Most boarding axes have a helve somewhere in the 18-24 inch range. I don't see walking around like that for more than a few minutes.

Hawkyns

This may sound like a strange question. Does anyone have any documentation for boarding axes being carried when not actually in a boarding action? And if so, how were they carried? Hawks and hand axes could be carried on belts, on separate slings, or attached to cartridge boxes in the French style. Larger axes were carried in back slings by pioneer units. Has anyone seen anything that resembles a boarding axe in a sheath, belt rig, or sling?

Thanks everyone.

Hawkyns

There's a Cuban restaraunt that does the best damn breakfast.

Hawkyns

What's it called?

Damned if I know. When Gwen and I go to KW for Fantasy Fest, we used to stay at a clothing optional resort next door to the Southernmost Hotel. In fact, at one of the early PiPs, they held one of the receptions there. Its where I first met Cascabel. The place has since been closed. Anyway, right across the street there was a little Cuban place. No indoor seating, just tables on a porch and a walk up window. Best breakfast and wonderful Cuban sandwiches.

Maybe one of our KW bretheren knows it?

Hawkyns

Don't knock the other end of Duvall St. There's a Cuban restaraunt that does the best damn breakfast. Besides, you have to go down there to get the topless photos next to the Southernmost landmark.

Hawkyns