Commodore Swab

Well the first pirate festival for my wife fresh in from the orient went well and I took a couple of pictures of her. Naturally we are still working on her garb but heres a start, remember she is not from Europe but was "acquired" in Siam and now sails with pirates. And one of myself, I am working to make my outfit more befitting someone who has lived and sailed in the Orient.

Ive made a couple of those and used to sleep on one every night, the tighter you get the rope the better. The problem being that as you tighten the rope it can bow in the boards in themiddle. To solve this problem I added a 2x4 laying horizontally just under the rope holes and this added strength to prevent bowing. Tightening is relativly easy, I did the long sides first and simply tied one end of the rope and used my weight to pull it tight thru each hole. You can't do this in the other direction however as it must be fed over/under each line. For mattresses since the line was good and tight all I needed to do was lay several blankets on top that removed the feel of the rope.

Sold

Sorry I couldn't get the pictures up yesterday. Here you go . . .

Last weekend I finished building a little blunderbuss and took her to the Ft. Myers festival to check the lock and firing. She fires beautifully and I am ready to sell her. The barrel is 10.5 inches bronze and the hardware is a combination of steel (lock), silver wire (barrel hold downs), and white brass (trigger and trigger guard). The stock is walnut and has a very nice grain to it, this is not an Indian made gun and does not have any Indian parts on it. Price is $600 I will try to get some pictures up tonight

My cannon cannon uses FF and in a pinch I can get away with FFF using slightly smaller charges. The small arms use FFF, My friend who may bring his cannon uses FF. If I can convince the Viceroy to bring out one of his mortars they use F and at 3+ ounces per charge you can go thru some powder mighty fast. The only powder we put in our guns is GOEX.

I was reading thru the rules regarding black powder weapons and had a couple questions . . . Are we going to be switching to paper wrapped charges instead of foil as we have used in the past? Are we going to be required to install flash guards and hammer stalls on weapons that never had them? Will we be required to have at least 4 crew per cannon? I am constructing a bucanneer musket with an early lock which has a safety but is a seperate lever that slides into place, as this is not a "half-cock" but still a safety is this allowed? These are just a few questions I had and thought I would post them as others might be wondering about them as well.

We just got home from Ft Myers. The cannon fired beautifully as did the new blunderbuss. Hurricane- I met another cannoneer at Ft Myers whom I trust and has a good cannon who might be coming to the fest here. If so he may be bringing 2 cannons (1.5 inch bores), is there any chance we can get some money for powder or just powder?

I find that if you want to discuss English sea farers or pirates or slops that all you really need to do is wade thru all the past topics to find the information you need and most likely that information has been hashed over and over again. Now to me it seems that if you have a question about another aspect or country from the same time frame then most likely all you get is silence and your topic fades into the back ground.

Would you mind some company there, perhaps we can help out and bring 1 quite possibly 2 small bronze cannon as well as some other arms.

What are your plans for our little fest here in Key Largo? Maybe we can get together?

I have read alot out of twill, going back to the begining (not all topics mind you) and have gained much useful information but have gotten frustrated upon looking at many of the primary sources and realizing that they are far from great and very scarce. Looking at how few there are it is amazing that you can get so particular as to whether or not something is PC. Your "seam" is a perfect example Patrick, we simply don't know and when we have a painting often that is an artists impression and could be spot on or 180 off. I try to take a logical look at what may have been worn. For example if shoes are being made to be as accurate as possible from primary resources and it is found that they are too slippery to walk on a deck or some rocks I would think there is something we are missing.

As the topic twists and turns I just got pictures today that were taken when we fired a friends ashes out of the mortar and it was nerve racking for me doing it off the boat and keeping all of the people who were drinking (not myself) in a safe area and maintaining a level of safety. Since we didn't have primers I had filled the touch hole with powder after pricking to decrease the fuse delay as well as remove the risk of the fuse going out as it burned thru the inches of bronze. This is why you see the flame coming out the touch hole just prior to ignition.

Friday before last we gave a friend an impressive send off. He had passed away from cancer and as a proper send off we loaded his ashes into a mortar, took another friends boat out and gave him the proper send off befitting an old pirate and treasure hunter. Here are some pictures. . .

Lest we forget that we are all already part of a single group and that being pyracy.com we come from many different backgrounds and have many different ideals yet we all still manage to coexist. In regards to insurance I dispise the fact that frankly it is needed due to the sue happy people of this country and the lawyers who will do all they can to get a buck so the less painful for the individual the better. Someone who travels and goes to many events will naturally have a higher risk (even if its from a falling brick) than someone who only does an even or two a year. There are people (I feel Jessi and Mission are in this group along with myself) who try to make their kit as accurate as possible yet don't participate in as many events as others might, we aren't hollywood pirates yet may not be involved enough to warant joining a particular group. For myself this is why I enjoy PiP, it gives us a chance to play with everyone. For those who are more correct and might wish to make comments to my garb I welcome them but try to remember I am not as serious as you may be and therefore constructive crictism is much prefered.

Thanks for the heads up, neither Lawrence or I knew about that and it is a good thing to find out before we started cleaning.

You are right I can't be "sure" but my thoughts are along these lines . . . The stockings pictured next to them seem to be drawn so it shows them going over the knees, if they are roughly the same scale this would make the boots much shorter. My thoughts are similar to yours. I think a "seaboot" a simple most likely hand made boot which would have a low heel aiding in holding one in place climbing but still allow for one to walk with a flatter foot on a rolling deck. There is no need to bring them above the knee but I would think that a height sufficient that slops or whatever pants are being worn would cover. Most importantly they should be made as waterproof as possible. So here are my thoughts on bucket vs sea boots Bucket Sea Boots To the knee folded down Shorter below the knee Higher heel Low heel Comfortable soft leather Waterproofed Of course this is just my opinion

I have a steel barrel pistol that should be finished in a couple of weeks.

As a new person to this (I was at ft meyers 4 years ago and PiP in 07) I don't get out much and am slowly putting together my "kit/clothes" I am not a reinactor but do want to be historically correct. What I think it all really boils down to when it comes to helping somebody like myself is constructive criticism saying that someone is doing something wrong is one thing how you say it is vastly more important.

I will be bringing her and a couple other bits to sell at PiP this year.

My "newest" edition is almost finished here she is for now. I still need to get some good wire to wrap it (I decided on a wrap instead of pins), weld the tang on, finish the trigger, cut the stock for the tang, drill and tap the screws, then tear it all down and go thru it finishing assembly. The barrel is bronze, the trigger guard and trigger are white brass (looks just like silver may be a german silver), the wire wrap is silver, and the stock is walnut with a beautiful bit of grain in it.

There that should be better, I pulled the properties off the thumbnails instead of opening each picture, my bad.

Well I have been working on a new blunderbuss and things are starting to near completion so I thought I would post some pictures. This is a "cut down" for lack of a better description of a blunderbuss but not a pistol. I have found several originals and except for the lock this is actually quite close.