4.22.2008

My awesome wife.

So as a few of you know I have always enjoyed the times of Knights and Armor. Hence my interest in D&D and Castle Simulation video games. As you also know life takes us as adults away from these sorts of passions many times. As I haven't played D&D in years, as I have a family to take care of and this takes of most of my time.

We recently went to the Renaissance Fair that is held annually here in AZ, it was a lot of fun, great exhibits and shows. This naturally rekindled my interest in all things Medieval. So Erica and I have been looking around.

What we found through a friend of ours is the "Society of Creative Anachronism", http://www.sca.org/, these down to earth folks share a love for the culture of this time period, in fact Arizona as a state has a large community of people who practice the combat, arts and science of the medieval age. Not only that, they have youth combat, archery and regular collegiums (classes in the arts), the most expensive events have nominal fees and usually include food.

So me never doing anything half way, and having several chats with Will, have decided to take of chainmail construction. Believe it or not this is pretty inexpensive, 14 Guage Electric Fence Wire, Wire Cutters, a couple of needle nose pliers, a steel rod and some free time is all it takes.

So at this point you are wondering why I titled this article this way. Well first let me tell you that the hands in that picture above are my dear wife's she is awesome, she has shown interest in this crazy thing I want to do, to the point of being as good if not better then I am at making the chainmail. We have spent a little bit of time together the last few nights making links and learning the art of chainmail construction together. We are working together to make Ammon a shirt, then Malachi, then Gabie. Rose and Sarah are interested in Archery, I will be doing hard armor combat complete with chainmail and homemade hardened leather armor. (Don't worry we use rattan swords, I'm not going to get my head chopped off...) And Erica will probably be sewing costumes and getting into the arts.

So in the end this is a tribute to my wife. Whom I love and adore. She is awesome and is a real friend. Thank you sweetheart for being interested in what I love.
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5 comments:

  1. Hrrrmm, 14 Gauge Electric Fence wire...what's the AC on that?

    It may look real, but I'm betting you won't let me swing my katanas at you in it.... :0

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  2. No, the first three sets I am making are costume sets. The 4th set is for combat. It will be using industrial "key rings" for that one, out of stainless tempered steel and with either a 6 in 1 or 8 in 1 weave, you could swing your katanas at that all day, it won't make a difference, but the leather armor I am making is primarily for rattan combat, it won't stand up to sharp blades.

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  4. A neighbor of ours made costume chainmail (sp) using the spiral binding wire from old school notebooks. It was already looped so that step was already completed.

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  5. Brad due to the improved quality of materials over what was available during the dark ages, I would suspect chain made with 14 gauge would be treated as Masterwork. :)

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