gifts – Aegis Leather

Squire’s Belt Step-by-step

Published on October 25, 2016October 25, 2016 by whimsicaldragon1 Comment

February of 2016 I was offered a squiring by Sir Devon of Ayr which I accepted. Around the same time he had offered to another friend who also accepted. For this friend and myself, Sir Devon and I wanted to make nice dress belts for court and more functional belts for fighting. I haven’t had the chance to work on mine but here is documentation of the process of making the other.

My first step was to interview the recipient about what he would like. We discussed that he finds oak leaves and hedgehogs important to him and intends to incorporate them into his device when he gets that far. I also suggested an idea that I had had about putting a sequence of devices from any affiliations he has as sort of a unique “gate address” as it were. His affiliations would be the Middle Kingdom, Pentamere, Barony of Andelcrag, Canton of Three Hills, and, of course, his new knight, Sir Devon of Ayr. That is 5 affiliations plus two blank ones to fill in later (presumably for a Laurel and Pelican should he decide to go in those directions. The blank two could be for whatever he so chooses and I could add them later.

With that information I began the designing process which took some time. I submitted several renditions to him and had him choose the one he liked most.

I started with a fantastic quality, extra long Herman Oak 1.5″ strip.

Once I got the design tooled and the base red color stained, it was time to paint the design. I use Angelus leather paints (Amazon link). I have had very good luck with these paints. They dry flexible so are fantastic for leather since they don’t crack or flake off. They are designed for fixing scratches on shoe leather so they are very resistant to scratching off. They are also water-based so they are easy to clean up and they also mix well together so you can mix up whatever colors you want.

I used black antique gel from Tandy to highlight the hedgehogs and leaves. After that I ended up going back and highlighting the leaves with a lighter green so they didn’t seem like a black hole compared to the rest of the design. The antique really darkened them a lot.

I purchased a replica, period-accurate buckle and belt end and attached them with the included rivets. I then burnished the edges. As a final design step, I decided to gold leaf around the edges of each device. You can see the results of that in the final pictures below. I finished the belt with many layers of Resolene to protect the design and then a few layers of Carnauba Cream to give it a nice smell and buffed it to a shine. The finished product is below. He beamed when I gave it to him. I kept the final design and results hidden from him until the squiring ceremony and also whipped up a little linen bag for him to store it in and protect it.

A couple small projects

Published on October 24, 2016October 24, 2016 by whimsicaldragonLeave a comment

I have been working on one big project for quite a while now and took breaks here and there to do some fun smaller items for friends.

My good friend and squire brother Thelvald was in for a surprise this last Pennsic. Nobody realized he never got his Award of Arms even though he has been playing for many years. Many of us decided that that needed to happen at Pennsic. We all sent in recommendations and I volunteered to make a circlet for him along with a local Baroness/laurel who offered to make a scroll for him. Here is the circlet that I created. It was a quick project but very rewarding. I simply took a strip of medium leather (probably 6 or 7 oz.) and used a backgrounder to make the stars. Then dyed it black and coated it several times with Carnauba Cream.

The next project was a gift for a new friend who just started in the SCA a few months ago. She has been doing an awesome job so I decided to make her a little something. It also allowed me to practice with paint on leather and the gold leaf process I have been working on. Here is a picture of this beauty. I am very happy with how it turned out. The design has special significance to her. Yes, that is really 24k gold leaf. I will be having several posts about my explorations into gilding leather. It is a practice in and of itself with little documentation that I can find online.

The last project I will document here is a set of circlets I made to donate to the largess coffers of their Majesties of the Middle Kingdom. There was a challenge set forth to be met at the fall crown tourney a few weeks ago. The challenge was to make a dozen pieces of largess to donate and the one that got the most votes from the populace would get a prize. Here is my entry. I didn’t win but I did get quite a few votes so that pleased me. Overall, it wasn’t about winning, it was simply about supporting the dream.

Alligator skin tie clip

Published on March 29, 2016October 23, 2016 by whimsicaldragonLeave a comment

Here is a fun little project I decided to attempt for my supervisor at work. He came in my department last week with his tie flapping around and laying backwards. I teased him that he needed a tie tack. This gentleman went alligator wrestling last summer and so I thought it would be a neat/fun project to attempt to make him a tie clip with alligator skin. So… I ordered the stuff and it came today. Here is my first attempt which I am actually pretty pleased. It took me about 2 hours to finish and about $10 in materials.

My first step was to collect the materials I would need. Needles and thread, a super sharp sewing awl, contact cement, some scrap leather to mount the thin alligator hide to, a knife, the alligator hide, and the tie clip.

I simply cut a piece of the scrap and alligator hide to the same size a little bit wider and longer than the tie clip and glued the two pieces together.

I then used the awl to punch the holes with the leather being held in my handy stitching horse.

Then I used the contact cement again to glue the tie clip to the back of the two pieces of leather and began sewing in a way that criss crossed back and forth across the tie clip to keep it secure.

After some black dye for the back side of the veg tan leather and some edge finishing by gently sanding the edges flat with my dremel and then burnishing the moistened edges with my edge burnisher to get them smooth… We have a really sharp looking alligator skin tie clip. ^_^ I think it turned out really well! I am excited to give it to him tomorrow.