In Other News - The First Time

 In other news will be where I post non wargaming stuff that doesn't fit in as a random thought.  

This post is an adapted version of something I wrote for the newsletter of my Sealed Knot re-enactment unit, Colonel Robert Hammond's Regiment of Foot.  As a bit of background no one is allowed to fire a musket (using black powder only I should stress, actual musket balls are frowned upon!) with the Sealed Knot without taking and passing a safety test to ensure they are competent.  It's an important part of what we do to ensure safety during displays and passing is not guaranteed.  The test happens after a musketeer has done a  couple of events as a non firer to gain some experience of the display environment but its usually pretty early in their Sealed Knot life, so the test is seen as a big deal and they have no idea what might be thrown at them by the tester!  Now that is clear what follows might make a little more sense.

The First Time

The first time I put on a musketeer’s clothing and equipment was in my back garden, God alone knows what the neighbours must gave thought! I was being lent a full set of kit ready for my first event and I was checking that it fitted. A few years earlier I had done a short stint of American Civil War re-enactment and a friend, who had also involved with that, had gone on to join the Sealed Knot and was musket officer with the Tower Hamlets Trained Bands. He suggested I give it a go as a musketeer. Of course this was before I saw the light and joined Hammond’s. 

Previously at his invite Mrs E, myself and the children had gone to an event to see what we thought of the Sealed Knot. We had enjoyed it so much that we joined on the spot. So my friend had visited a couple of times before the first event I was going to take part in to teach me musket drill and safety so that by the time I turned up at that first event I was supposed to have a vague idea of what I was meant to be doing. 

This was back in 1989 so there was no SK website, no Facebook and no mobile phones. All contact was either in writing, by old school landline telephone or face to face, with no way to view images of SK events unless given photographs. So my expectation of what an SK muster would be like was based on my previous experience of ACW events. It didn’t prepare me for what I was about to take part in at all!

So it came to pass that bright and early on a Saturday morning I jumped into my car and following hand written instructions drove to my first ever SK muster. Driving onto that first SK campsite was an eye opener as it was twice the size of anything from my ACW days, and this was only a Mini! (the smallest event that is open to all members). I had no idea how to find my regiment amongst what seemed like hundreds of tents. With no way to contact my regiment or my friend I was reduced to asking for directions. Still that meant that I learned how friendly the average Knotter is towards fellow eccentrics. 

I eventually found the regiment after a couple of wrong turns. Well I say ‘regiment’, at this particular event we turned out something like five participants! To be honest I recall very little of the battle other than an hour long nagging feeling of panic, as I had no idea of what was going around me, or what I was expected to do next, or what the hell introduction or extroduction were. As for counter marching, well let’s just say I might as well have been a sheep as I was simply dragged from place to place by the people around me with no idea of what I was meant to be doing. I was told to stay out of hand to hand and if anyone attacked me to just lie down and play dead, which suited me just fine as some of the opposition pikemen looked pretty damn scary. 

Despite all of this I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and turned up to do it all over again on the second day. This was when things became ‘interesting’!  I was told to get ‘kitted up’ including all the musket equipment, grab the musket I had been loaned and was promptly taken off to do a musket test. I was about to be tested by the fearsome head of the musket inspectorate ‘Tig’ Wright. I was told that she would be tough and that she would try to find any weakness in my understanding of the safety rules. To say that I was nervous would be a huge understatement. 

Now the first thing to be checked on a musket test is that all of your licences are in order, so I dutifully handed them across for checking. Tig took a long time scrutinising them and then asked a question I hadn’t been primed about! ‘Is this really your date of birth?’. It took a moment for it to sink in, then I had a moment when I wondered if she was thinking I was an imposter or something? Well you read about people doing that for driving tests, maybe it was a thing with musket tests too. It’s funny what races through your mind at moments like this. I must have managed to confirm that it really was my actual date of birth because the next question thrown at me was ‘what time were you born?’ Another question not on the expected script! This was trickier than expected. ‘er….. about 9.30 in the morning as far as I know, why, is it important?’. At which point Tig grinned at me and said ‘Oh yes, I need to know if you are older than me ….we share exactly the same birthday.’ 

As it turns out I am actually younger by about three hours, but we agreed that for all reasonable purposes I was going to be the older of the two of us. She still refers to me as ‘old person’ thirty years later! Oh and after all that I still had to take the rest of the test, but I did pass it.

Its been a slow (match) day

One of the things I have started to do as part of my re-enactment hobby is make the slow match for the musket block I'm a member of (see it wasn't a post about cricket at all).  It's a vital item for a matchlock musketeer who will go through at least a meter of the stuff at every reenactment weekend.  Of course you can buy it, but its easy and quick to make your own, it saves money and you can't always get the stuff when you need it.

Back in the seventeenth century soldiers on campaign would steal, er I mean requisition, the cords that criss crossed bed frames to hold up the mattress to make match cord with, so after they passed through town you would be sleeping on the floor until you could get more rope.  Saltpetre was a little more difficult to source with original recipes using dissolved black powder, or ash and lye or even boiling down urine to obtain it.  In fact human urine was such a good source it was collected on an industrial scale from alehouses, private homes and even by stealing the contents of cesspits! Poorer people would sell their urine as a source of income, provided they weren't so poor that they didn't have a pot to piss in!

For me it's a easier and a lot less smelly!  The commonest source for the cord is 100% jute sash window cord in either 6mm or 8mm diameter.  Easily obtained online (pun not intended).  I tend to buy from a firm called P T Winchester Ltd as I can be sure it doesn't have a nylon core.  Saltpetre is Potassium Nitrate (KnO3) and is sold as lawn food, stump remover or (in food grade quality) for curing bacon or hams.  Again the internet is your friend here.  I look for something that is as pure as possible assay at 99% pure if I can get it, which I usually can.

Making the slow match is simple.  Add 4 or 5 litres of cold water to a bucket and stir in 4 - 6 Tablespoons of saltpetre per litre.  Throw in the sash cord (if it was in a hank unroll it first) and weigh it down to ensure it is submerged.  Leave it for 12 - 24 hours.  Lastly take it out and lay it out flat to dry.  This last part is important, as it ensure that the saltpetre is evenly distributed.  Once it is dry you have your slow match.  Don't throw away the unused solution.  It doesn't go off and can be topped up to replace the bit soaked up by the cord and used again.  With sash cord at about £50 per 100 metres and saltpetre at about £12 a kilo I reckon that even without recycling the saltpetre solution it is costing less than 60p a metre (not counting the cost of the bucket!) for the finished matchcord.

The exact amount of saltpetre to use can be found by trial and error, sometimes you get slower match than other batches, sometimes faster.  I prefer to err on the side of faster as at least I know it will burn.  What you are aiming for is a burn rate of about 1-2 cm a minute without it spitting.  Spitting is a sign of too much saltpetre so if that occurs with the lit cord all you do when you top up the solution for the next batch is add more water and less saltpetre to the replacement solution.

   

Some like it hot

They tell me that some people like really hot weather.  They must be the ones who don't spend bank holidays running up and down fields in woolen clothes and armour and carrying an assortment of out of date military equipment.  For those of us who indulge in military reenactment as a hobby bank holidays are usually wet.  Either from the outside in or the inside out, there doesn't seem to be any happy medium.  This last one was no exception it was a getting wet from the inside out variant which is getting more common of late.  The display on our car claimed it was 29 centigrade, in the shade maybe.  Where I was it was difficult to find shade, not even in the lee of the average re-enactor ( who is probably best described as large economy sized)*.

Still it did help build up a thirst which our Bavarian guests were keen to help us deal with.  Forty plus Bavarian Pikemen from the Memmingen Pikeniere.  Who says the EU doesn't do anything useful for British culture.  I didn't go on the field the second day.  I'd like to claim it was due to drinking prodigious quantities of Bavarian beer.  I'd like too but I can't because I was asleep by 8.00pm the heat had done for me.

Some may like it hot, but not apparently I don't.

* which reminds me that the BBC apparently turned down an offer from the Sealed Knot to provide extras for a Civil War drama with the killer put down of "Too old, Too fat".  Harsh, but sadly really rather fair.

Where was I.....

Its been a busy few weeks I changed my car, bought a caravan (sorry about that) and went Sealed Knotting over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

The car was a necessity it was getting to the stage where I was having to park around the corner from clients so they couldn't see what I was driving!  The caravan was because I'm getting to old to be setting up in a tent and sleeping on an air bed.   That purchase was linked with the last thing which has kept me from updating this blog, Sealed Knotting.  Mrs E and I have been all over the UK with the Knot over the last 30 years mostly camping on open field sites.  It was time to move up in the world and have a little more comfort for those weekends.  It is nice to be able to turn up on site,  put down the corner steadies and be done with setting up.  More time in the beer tent on arrival night, oh yes that works for me!

Not the most exciting image for a war games blog I'll grant you

The SK weekend was excellent.  Big turn out from Hammonds (The regiment I am part of).  Lots of friends I haven't seen for a while and some partying.  Plus lots of photos we can use as reference shots in future blogs.

Painting 2mm figures - Foot castings

So you want to paint 2mm figures?  Well first you need to decide on the effect you are trying to achieve.  The castings are better detailed than you might expect and the trick is to take advantage of that.  it is also important to remember that you are creating an impression of troops seen from a long distance.  Check out some images of real people at a distance to see what stands out and try to pick out that level of detail and no more.  Like the image below:  

 

 

 

 

Shrink this image (Or stand back from the screen) until the image is the size of a 2mm casting at painting range.  What do you see?  That's what you are trying for.

 

Right back to the castings then, fix them to the holder of your choice, I use ice-lolly sticks from craft shops.  Undercoat in your personal colour of choice.  I prefer white for small scale figures, but in these shots I was trying out a mid grey as suggested by Steel on Sand's blog.

 

 

You should have something like this. Next dry brush in white to create a pre-shade.  The alternative is to undercoat white and ink wash with a darker shade.  My go to for this is Windsor and Newton Nut Brown.  Then add a wash of the primary colour.

 

Next using an un-thinned version of the shade used as the wash dry brush or dot in the details of the coats.  Use the same technique for the legs and pick out faces and hats. If you are feeling keen pick out the muskets.  Finish with a light ink wash of Nut Brown and varnish.  It sounds like a long process but it isn't these castings are tiny after all.

 

 

 

 

 

You should end up with something like this, if not better.  After all my eyes are not as young as they once were.  For me magnification helps a huge amount, that and good brushes that hold a good point.













It's been a busy few days.

Over the weekend just gone I received my copy of DBA 3, had a day with my Sealed Knot regiment at Thorpe Mandeville and managed to do some painting.  So what to write about?

Lets start with DBA, I ordered the rules from Black Hat Miniatures as they actually had stock.  I have to say that the way they dealt with my order was a pleasure to behold.  Email updates on the order progress and a fast turn around. If only all internet shopping was as good.  I'm not going to bore you with yet another personal review of the rules they have been out long enough now for better writers than me to have done the job.  All I'm going to say is that Phil Barker's rules seem to evoke a Marmite reaction in people.  You either love them or hate them.  I like them and don't have any issues with "Barkerisms", now that might have something to do with my job which involves dealing with tax legislation which means that I have experience in dealing with text where not a single word is wasted or used without purpose.  mind you I have been using Mr B's rules since WRG 2nd Edition Ancients.

What I do like is the side support rules for spears it seems to me to help replicate Dark Age shield wall combat.  I can see my Middle Anglo Saxons, Vikings and Pics getting a run out to test the rules.  Which in turn means I better finish painting my latest batch of Baccus 6mm Vikings.

On the painting front I have managed to paint some 2mm EVW foot and have some horse to do next.  I have tried several styles of painting these blocks.  the latest is to undercoat grey dry brush white and use a wash for the main colour finishing by picking out some details.  usually faces, hats and muskets. I will post some pictures of each stage in a few days.

Last but most definitely not least I managed to squeeze some Sealed Knot action into the weekend.  I didn't have chance to take any pictures as I was busy training musketeers but one of my friends did and once I get hold of some of his pictures I will post them.  I find them useful to show me what level of detail can be seen at a distance.

Note for non Brits - Marmite is a yeast based dark brown spread with a strong taste and smell that you will either love or hate.  Me? I love it especially on toast.