Viking Crafts

This past weekend was Regia Anglorum national training weekend for the re enactment group we belong too.  It is a time for the members to get together to share knowledge and practice battle techniques.  My husband usually spends the day fighting, while the kids and I wonder about looking for things to do.  This time however there were several new Viking era crafts to try so Princess and I decided to give them a try.

First we tried our hand at making viking glass beads.  We did use modern equipment for this

Princess did great and wasn't at all afraid of the flame

Here she is molding a glass bead using a graphite paddle (forgot what it is really called)

In between waiting to have her turn she read her book and Little Man played his DS.  He didn't want to try and I was a bit nervous having him around flames as he tends to be a tad impulsive 

I had a go and really enjoyed it.

Here are our finished beads (the two green beads and the 2 blue and white beads.)  not bad for our first time

Next I took a workshop to learn a little about Pewter Casting...Princess deserted me at this time as she found some kids to play with:)

During our period most mold would have been made of wax and then encased in clay.  Once the pewter was pours into the mold the wax would melt and the clay would need to be broken in order to reach the pewter casting.  Which means only one casting could be done at any time.

This mold is using cuttle fish bone; a shape would be carved into the bone and then hot pewter would be added..  Several pewter castings could be done before the mold would no longer hold shape.  

Another method was to use soap stone which would be carved into a shape.  Pewter casting on this method could be reused many times.

Lastly and the modern way of  of pewter casting is using silicone  molds

Here is my casting efforts, I just need to clean it up a bit!

Next Princess and I signed up for Repousse which is metal work.    Which basically consists of using hammers and different shape medal pins to score into copper or other metal to make designs.  This was used on helmets, shields and other metal items to add decoration

After you hammer in a design the metal becomes inflexible and no longer takes the shape of the tools so the metal needs to be resoftened.  We do this by adding it to the fire for a few minutes.

and cool it down in water

then you can continue to hammer in your shape.  I did RA for the name of our group Regia Anglorum 

We also worked on our archery skills using the long bow.  Princess was getting pretty good hitting the target and even a couple of bull eyes:)

Hubby had a turn

and so did I

Little Man pretty much stayed in the hall playing his electronic games during this trip.  He is the only one of the family who finds this whole re enactment thing a bit overwhelming to his senses:).