Sveinn's SCA Files...

My world hasn’t changed much lately.  Sure, there have been things happening but nothing worthy of getting on here and ranting or raving about.

Radburne War was great fun, and I enjoyed it as much if not more than the first one. There was GOOD food, oh my was there good food!  And there was singing around the fire, there was war, there was a FORT!  As in almost a whole fort, not just a pallasade.  Note I did say Almost…  The missing bits were, the coverings on the side walls, and some gates, which Terry has said that he will make.

Discussions were had with a few members of Crossroads about my plans to build a small forge and metal working area.  The members I have spoken to are keen for it to happen and as such have offered me a reasonably nice little plot to start planning.  I do intend to plan it all out how I would like it, and then put a plan to the board asking for either a Yay or Nay, however the board members I have spoken to have indicated that it shouldn’t be a problem as this is exactly what Crossroads was designed for and not many people have done stuff cause they are worried that Crossroads has too many cooks.  My worry isn’t so much that the board/committee will choose to interfere with my plans, but that other people will want to get involved and have opinions on how it should be built.  I guess this might be a concern for anyone thinking about construction, and therefore a reason to hold off and wait to see what other people are doing.  I’m not a member either, though seeing how this plan comes together will determine whether I want to be a member or not.  I do love the idea, and whilst I do agree with some peoples assessment that their should be a better management of the ecological issues associated with land at the top of a catchment area, I do believe that there is also room for everyone to get a little out of it, and for it to be what the members see that it has the potential for.  I do believe that the location is a little far away to expect the general public to venture to for a medieval weekend, at least for people to travel to for a day.  It’s fine from Canberra, and closer area’s, but I do not believe that they will bring in the numbers that might be needed to make something worthwhile…  This is just a personal opinion though, and should not be taken to be a slight on any such planned event.

In other news…  I have purchased a nice new camera so that I can start taking decent pictures for this site, so  expect to start seeing nice pictures of things soon.

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

Seems I must be doing something right at work… As of day I have only been working in the company for 7 weeks, and I have already been given a number of compliments from Customers and the Management as well as awarded the companies equivalent to the employee of the month.

To top it all off yesterday I was told by my boss that they feel I have proven myself a worthwhile employee, and that they are going to be taking me off my 3 month probation 5 weeks early. This is great news for my back pocket… well.. for those I’m in debt to anyway as it means I can actually afford to start scrabbling out of the small hole I had dug myself into.

My goal in life of being happy, and making sure that I am happy in everything I do does have it’s down sides. Whilst I believe my work ethic is good, I am aware that my perspective in life leads me to make decisions that aren’t always best for those who choose to give me credit. Leaving the last job the way I did was well… silly and irresponsible, but it felt good. I had no problems with that decision at the time, nor since. I am however very grateful to Russ, my new boss for giving me the job the way he did and for allowing me to prove to this company that I’m a worthwhile investment.

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

This is a whinge… I state that now so that those of you who aren’t at all interested in whinges can just ignore it. Whinge whinge whinge whinge whinge…

I’ll admit that I’m not the bestest of little old granny driving… But this weekend just gone’s trip to Sydney was well… Driving me round the bend with the idiots that get licences these days…

Lets start with the heading out of Canberra… Yes, It snowed at Lake George… Yes.. Drivers should slow down when there is snow and ice on the road. But to slow down from 110Kph to 30Kph by slamming on the brakes is just idiocy. To top it of, I had someone intentionally pull out of the left lane to slow me down (Yes, I was travelling at about 60-70Kph, quite comfortably within my ability to control the situation), this is not only stupid, risky and well… lets stick with Idiocy, it’s also counter productive to safety. For me to be getting out of everyone way by over taking them when they weren’t comfortable traveling at a slightly high speed means that there are less cars bunching up and less potential for a huge multi-car pileup. When I drove through there were some cars that had skidded off the road, there were reasonably clear tracks through the snow covered road, and well… the little flicks of the steering wheel to test the grip proved that things weren’t dire. Anyway… Ahhhh Release! Now on to the next whinge… and yes, you’ll notice there’s a theme.

So what’s with these people that slow down when trying to merge with traffic going at 110Kph? You know… the ones that try and merge doing 80Kph or sometimes slower and wonder why it’s so damn hard? It’s frustrating and it happening far to often. Do we need to ban drivers from freeways unless they can merge safely*? Surely even 5th grade students can see that the safest and easiest way to merge with traffic on a freeway is to match their speed before you get to the bottom of the on-ramp? If you are going 110Kph and they are going 110Kph then you’re really not going to hit anyone that hard. The biggest safety issue with traveling at that speed is that if you fudge up, then the damage has the potential to be more. But seriously… if you are traveling at 80Kph and they are traveling at 110Kph that’s like hitting a brick wall at 30Kph. Speed in driving is relative when it comes to the cars around you.

The fact is, all driving is dangerous… But it’s the idiots like those above that increase the chances of something disastrous going wrong.

*

No, this is not a real suggestion as I don’t advocate more rules just to enforce common sense.

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

Yes…  I totally broked it for a good 3 or 4 days almost…  No Syridian.com, no Lochac.net, No Drakkar.org.au even.

And why?  Why was it all broken, was there a reason I hear you ask?  Well…  yes…  yes there was a reason.  There are actually a few.  Firstly this issue started when I tried to change my hosting plans so that I could better manage them and offer full domain hosting to other people who feel that they would like to have their own website and want to learn how to host them.   So maybe having the hosting broken isn’t a confidence inspiring act that has people thinking they can rely on me to manage their own website should they wish for me to host it, true.  The fact is that the change was a conciderable change not only changing servers, but also changing the way the sites are managed. Instead of being managed separately like they were, now they are all hosted on one server, with me having control of alot more aspects of the hosting.  I’m no longer relying on getting support from the hosting provider, I can now do changes myself that previously I would need to submit a support ticket and wait for an answer.

The other reasons are that I intend on reviving Lochac.net, and as such intended on offering @lochac.net email addresses to those who wish them as well as cheap small website hosting to those who wish to create a household or business website.  Interested?  Contact me here!

The Lochac Network is a private initiative to colate everything online related to Lochac, from providing a directory to websites we all know to providing a Lochac-wide forum independant of official SCA-ness.  This isn’t intended to provide an alternate un-official underground, but more to provide a network of people, links and resources that span our Kingdom, and are not constrained to local groups and group politics.  I intend on drawing together all of the resources we have currently and possibly trying to make them interact togther.  This is a long term project and will require time, patience and support from all.

I’m looking for people who are Internet aware and are willing to volunteer their time to help compile a database of links, collect data, and colate it into an informative and helpful website and communications medium that will draw users from all over.  If you are interested, then contact me, and we can discuss what you are willing to contribute.   If you just have a website you would like added to the database, feel free to just send a link. :)  And if you are the webmaster of a resource and would like to help in spreading the word, sharing data, or discussing means of making things work better then please contact me, I would love to hear from you.

* I’m Agnostic…  Dog is something I CAN believe in currently.

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

I have been reflecting on my device recently, asking myself if it’s too simple, if I should have made some more of the symbolism in it easily recognisable. Whilst pondering this I started thinking of the philosophy of symbolism in personal things. How symbolism is used and for what reasons.

Is it necessary for symbolism to be apparent to all? After all, isn’t symbolism sometimes used as a code to hide certain aspects from those not initiated, whilst allowing those knowledgeable to understand it’s true meaning? Take someone’s personal Arms for instance… It isn’t necessary for you to understand what it means for you to recognise it, however for those close to the person or even the subject, the symbolism in it can be as plain as day. Butchers in medieval times used crossed axes as a badge for their job, yet today if we saw crossed axes on a shop sign would we understand what they were?

My Arms has a lot of symbolism in it, from a mythical creature which stirs my heart, to a state of mind with references to Australia, and most obviously part of what interests me in the SCA (incidentally it also describes my skill at said interest). There is even a very vague reference to my first attempt at being a part of the SCA in that my device uses the original device I drew up in 1993 as a basis. I won’t try and tell you that all of the symbolism in my device was planned to be there, a lot of it was, other parts were discovered later.

How much symbolism can you see in my device?

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

Thoughts and opinions matter, in some cases a lot more than they probably should. Some seem to take offence when opinions aren’t shared, others just aren’t willing to bother being friendly any more. Moral values and religious views separate people further and slowly people become less tolerant of differences.

Isn’t this exactly what is causing the majority of issues we see today? The right to have your own opinions doesn’t mean that anyone who doesn’t share those opinions is wrong. It just means that they have different opinions. Intolerance of difference whether it be of politics, religion, race or values is the kind of thing that starts wars. We see those wars starting every day, from discourteous looks in the supermarket shopping line, to comments and judgements made in passing. These things have the potential to grow into larger differences that after many years of slow stead growth blow out into larger conflicts. Small arguments can turn into group conflicts which can continue to escalate.

Unfortunately we are all guilty of judgement in some way or another. Judgement of who’s right and wrong is a disease that has spread for thousands of years, even this article is a form of judgement. My opinions written here are nothing but yet another opinion in a sea of opinions regarding freedom, tolerance and a possible better way. They are probably very similar to a large number of religious beliefs. So do I believe that these opinions are better? No, I believe that they are just an opinion. Do I believe that they are the Only way? Hell no. So why the fudge am I writing them here to share with the 2 readers that are likely to read this? Am I trying to change your opinions? Or tell you that you are wrong if you don’t believe this? Not at all… I’m just writing to give you something to think about, another opinion to discuss with friends and family.

The idea that small intolerances cause social division, which in turn can cause larger intolerances isn’t a new one. It’s a demonstrated fact of society, thought luckily the majority of those in power are fully aware of it. The knowledge that conflict can drive the best out of people is something that has kept governments going for years. Give them a cause, a reason to be intolerant, give them focus and resources… and a populace will become strong and be able to achieve anything. Ultimately intolerance is the fuel of control, but like a lot of volatile fuels if you aren’t careful it will burn you. Also, like all fuels you will be changed forever, usually into something black and with limited use.

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

I’m usually not one to shy away from my responsibilities, if I fuck up I’ll admit it usually and try and do what I can to minimise the fall out. That’s not to say that I do that all the time, as there are always times when running away seems like the only thing to do at the time… Usually these times are personal fuck-ups… saying the wrong thing to a friend… getting into a situation that affects others. These things a lot of the time I do walk away from, as usually just trying to fix them cascades into something much bigger, and friendships just end up being broken forever.

Relationships and friendships aren’t like work, work has guidelines, rules, contracts and defined consequences… Relationships on the other hand are usually poorly documented, and frequently don’t have contracts outlining rules and limits yet the consequences are fairly much the same. When you break the rules in a job, you get fired or if you are lucky reprimanded… Though when you break the rules in a relationship, a lot of the time you don’t even know that you have done it. Sometimes when you do know that you have done it, it’s possibly too late to fix. Expectations in a relationship seem to happen undocumented, and knowing where each party stands is guesswork if the communications department is a little slow. Sometimes the act of communicating differences is what we fear might start a confrontation in the first place.

Life is something I have yet to understand, however I can understand and respect a workplace easily because the rules are known, they are outlined for us to begin with. On Friday afternoon I fucked up. I didn’t have any difficulty admitting to my boss that it was me that stuffed up once we had worked out what the issue was. I knew were I stood, I knew that I had stuffed up things, and I knew how many customers I had affected. I also knew what I needed to do to fix the majority of the problems and I was damned if I was going to leave that for others to clean up my mess. On Saturday morning I crawled into bed knowing that I had at least done all that I could to fix what I had stuffed up.

My fear of communicating my thoughts and opinions is irrelevant in a working environment because my thoughts and feelings are irrelevant, sure they can help or hinder in the workplace but ultimately I have been employed to do a job. However a relationship is all about thoughts and feelings, it doesn’t matter how well you look after someone or whether you can provide for them… A relationship is all about caring, and sharing your feelings and desires with someone. Maybe that’s why I do OK with work, and I’m hopeless when it comes to relationships…

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

Well, actually the Nuttyness is me staying up until 1am casting tokens for College War… Tokens that I’m kinda not really into making, even though if I promised I would. The good thing is that part of the deal was that I would supply them straight from the mould, with no cleaning up of the flashing. What are these tokens? Hmm You’ll have to wait and see… Tis a surprise for the College War attendee’s.

Though I will stick up photo’s on my Flickr on say.. maybe.. possibly… around… in a round about way… say… Tuesday.

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

Since starting the new job with my Web-hosting company I have started getting interested in doing stuff with my website again.  I can guess that most of you will be reading this through LiveJournal or Facebook, both of which I rarely use these days, not through lack of interest but just lack of time.  I need to have a definitive plan for how everything should work together.

So far I have my website cross-posting to Live Journal and Facebook getting  updates from the RSS feed on LJ.  I’m also considering adding a gallery to the website instead of using Flickr… However, Flickr is probably better as there are ways to get that into the website as well, without the issues of having too much space taken up on my hosting account with Photo’s.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Originally published at Syridian's World. Please leave any comments there.

Ahhh… It’s so good to be able to spend a weekend doing not much. After the last 3 weeks where I was in Sydney for 2 weekends, with all the driving and the visiting and the well… missing out on doing… ummm…. nothing…

So this weekend I had a lazy Friday night (I was meant to go to the Pirate night at the Uni, but well… A better offer presented itself, and I spend a lazy night chatting and watching umm… something on DVD. Saturday was slightly more energetic with 2 hours volunteering at the Archery Club moving paver’s, can’t wait to see how it comes out. In the afternoon I hung out washing, and sorted some stuff to make more than just a walk way through my bedroom.

Sunday I spent doing not much… followed by a little more washing, some sorting through stuff, and then moving a trailer and hacking off some bits of it so that a new towing frame can be constructed for it. All in all it was a very lazy weekend… though I am looking forward to the town archer weekend next weekend. I might even turn up to Pot Luck feast, if I can be arsed to get some food together for it.

As for this coming week, I need to finish off the soapstone mould for the College War Tokens, and then cast 50-60 of them when the pewter arrives. The mould I started whilst teaching a pewter casting class in Rowany is surprisingly OK by my standards, so I just need to add a little more detail, and cast a large batch in the next week or ten days. Whilst it’s a little flimsy for my liking, it still does work as intended so should be fine to be used as a small token for college war.

Originally published at syridian.com. Please leave any comments there.

So I started my new job today… It’s not what I would normally go for, but as I was getting sick of the same ol’ stuff all the time I thought it was time for a change. Last Thursday Mercurio was kind enough to offer me a job where he works. Whilst the pay isn’t great, it’s still better than what I was earning last week, and well… The job is actually fun, or maybe that’s just that it’s all still new and exciting.

Mmmm Welcome me to the world of Customer Support.

Originally published at syridian.com. Please leave any comments there.

I was getting the shits with the bosses lack of ability to actual seem like he knows what he is doing… He’s a lovely guy and whilst he’s a little harsh at times he means well. But to be constantly told that mistakes that cost $10 will run the company into the ground, and that the company isn’t making any money isn’t the best thing for employee morale.

So I walked in this morning and told him I wasn’t happy… and he said fine. Was easy really, he didn’t seem to care that I wanted to leave, so when he asked when I was leaving I said “Right Now” and said my goodbyes.

Back to Job hunting…

At least whilst reflecting on the whole thing I did manage to climb Mt Taylor and have a look around.

Originally published at syridian.com. Please leave any comments there.

The job was accepted more to actually get me off my arse and out of a rutt in Sydney, but it’s should be quite fun. I’ll be repairing commercial electronics products such as TV’s, DVD’s and Audio equipment. Guess we’ll see how it goes… Stay tuned for more exciting news.

Originally published at syridian.com. Please leave any comments there.

With my recent experimentation I have been thinking about how to keep the process still period whilst taking advantage of the new moulding technology.  I might start considering doing things initially in a soapstone mould, ant then moving over to an RTV mould for larger production runs where problems exist in the pouring of quantity.  This would mean that the art form is still maintained whilst the ease of production makes large quantities easier.  and RTV mould could be made so that I could cast 5 or 10 of an item at once.

On a different note, I would still like to attempt the pressure casting technique that I was told about one evening over some wine at a friends place where steam is used on the button whilst it's still molten to create a small steam explosion and push the pewter further into the mould.  More on this in the future.

I tried out two types of new moulding techniques last night.

The first was using a plaster like mix to create cheap blank moulds for carving, as an alternative to soapstone. The plaster needs some more experimentation, it seems to not heat up like the soapstone, and whilst being more insulative for larger pools of molten metal, it takes the heat out fast enough to stop the flow. This I shall continue to experiment with, as I want to develop a small paired blank mould that I can mass produce easily and use for teaching.


The second was the RTV Silicon moulds I was playing with in my last post. The RTV mould stuff is fantastic, and I'm annoyed that I didn't actually try it sooner, like about a year ago when I discovered the stuff. I need to get myself some small to medium sized kitchen scales so that I can more accurately measure the ratio of compound to catalyst, and I need to remember to mix it more thoroughly, but the detail that can be achieved with this stuff is fantastic. :) Unfortunately my cutting out skills aren't as good as my carving skills, and I ended up making an error that later cased the failure of the mould. Just a small failure, but one that noticeably modifies the end product. The first casting from the mould was reasonably detailed, but the third started to get more detailed as the mould started to warm up. This is great stuff, and when I can work out a better method of making the moulds I shall start making saleable items this way.

I got made redundant when I got back from Festival, so things have been a little slow with me working out what to do next. Luckily the redundancy allowed me to clear a portion of my debt, which freed up some financial stress. ;) This in turn allowed me to splurge a little on some things I have been meaning to try, such as RTV Silicon moulds.

RTV Silicon moulds are a liquid Silicon that hardens at room temperature and is suitable for moulding pewter directly into. This allows me to experiment with an almost lost wax technique without having to re do the lost wax mould each time. Basically I end up with a reasonably flexible mould that allows all the detail of the lost wax process, with the re-usability of the hard carved mould technique..

Currently I'm just experimenting with it to see how useful it can be, but if all goes well, it might be able to produce some really great stuff.

As usual with anything I do... I'm kinda learning by experimentation, as opposed to actually being taught, so stand by for some notes and stuff in the next few weeks.

10 years ago mobile internet access was just a dream. Nowadays things are just so easy that accessing your friends page on LiveJournal is as easy as a few button presses on you mobile phone. Not only can you access web sites but you can also contribute, post blogs, upload pictures, and loads me other things.

More and more mobile friendly websites are appearing and the need for accessing a computer is becoming a thing of the past. Even the Rowany Community Forum is mobile phone friendly these days.

Don't you just love technology? ;) This post is also sent from my mobile.

What follows is just some thoughts and theories only, based on my own pewter work, and understanding of production and manufacturing techniques.  It is by no means researched and even my own experience does not compare to technology that would have been available.

I have of late been making largish batches of tokens, particularly for Rowany Newcomers, and this has given me pause to think of production techniques that might have been employed to allow production of a large number of tokens rather quickly. 

Given the numbers of finds of tokens and souvenirs through Europe, I personally believe that there would not have been someone who specifically just made these tokens.  If there was, they would have most likely only done it as a part time thing, specifically for a coming event.  They might be a jeweller, though the skills required such as a steady hand, artistic flare and patience mean that it really could have been anyone, much like it is in the SCA.

The quality of the carved moulds varies greatly which seems to indicate to me that some might have been jewellers who are skilled in carving, whilst other moulds are rather rudimentry and might have been made by some other person with suitable carving skill.

There are indications that numerous moulds of the same pieces were made, though there isn't much evidence as to whether this was to replace moulds that broke, or wore out, or was to speed up production.  My guess is they were made to speed up production, as most souvenirs would have had a limited window of opportunity such as an event or such.

In my practical experience I'm guessing that production was either done in stages, with quality control between stages.  With child labour not being an issue, I'm guessing that the work would have been broken up between various workers, one pouring the molten metal, one collecting those castings and checking whether they were acceptable, then possibly clipping off the excess, and possibly even one worker finishing off by cleaning up the piece to a sale-able item.  The use of a second and even third worker here makes the process one that can continue at a reasonable rate.

In pouring the casting I believe that there would have been no waiting for the button to cool, the caster would have poured in molten metal, waited a second or two, then poured back out the molten button before it completely set.  Through experience when casting tokens and small flat items the first second or two is enough to have the actual item needed set within the mould, and the button is just excess metal that would be better suited back in the pot to continue the casting process.  It's also quicker to pour this back into the pot whilst it's still molten rather that let the button cool, cut it off then have to re-melt it.  This would be a key to producing large numbers of castings, and having a second person to do quality control means that the person pouring the castings can just keep churning them out, whilst the other person is sorting and throwing bad castings straight back into the pot whilst they are still hot.

Here ends my theories and suppositions...  If you have opinions please feel free to comment.

Yippee!  A mate loaned me his 6 slot arrow making jig for a couple of days, so I managed to get 20 arrows fletched for Festival with yesterday and todays efforts. 

Today I also finally got to use the fletches I made at New Years with Cate in Polit.  They look great on the shafts, and whilst they aren't quite finished yet, I hope to have them all ready to use at Festival.

I have also experimented with standard precut feather fletches, and making them look more period by stripping the first and last 10-12 mm from the spine and binding them in place.  Makes them look slightly more period, but you can still tell they are precut. 

Shall edit later and add photo's...

Yes...  From one ear to the other....

This afternoon whilst doing other bits and pieces around the house, I decided that I wasn't going to participate in the worlds greatest Shave after all, and shaved my head.  Does that make sense?  Some may say not, so let me tell you the whole story...

In November I decided that I was going to participate, so I sent them Leukaemia Foundation an email asking when the official site was up and running and what they could do to help me as I wanted to do some fun stuff building up to it.  They were all keen for it and  told me I could sign up and start advertising.  Early in December I went to update my "My Shave Page" only to find that I couldn't get in.  Seems that when they told me that I could sign up, the website wasn't ready properly and when they updated the whole things properly, they deleted my password.  This was fine, I thought it was a simple thing to fix...  But turns out that it takes them almost 3 months to fix a little password issue.  In this they continued to tell me all about how I could raise money for them.  Thing is, I had a plan, and their IT Support staff were the only ones stopping it.  Stupid thing was, I told them what the issue was multiple times, but it was just a low priority, so in turn me trying to get sponsorship became a low priority.   After all...  Yes, I know that fundraising isn't an easy job, but the idea of a group getting together to do these large ones is to make it so easy for people that they

And here we are today...  two weeks out from the Shave weekend, and I have no sponsors, and no longer any real interest in getting any.  I also had a head of hair that I had been growing specifically for the purpose of making money when it came to shaving, which was now quite surplus to requirement.  So off it came today....  and Ahhhhh  I feel so much better.