New spaulders!

These babies were waiting for me when got I back from my Christmas holidays. Well worth the wait, they were made by Marko Saari, the guild leader of /the Armoursmiths' Guild (WaruSseppäin Kilta in Finnish). Here's a link to their website:http://www.warussepat.fi/

Nice one, Marko! I think they're gorgeous! As you can see from the photos, they are attached using points. I still have to find out how to sew the laces onto my gambeson and whether to use laces or leather thong for the chords.

Already before the holidays, I decided to join the WarusSeppäin Kilta group, WSK for short, to enhance my historical martial arts repertoire and experience. The WSK train in various German styles based on several historical treatises. In effect, they do what we do, but in German styles AND they also make their own gear and do re-enactment. To-date, I have not really discovered another one-handed sword style that I am really interested in*, so I thought I'd stay with an approximately similar period to Fiore, but with a German twist. I like the finesse in longsword as well as the wrestling and dagger techniques. I also love both the look and feel of the Messer, which although it looks like a fearsome sword, is technically a long knife! Through this cross-training I hope to deepen my appeciation of HEMA overall and to get new insights into italian swordsmanship.

*= with the exception of backsword/basket-hilt claymore.