I am back!

I am back from the winter brake! I had planed to start posting a few weeks ago, I had written a bunch of posts up and then Blogger had a big crash that lasted a few week and lost a bunch of data so I lost all my drafts! It took a bit of time to make them up so I am just now getting up the emotional energy to go back and write theme again from scratch.

I have begun to work on projects and I am beginning to acclimate tutorials so that I can post new content regularly. I want to be able to make a new post every week for the duration of the summer. Oh, and this summer I will be attending my first ever big Belegarth event (Chaos Wars) and I expect that in itself will create a good number of tutorials.

So start looking for tutorials and new posts in the next week!

Blog on hiatus until spring

I am taking a break from Belegarth a few months (to help avoid burnout) and so wont have anything new to post until the spring when I start making things again. I will leave you with this one update, at the end of our local fighting season out group got some press, I had the opportunity to test out my back flag, so you can see it in action in this video:



My armor got beet up pretty good this day, and the flag wasn't properly attached to the poles until the second half of the day, but I was happy with it. See you in a few months!

Topsite.UltimateSwordFighting.com

Hey everyone, we are now listed on Topsite.UltimateSwordFighting.com as you might have seen by the counter on the right of the page. Please go to Topsite.UltimateSwordFighting.com and vote for us, right now we are #2 lets see if we cant get to #1!

Mexico House

 For the last 10 days I was away to the south. Our church took 65 teens (total group of 75) to mexico to build houses of over spring brake! In 5 days we had built 5 homes for 5 families. It was a fantastic experience!

Arderyth in the paper

Dallas Lammiman, centre, is joined by a group he formed for the purpose of fantasy combat with a midievel twist at Nose Creek Park in Airdrie.

Our local realm of Arderyth, got in the local paper again.  A full page this time! Very cool.

View the article here: http://www.airdrieecho.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1339728

A big shout at to Covy Moore for writing such a good article after such a poor interview I gave him!

If you want to discuss this article visit: The forum and the thread made for its discussion by clicking here. Boy, that was way to long...

Strathclyde Resource Store

"Strathclyde has just taken one giant step in the Belegarth world, proving that we are very serious about what we are doing, and committed to doing it with excellence."

Introducing the Strathclyde Resource Store!

 I have been spending the last few weeks working on something very cool, something I think is groundbreaking, and the likes of which Belegarth has, up till now, not seen anything like (at least, to my knowledge)! The Strathclyde Resource Store provides downloadable content and recourses to help supply realms, units and fighters, new and old with what they need to take things to the next level.

 We have a dream of Alberta being a Belegarth icon, leading the way in this great game and sport. This is just the first step of many toward that goal.

 Asides from the store opening itself, we are taking things even further, simultaneously releasing another ground braking product. The New Realm Starter Kit which is also a ground braking product, giving realms a jump start and that little bost they need to get off the ground. "The kit will be constantly evolving and expanding as we find new resources to add, in fact we are already looking at some exiting new additions that might be added as soon as January!"

Very cool, check it out!

Where have I been?

I apologize for my lack of posts lately, not only have I been very busy, but I have not been working on making much lately. Along with that I have been without a camera for the last few weeks. I hope to nab one soon here to get some post up of what I have been working on.

Right now I am working on a pair of steel greaves, as well I have made some foam weapons in the least few weeks, and will be making some more soon, so hopefully there will be some foam something tutorials up soon. Have patience I there is some good content coming... as soon as I get a camera!

The Rope Maker

The other-day I was at an alberta history place, and there was a guy making rope. I was very intrigued, and after spending a bit of time at the both, I decided I want to make my own rope making contraption! IT is pretty simple, and I took picts of everything, here they are:

The tools are not to complicated. Hopefully a tutorial on how to make one of these and how to make rope with it will soon be on the way in the coming months!

Report on Zotefoams from Mountain Equipment Co-op

So I went to Mountain Equipment Co-op over the weekend to examine and pickup some foam. So here are my findings!

• First off, the Blue Foam and the Evazote foam appear to be suitable foam for weapon construction, they are both a bit softer but spring back right away, and are not prone to easy damage.
• Yo can see the cells easily in the blue foam, but not in the yellow stuff. However, to the touch, the yellow is defiantly tougher than the blue.
• .5cm is really to thin, I think you would have to double it up, but the bum pad foam is thick enough. Also, there we an even thicker Evazote pad at the store (that wasn't on the site) for $33. It looked like it was probably .5" and would defiantly work, though would make larger weapons.

• I purchased the $22 Evazote yellow 1cm thick pad. I beleve it will work just fine.

• Mountain Equipment Co-op requires you to present $5 membership in order to buy anything. Just a heads up.
  

So, for all you Albertans, (and Canadians) rejoice! There is at least one place in country you can get suitable foam!

Why are there no new posts?

I must apologize guys, time has just not been on my side for the lest few weeks, I haven't been able to make anything at all, which I kinda need to do to post anything. I probably won't be able to get anything done this week, hopefully you will see a post by mid week next week.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Small Pavilion Tent: Letter from Max

I sent Max an e-mail thanking him for their Max & Mickel's Easy, No-bake Pavilion article, here is the response I got.

Hello Dallas,

Your first camping trip with the new tent was certainly more exciting than most! I'm not sure if my tent has ever seen that kind of wind.

In a 1" flat felled seam each panel goes past the center of the seam by half an inch, and then folds back a full inch from there. That's 1.5" of allowance for a 1" seam. Perhaps the rolled seams you used were different?

Thank you for posting pictures of your tent! I'm glad that my article was useful to you.

Max

Judging from this I would say that I am using a different flat felled seam than they are, and that is probably the main reason for the loose fit of the tent to the frame. So if you decide to follow these tutorials, ether follow Max's description of a flat felled seam or if you follow mine, only give a 1" seam allowance not 1.5".

Small Pavilion Tent: Testing

First off my apologies for not getting a post out on friday, or monday, it was the long weekend, and, I was finishing the pavilion tent on friday. That is right, I made this tent is 3-4 days. It was hard, and a bit of a time crunch, but it got done. I even got to put it up on the week end!

From Stuff Maker Blog

I found that I made the frame a bit to small, although it was exactly measured. Their are several factors that may have led to this:

1. Max & Mickel's Easy, No-bake Pavilion called for 1.5" of seem allowance, but only for 1" rolled seems.
   
2. I was going as fast as I could and a bunch of little missed measurements made it just a bit to big.
   
3. I measured a bit to low on the lower roof grommets, about 1" higher would have made a big difference.
   

I am not sure which one. Also, my dad could not get his camera to focus right, really odd. We made the door just seconds before running out our house door to camp. We made it with 2 ties on each side, it was not hemmed and thus had no seems. A quick temporary fix.

From Stuff Maker Blog

Me and my brother in front of the tent before it got blown over by gail force winds, it felt like we were close to a tornado, but I don't think their was even a funnel cloud...

From Stuff Maker Blog

The storm coming on...

The tent fell down, it held up surprisingly long. We set the tent up not expecting heavy wind (rare for the aria), and the tent door happened to face the wind, and with only 6 places attached to the rest of the tent (at the tope and the 4 side ties) it acted like sail. It blew over. When inspected, there was on real damage to the tent. 6 of the 8 plastic stakes had snapped, the week fiber twine I had used on the stakes had snapped.

I am very happy with the progress, I didn't expect to even be able to set it up before the long week end even if I did, I expected it to fall over. It held up to crazy strong wind for 10-15min before falling over with several big defects, I would say it was a success! And with a few small adjustments it will be able to stand up to almost anything!

I will be posting tutorials on how I made the tent, with tips now how to avoid my mistakes over the next few weeks! stay tooned!

Looking for your Content

I am looking for your help with the site! I want to see your stuff! I am sending out a call for content! Here are some ideas:

• Have you used any of these tutorials (even only a little bit)? Send me a picture of your  results!
  
• Have you made something cool you want the community here to see?
  
• Made a cool tutorial?
  
• Seen a good tutorial or tutorial site out there that others might find useful?
  
• Gat a better idea than my lame list?

Then send us picture (or what ever is applicable) all of us here would love to see it!

Also? Happy Birthday to ME! :D

I need your help! Feedback wanted!

     Well it has been 3 months since I started and I think it is time to refocus, see... We have a problem. I am making tutorials faster than I can make stuff!
     Well I haven't been able to work on any new stuff for a wile now, and 3 tutorials a week is causing me to run out of material fast. Don't worry I will still have new tutorials for next week. However I am going to have to rethink posting tutorials 3 times a week, probably tapering it down to 2 times a week. Just giving you a heads up. I will still post 3 times a week however, but I need ideas for relevant content.

I want to make this site what you want it to be. So I have some questions:

• What do you think of the tutorials? Lame? Good?
  
• What would make you post comments?
• What kind of tutorials would you like to see?

So what else would you like to see with this site/blog? Here are some ideas for other things I might like to post on and about:

• Cool tutorials from other sites
  
• Reviews on other cool tutorial sites
  
• News from the making stuff world
• Your submitted tutorials
  
• Showcase projects you have made using tutorials on this site

Would you be interested in these things? If not let me know! If yes, maybe you have some ideas?