The mantlet is woven of green saplings, mostly beech, a little maple (we had to work with green saplings, and you will see why in the next image).

Here is a close up shot, of one of the supporting saplings. This was straight as a rod, and fully covered with bark as we began the project - there is so much tension in the weave, that the pole, which is 2" -2 1/2"- 3" thick (depending on which end you are at), has been bent and woven into the weave like the thumb-thick to 1 1/2" thick saplings, and the bark stripped with the weaving.

The mantlet is as small as we could make it with the material - the idea was for it to be 3 1/2' across, and under 6' high - it is more like 4', by 6'. The mantlet was woven upside-down, with the poles dug into the ground. It has been since flipped, filled up with thinner branches, and neatly trimmed. The force of the woven saplings spread the poles at the bottom, even though we took every precaution to prevent this (we tied a rope to the bottom edge, and wove it as tight as we could to keep the poles as close together as we could).

We tested its effectiveness against archery, up to point blank-range, and prior to the weave being filled in. Out of 30 direct hits on the mantlet, one penetrated through the weave entirely (hitting a hole in the weave, since filled), about 1/3 of the shots bounced off, and the rest stuck in the weave, to no great depth (up to 3", maximum). What would happen is the arrow would start into the weave, and the friction would seem to have slowed it to a stop rapidly, without harming the fabric of the mantlet itself. A total of 1 arrow shot actually split the narrow end of one sapling, penetrating the other side to the depth of 1".

A close up after we filled in the thin spots.

I should have taken some pictures of it as it went together, but I got shots while limning out the ducal arms.

We based the cutouts on the somewhat larger screens (non-mobile) seen in Diebold Schilling, the images of the Burgundian army besieging Morat.

Here is a full length of the screen, it will sit 5" higher with the wheels in place, and the trail will cock it back maybe 10 degrees.

Lastly, a close up of all the fields and borders limned out - what a pain in the butt, waiting for the linseed oil based paint to dry.

While waiting for the rain to occasionally break, to do outside projects. I have been putting together 4 small javelins - literally 'hand arrows', in the artillery accounts, quite a few of which show up in inventories of the artillery held in a castle.

The darts are almost invariably broad-heads, and going by the images I have to work with, they seem to range between 4'-5' long, although some more spear-like ones show up,. over the 5' mark - with narrow spearheads instead of broad-heads, usually.

The photos are taken immediately after I had headed the darts, and shouldered down the shafts - you can see the marks of the files if you look at the photo of the heads.

They are sanded and waiting fletching now, I will put up more pictures after the fletching process.

Interestingly enough, I was going through Gaier last night, and in 1443, the comptroller of the ducal artillery recorded some 21,050 heads for 'flesche de main' in one castles stores. Also, they had a variety, I counted in the list of the type of dart/javelin weapons the following catagories 'flesch de main', 'dard', 'dard de fer', 'dards de Espagnie', and 'javelins'. Apparently, there was a variety of the weapons in use.

These were entirely separate from arrows, arrowheads, quarrels, and artillery ammunition (as late as 1461, we have record of Burgundian artillerists employing arrow-like projectiles in cannons - like a sabot round, all metal, apparently, and with two sets of fins per projectile, one set of three to the rear, one set of three to the middle.)

Here I am trying to post an image from that 1470 Jason manuscript, hopefully, it is small enough to attach. (attachment too big, of course, I will try re-sizing later.)

The fletching improved accuracy in the horizontal toss, and the throw from a height - it made no improvement to range, but a novice can hit what they are throwing at, by in large - I almost killed a chipmunk on the fly with one, thrown down from the back porch.

9 times out of ten, throwing down from a height of 20', you hit what you aim at, out to, say a maximum of 15 yards from the base of the height you are throwing at. The force of impact has been increased by adding the fletching, and a vertical throw downward burys the head completely, and a few inches of the shaft. A horizontal throw, you hit roughly what you are aiming at, 7 or 8 times out of 10, and it strikes the ground with enough force to bury the head itself.

The dart "toss", with the size of the fletchings (based directly off the Jason manuscript), makes the dart toss impossible, with a dart of this length. It was do-able to a degree without the fletching, with the fletching, it just does not work properly. You can do it with an arrow, which is a foot less in length, and with a properly tapered shaft.

I am sure that they would be effective, thrown at a game animal from a moving horse. I am certain they could wound or kill an unarmoured man, with a throw from a height, but the more armoured the target, the less useful they would be. I would think you would instinctively flinch from one thrown at you with intent, even fully armoured. You could kill or wound a foot-soldier, no doubt, with a well-aimed or lucky throw.

The arms are further limned out, Burgundy is complete, the various lions of Flanders and Luxembourg are roughed in, awaiting detailing.

A close up shot, the lions still need detailing, but the next step is painting in the powdered fleur de lys, and the last lion, after that dries, then going in to pick out the last details.

I've glued and cut the fletching, but it still needs to be bound, and I need to oil the shafts to finish them, and probably, I will wax the binding of the fletching, to add one more level of security

A close-up shot, don't laugh, I have never fletched anything before in my life. I was lucky to align the feathers properly, the jigs markings are less than helpful.

I am pretty certain I could increase performance, if I replaced the crappy Hanewaii broad-heads, with real ones. I might contact Hector Cole, or someone like that, to make me up another six heads, but decent.

Jenn

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We have finally gotten around to weaving in the cross member of the wooden prop for the wattle mantlet.

We had been stumped as to how to go about this, but Mac provided the suggestion of getting some thin green sapling branches, and then braiding/plaiting them for strength and flexibility, to enable them to be woven into a bracket.

The idea worked very well, but in weaving the support in place, the actual braiding came loose, as you can see.

Here it is, propped up from the front-side, now that we have established the height, I can cut the permanent wood prop, and affix it to the crossed support we just wove in. Over the last couple of weeks, the green wood has shrunk some, so we will weave in some more filler, to stop up the gaps you can see now. We still need to trim the bottom two legs, and 'sharpen' them.

The Burgundian arms on the plank mantlet has progressed as well, we have touched up the lion of Flanders. We had to go back in on the central lion of Hainault/Holland, and widen the yellow, as when we did the initial outline of the escutcheon in black, the paint ran, Next week, I trim up the escutcheon once again, and it will lose the 'lop-sided' look.

Next week, the lion of Flanders gets the last of it's fur, and is armed and launged, the center escutcheon is touched up, the lion of Luxembourg gets its detailing, and the Fleur de lys gets sharpened and adjusted. We have probably 2 more weeks work, before we varnish the coat of arms. We had the ironwork for the pin for the support made last weekend, so this is getting close to being done as a entire mantlet.

I still have to bind the javelin fletching, but I don't need it for a presentation until the Saturday next, so it is temporarily on the back-burner.

Here it is playing down collapsed, you can see we shortened the legs, and sharpened them up, and the prop in its socket in the cross-timber prop.

Completed front

Showing a close up of the prop, and how it is set into the mantlet.

Full on from the rear.

The thing is incredibly strong, having beaten on it with a heavy billhook, cutting, trimming,. and trying to keep it pounded together, I think you would literally have to take it apart with an axe, and take out a section at a time to break it up.

Here is a pavise we are working on (one of a set of 3), copied in shape and size from the two surviving small pavises of die Burgunderbeute (yes, it is flat-ish, as was the original)

Clay Gilbert of Fungi Forge made the pavise spike, and the handle.

The painting is hardly underway, we have only painted the field, and to indicate the St. Andrews cross., which will be slightly widened. There will be 4 fire strikers in gold, 4 black flints, and the entire field powdered with red flames, on the two white pavises. We also have one underway with the same design, but with a split field in Burgundian livery (parti-per pale, argent and azure).

These are 'beater' pavise, in that they have a plywood core, and are covered with fabric and gessoed, instead of being covered with deerskin, like the original. We have one that has been underway for a while, that will be covered in deerskin, like the original, made of poplar boards, like the original. The three beater pavise for the field are the test run for the reconstruction. I don't mind using these ones, but I would cry if we wrecked the reconstruction.

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I'd love to make a pavaise someday but have so many other projects who knows how long that will take. How have you constructed this one?

Nice work!

The shape cut out of the boards.
The boards were sanded

The pavise is wrapped in canvas that has been gessoed and sanded.

Then painted overall.