Pioneering

[taimatsu]

(This is another in my series of Links On A Topic posts: others are Tunnel Books, Medieval Costume, and Songs I like.)

For Shards, I have been talking about making a thing to put latex swords on, off the ground - otherwise they get left standing in corners on their points (very bad) or on the ground getting trodden on. From my Guiding days I remembered making things at camp out of sticks and string, and since I like string very much indeed I decided it would be good to track down information and instructions on such things. Here, therefore, is a handy collection of 'camp gadgets' you can make with rope, sticks, string and so on. Some are more useful and more practical than others. None of them, sadly, is a weapon rack, but it's easy to adapt the principles to such purposes, and I have a couple of ideas to try out.

The activity is called, in Scouting/Guiding, 'Pioneering' (and you can do merit badges in it); the name for a knot tying two or more spars together is a 'lashing'. I have bought a large quantity of very cheap, very rough brown string, which we can use to make things with. Robert and I also have decent rope, and a book on knots which I'll bring.

As many of the pages use the same set of drawings of camp gadgets I will link to the images rather than to lists which may repeat each other. I'm including various things which may seem totally bizarre, but the principles on which they are constructed may well prove helpful.

Wikipedia overview of pioneering, with some handy links on knots
The three basic pioneering structures
A page with excellent lashing diagrams
Fire Bucket holders
Lantern tripod
Tool rack
Bowl stand, clothes line, filter bin, and more
Washbasin stand
Ladders, and a travois to be used as a stretcher
Really sensible things to do with bin-bags
Catapult! (There *must* be a use for this at Shards!)
Knots and lashings
Lots of PDFs on knots, whipping, and pioneering topics

Comments

[claire-smith.livejournal.com]

Cool! When I was in the Guides, we had to make a thing which had a gap for a washing-up bowl at one end, and a draining board at the other.

Oddly, it didn't look like any of those bowl stands! More like the filter bin, with a washing up bowl in one half, and sticks lashed across the other half to make a flat surface.

I'd forgotten all this stuff - I even had a badge in it, too!

[taimatsu]

A bit like this, then? The links above aren't the only images available from the set: see http://www.hurricanedistrict.org/pioneering.htm for more, and the origin of the pictures.

[claire-smith.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's it! Cool. :)

Hehe - I think you should make a Scout cage (http://hcetit.hcet.fiu.edu/pioneer/pion67.gif)!

[ifimust.livejournal.com]

I don't need to make any of this (I do the camping thing but I even take a bean bag with me...), but it's interesting to read. :) Thanks

[aendr.livejournal.com]

What, you didn't find a weapon's rack?! We made gadgets for putting poles on, off the ground, to keep them dry. You've got a couple of choices for doing that, depending on the length of your pole and desired robustness of the gadget. 3 tripods in a row can hold a fair few long poles but anyone knocking into them will knock the lot down. It sound like you want something more along the lines of an X-section. You need 6 poles of equal length and at least 3 of another equal length and 2 longer ones. Lash three pairs of poles together to make Xs using a diagonal lashing. Hold them in a line with an X cross section and lash one of the other poles under the crossed pieces. Near the feet of the crossed pieces lash the other two poles, so you have a fairly sturdy structure one way but it still has a little potential to slide along the cross section. Lash the 2 longer poles diagonally along the two lower sides (opposite diagonals) - this will give the structure rigidity. Any further additions are for functionality or decoration. You can lash short poles in X shapes between adjacent poles on each upper side to allow the top to hold a greater variety of sword or pole lengths.

[taimatsu]

I think I understand what you're getting at! The thing is, I think I need whatever I produce to be quite narrow in cross-section - the sort of thing that can go along a tent wall and not intrude into the space too much. I may actually do something that hangs from the tent roof-pole (especially as we will be tying the marquee in question to trees, logs and other large heavy things, so it probably won't fall over with the added weight). Ideally I'd have two poles vertical, 1.5m apart, and then two horizontal poles near the top of the verticals, sandwiching the verticals between them. This wouldn't be terribly practical, so I'll be coming up with something different, but that's the kind of size and shape I'm looking at. Big things would have to go outside and would be more liable to being rained on or tripped over.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

The angles chosen for the Xs can be pretty tight, to make a very vertical thing.

By the narrowness you mention, I'd be thinking of something more H like in cross section or even, suspended, a |_| shape. Putting two poles close near each other and smaller items crisscrossed or just parallel diagonals between them along their length, makes a fairly good surface for holding things on. The distance between any two supports needs to be less than 2/3rd the length of the shortest item.

By the way, kebab sticks, cocktail sticks and thick thread or that very thin string are good for making mock-ups, but blunt the ends first because otherwise you jab yourself lots.

The last thing I made, pioneering-wise, was a 3 tripod gateway with ladder, bridge and bunting... with poles about 12 feet long and 9 inches in cross section.

[taimatsu]

Update: I did make a weapon rack. It was very simple - two long horizontal poles, lashed to a short thick vertical stick at each end to keep them far enough apart to admit blades, the whole thing hung from the tent side. It worked marvellously well even with non-ideal poles (they were a bit curvier than I'd have liked).

[becky-spence.livejournal.com]

You simply _have_ to make a catapult!!

This is a very interesting read :) I knew you could get badges in this at Guides, sadly I got my badges in stuff like sewing and first aid rather than pioneering or knot tying. My knot tying skills are feeble...

[aendr.livejournal.com]

You can now get a badge in Chocolate, too.

[taimatsu]

What do you have to do for that?! :)

[aendr.livejournal.com]

well for one thing, record all the chocolate you eat for a week
http://www.netguides.org.uk/guides/chocolatebadge.html

[imc.livejournal.com]

I was in the cubs, and after that the scouts, but I learned almost everything I know about knots from Get Knotted! (http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1337815/book_Get-Knotted!!-John-Jaworski-and-Ian-Stewart)

[liriselei.livejournal.com]

I have been talking about making a thing to put latex swords on, off the ground - otherwise they get left standing in corners on their points (very bad)

i'm actually really surprised that there are LARPers who do this - for the White City (http://www.flrp.anang.com/whitecity) it's part of our basic weapon safety rules (http://www.flrp.anang.com/whitecity/safety.html#weapons) !

[taimatsu]

It doesn't happen often, but there was a sword left like this last time. It's the kind of thing *I* might do if I wasn't thinking, just because I don't use the things often.

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

You lot all did guides? I missed all that fun!

And CATAPULT!

We will talk more at the weekend.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Hrm - would depend how much weaponry (and what types) you were trying to keep out of the way.

If I were to make something for several swords of the same length, what I'd probably do is to get a very stout central pole, and put it into a hole in the ground to secure it, then lash a pair of canes on either side of the pole (so that from the side on they formed a 'T' shape, but with one cane behind the other forming the horizontal) - and then hang the swords point-down from the slot between the canes. If you had a lot of swords, you could put more pairs of canes across at 90 degrees to the first (so you got something of a hatstand-type effect)

ie:

Sideways view:

     ||
============= (one cane in front of the pole, one behind)
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||

Looking directly down the canes at the swords:

    ----
    \  /
     ||
  ___||___
 |___  ___|
   O || O     <--- canes (cross-section)
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     ||
     |/

Assuming it was to be kept outdoors, You could drape a tarpaulin over the whole thing, and then it wouldn't matter if it rained!

The main possible problem I could see with this design is that it would end up with canes sticking out at a height they could be run into...

(Alternatively, you could be me and have a fabric cover for your sword which already supports it from the hilt to stop the point being crushed, with a shoulder strap, so it can either be slung over the back if wandering around, or hung off any nearby pole...it's not a scabbard, or suitable for using mid-adventure, because it takes too long to take the sword out - but it's good for using if I'm travelling by public transport, since most people assume it's a case for a pool cue :)

[taimatsu]

This is exactly what I'm thinking, but I'm afraid the whole right-angles thing will be unlikely to stay in place. I'll come up with something, though :)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

They should do if you lash them tightly - it's very difficult *not* to get a right angle with the basic over-and-under - and LARP weaponry is so light that they shouldn't slip down, provided your string doesn't stretch. You could always notch the main pole if you wanted to be really certain of it stayed put?