And that I think is everything you need to know about sword scabbards.
Hi it's Tod at Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today we're going to be talking about
sword scabbards. Very particular reason for that
and that is that I've started selling through Kult of Athena in the United States.
If you don't know Kult of Athena, go check them out, they sell all sorts of stuff from all sorts
of makers and they will be selling Tod's Workshop scabbards. They also have been selling for years
some Tod Cutler pieces like these here, so all sorts of daggers and now sword scabbards from Tod
Cutler/Tod's Workshop. This film is a little bit about how to wear sword scabbards, but mostly it's
really about these sort of scabbards that I make because you're investing, you know, reasonable
amount of money in that and you want to know what you're getting into. So I'm going to explain that
just how to look after them, what to do with them and adjust them really how to make them fit.
If you are interested in watching another film which has all sorts of sword scabbards in it
and how to wear them, i've got a great film starring Hobb with the crazy hat;
go check that out there's a link in the notes. First up, I'll show you a simple
tied system because you all need to know about it really, but you have a short strap with two holes
in it a long strap with two tails that goes around you, it's very adjustable the system,
it means that you can wear it with armour, without armour, over padding, no padding,
you can eat a load of burgers, you can stop eating burgers. It will still fit you.
Top strap through the top hole, bottom strap through the bottom hole, that comes down,
bit gunslinger, and then the top strap you just turn into a loop like this and then you take the
bottom one and you wrap it around and then pull it back through, so I'll just show you there and then
you pull that tight, then you pull that tight and the whole system now is very, very secure, very
locked together. To remove it, pull the strap, pull it apart and it's off. So dead simple. Next
up I'll show you how to put the long sword set on. So we're going to put the sword and scabbard down
now because that makes it a bit easier. First up is the belt and there is what's called the slider,
so that's what hooks the back of the scabbard on. Goes over the small of your back pretty much and
then that goes on just as a normal belt would go on. I'm not going to punch a hole in it yet, I'm
just going to hold it there and this is actually quite good if you've got an assistant for this bit
and then I have the hook on the scabbard here and that goes through the loop on the slider.
If you're not used to this it can all be a bit of a handful, but that goes through the loop
on the slider and now of course your scabbard is hanging at a ridiculous and horrible angle
you pull that up, you have one more buckle here and it is in fact the tail of your main belt
that goes through. Now what that means is that you need to punch holes for wearing it as a belt,
but you also need to punch holes to connect to the top of the scabbard, but now if you
look my scabbard hangs at a decent angle and actually if I sway my hips, very nice I know,
it's nice and secure, that is exactly what you want. Now I can change the adjustment on this by
moving the slider around, I can change the length of that strap there, I can do it up tighter/less.
I can even change the knots on my scabbard here so that will all change the way it hangs, the way it
moves, the angles and so on. I can't set that for you, Kult of Athena can't set that for you, your
butt might be bigger than mine, but your waist is different to my waist. All of these things change
everything, it's down to you. But what I can do is give you the tools to make it fit properly.
So the first thing you need to do, pop down Lowes or somewhere similar, buy a hole punch,
six dollars, seven dollars, get those holes punched where you think they need to be
but don't rush it okay? Don't rush it. Make sure that you're happy with the fit just by holding it,
bending it like I'm doing, here. I now can try it in different ways, see what works,
see what it looks like in the mirror, see how comfortable it is to walk, do all those things.
Then you will need to punch holes for your main buckle and holes for the secondary buckle here,
so that's going to get everything set up and now it's going to be secure. Still might not like the
angle of it, I'll show you how to tie the knot so that you can change the way the angle hangs.
I'll start by just showing you how I tie and adjust this scabbard knot here,
it's easily done if you know how but we'll flip it over and you can see there's a tail.
Once everything is where you want it to be cut that tail off because otherwise
it's a bit unsightly, but basically if you need to adjust it start by unthreading it
and take it out. Now I'm going to show you how to tie it from scratch on another scabbard because
then that way you're not going to get caught out by having a bundle of strap and not knowing what
to do with it, so we'll put this down and we'll pick up another, I'll show you how to tie the
knot now with somebody's production scabbard and a Tod Cutler long sword belt set. Starting with
the split strap, I suggest if you're adjusting a scabbard, not fitting it up from scratch, leave
this first knot in place, but that comes around like so and you can see from the back there,
then back up the front,
and around the strap again and back down. So it's now like that and the back should
look like that, back around the top again and then
you've got to get it under that middle strap. I use these fantastic medical forceps,
around like that, flip it over and then this goes underneath both of those and there we are. Now of
course it's missing its buckle, so if you're doing this from scratch which you won't be if you're
adjusting, you now have to cut that off to length and rivet your buckle; that's another story.
But that's your first one, pull it up to the throat now. We're now going to
fit our next one and it is done in exactly the same way. Leave this bottom one a little bit
longer, but you can adjust it because you know, people are different and again wrap it around
the back, over the top, exactly the same way, you want to keep this tight as you're going, you want
to pull it tight. Back around the back and we're going to flip it under the central strap again.
And there we are. So as you can see here, that's a bit longer than the ones you'll get from KOA,
but it's the same if I want to adjust that. Let's say I want to make it a little bit longer
the easiest way is that you just push it through and you'll find that 15 mm or 5/8 of an inch will
make quite a difference to how that sword hangs. So you push a little through and you just pull it
all the way around just keeping the tension up as you go and you'll find it really very
easy and this way you can't get it wrong because everything remains in place. If you want to take
it off and do it again from scratch you go for it, you know it's great to learn these skills,
and then just feed it through until it comes tight
and you're now going to have that extra 15 mm or 5/8 of an inch you didn't have before that
way you can adjust it completely how you want it to be. If I was tying that knot a bit too fast
I'll do it really slowly right at the end of the film so after everything else is finished I'll
just run through tying that knot again. Well let's talk about the scabbard itself. What are you going
to get? Well the first thing you need to know is that it's made of poplar, it's quite a soft wood,
it's definitely not heavy, but it's tough and it's stringy so it's traditionally a really good
scabbard wood, poplar and birch seem to be the two that were most favoured.
Now the way I make them is I try to make them as thin as I can, medieval scabbards were definitely
not clunky and so I don't line them, I don't line them with wool, I don't line them with fur,
they didn't either, almost ever in the medieval period, earlier yes,
medieval they didn't. Now what that means is that you end up with a thin, attractive scabbard,
it's a nice object but what it also means is it can bend. Now I'm just going to show you
this one. Now here's the scabbard which has got a slight warp in it, I don't know if you can see it,
it's probably about a cm, 3/8 of an inch curve on it like that,
it's been leaning against the wall. If I put that flat on the table by tomorrow morning
it'll be dead flat again, it's just not an issue, a little bit of sabering like, that
it can even happen. The wood moves, put a sword in it, it comes straight and if your
sword scabbard does swell up or get wet because it's very moist or you've been out on campaign,
you've got to free it up. Well you take a rubber mallet, you put it on the side of your leg there,
put a towel on your leg or something to protect you in case you go crazy and you just tap up the
length of the scabbard, you can actually hit quite hard and it will free everything up.
If you tap a point and it rattles you know it's loose there, don't hit there anymore, if you
hit a point and it doesn't rattle and you get a dull thud that means it's tight at that point
and you will have to work it a bit harder there, but in that way you can loosen up your sword in
the scabbard and everything will be great. But i think that's probably everything you need to
know about sword scabbards today so thank you very much, I hope it's worth listening. Cheers.
Take your sword scabbard from whichever manufacturer and your Tod Cutler sword belt
and put the strap just over the front, pin it down with your finger the strap that's now tailing down
here, pull up behind and move it onto the side of the strap between the scabbard throat and the
strap itself, again holding everything pinned down and sort of thumb and forefinger push it over the
top and then you grasp the strap underneath. So now from the top it's like this, position
and from the back it's like this, you bring it back up the front and it's good to keep a
bit of tension on, but you can actually add the tension back in later if you need to. If you're
a bit sloppy on it and it does take practice do it two or three times, doesn't matter, you won't
break anything, wrap it around the back like that and then back down around the front and the back
should now look like this. I find it helps to tuck the scabbard under my arm, it just keeps
everything in place. Now that's dangling down, it has to come back up the back of the scabbard,
now it comes around the front and it weaves through the straps in the alternate way
so it goes over the first one and under the middle strap and I like these medical forceps
they're really handy for this sort of thing. Give a little bit of slack on that central strap,
bring that under and now rather than pulling like that you'll end up with a big ugly knot
here pull it down at an angle that way and then keeping lots of tension on the system
now pull it around and it gets rid of this lump almost completely, not completely,
brings it around there and then don't go under this first one, go under the second one.
Now the whole knot is in position, but it's still a little bit wobbly so you can now pull it tight
just by pulling those two straps there. Now this of course now can still move up and down your
scabbard, so that's no good at all, what you can do is put a little slit here and here and
put a wooden peg or something through that, will stop it sliding up. It's a bit more complicated,
but you could put two slits in the back here, lift the leather off and then thread this through
but it's a bit harder to do and that will be the end of our scabbard tutorial. Thank you.