Brass work for Gladius in process.

[Crispvs]

Your progress is looking very good Sam!

On the matter of bending the cross hanger, as I said in an earlier post, measure the length first and only emboss between the places to be bent. This means that the viewer sees an embossed cross hanger but the actual bend is at a point which is actually not embossed. On actual examples we can often see one embossed pattern running along the front, with a slight gap at each end of this (where the piece is to be bent) after which a different embossed pattern takes over at either side to strengthen the projecting loops which contain the suspension rings. If you look you will see that this method was also used for the Porto Novo cross hangers.

Although this will solve your initial problem of bending the metal to start to form the loops, you are then left with another issue - that is, how to bend the embossed loops around without destroying the embossed finish. The answer here is to anneal the areas to be bent into the loops first with a torch, bringing the brass to an orange-red colour before letting it cool down. It should bend quite easily then and with far less chance of breaking or losing the embossed pattern.

Regarding the half inch band of brass you were thinking or putting around the top of the locket, I am not sure what the evidence for this is. There were some probable scabbard parts found at Hod Hill, one of which certainly did seem to be a band to go around the mouth of a scabbard and which was decorated with a series of small stamped oval shapes. I have seen this reproduced on reconstructed scabbards and this may be what Matt Lukes has based this in. I would check with him though if I were you. He is generally very helpful and he really does know what he is talking bout when it comes to this sort of thing.

Crispvs