Herald's Challenge Coins

As much as I want to say this was a fun project that I just wanted to get into, the fact of the matter is that this was motivated by a far more pertinent and serious SCA situation for me. As I have hinted at previously, and said expressly, voice heraldry in my kingdom, or at least in the north, is a neglected trade to take up. A diminishing number of heralds work harder than ever, and with ever shortening advanced notice of their tasks every year, and the end result is a lot of people burn out, and the new of us that stick with it, well,  when we can't make it, its felt by everyone else. Of course, its not all doom and gloom, we have had some outstanding moments as well. But overall, the trends I have seen are not good as an average.

Changing this is a whole other story, of course. Yelling, lecturing, making a scene are right up there with modern 'clergy' who walk the streets who scream 'repent' at every passer by. Its the opposite of engagement.

Positive reinforcement is the best option, but lets be fair, there are some parameters that need to be met.

1. Eye Catching
2. Durable
3. Practical
4. Emotional and Physical value

All too often the local idea of largess is 'okay' for a general group of people, but really, trinkets like 'salt to season your meal', and 'a gorgeous, hand-thrown mug' are nice, to be sure, but impractical for someone who already demonstrated that they had the energy and wherewithal to do a lot of walking.

At this point, my mind shifted to the modern challenge coins which are very much all of my criteria above, and more to the point, I was confident I could design one. Now, actually making it... that was another mater. Any sort of metalwork was going to be outside of my comfort-zone, let alone the type of carving work needed for a mold or cast.

For about two months, I tried my hand at carving a basic mold out of a piece of plaster, and then a small piece of sandstone I had from a class I took ages ago. Needless to say, all of it was a blithering disaster. shaping sandstone was a level of skill (and a quality of tools) I just didn't have then, and still don't right now. The plaster was a little more forgiving, but given the amount of work needed, just for my one test coin, I was still highly pessimistic.

I had sort of settled on an idea of a lost wax casting idea for a metal master (and no idea what I would do with that afterwards) by the time December had come around and my family and I attended Wiesenfeuer's Yule Revel.

Yule, something my family and I have attended every chance we had since first joining, turned out to be a phenomenal turning point in the project for me. Maste Beorhlic Folcwineson, who's laurel was earned for metalwork, was also a long time friend and confident going back to some of my earliest days. I had planned to talk with him about sand casting, but the conversation went so much further than that. We covered metals, heat sources, sand types, and what the different materials were to make a master. I could use wax, wood, lead, and a host of other options, but in the middle of that conversation, Beorhlic suddenly said "Wait a minute! Try Sculpey." it turns out the modern clay, which I was only passably familiar with, could be cooked to near rock solid hardness and used as a master for copying.

This idea was a flying lead past wax, which, when I tried it later on, turned out to be a messy disaster of its own. I fully understand that wax is the go to in industry for making max masters for casting, but again, tools and patience... two things I was short on just then.

So, I ran to the local Walmart the next day and purchased a variety pack of Sculpey ($9.95, which I was glad for). Now, my learning curve with working clay like this was a hell of a lot steeper than I thought it would be. I tried my hands at all different methods of sculpting, carving, and imprinting different images, even basic ones into the clay, but all of them were blithering disasters.

I think I burned two weeks of messing with it before I came up with the idea of carving a shape into poster board, and then rolling that into pressed clay. The thickness of the plasterboard board would be enough to create a uniform impression on the play. I tried it, first roiling our a 1/4 inch thick plate of clay, and then pressing the pattern into the face with a rolling pin and wax paper. To my shock... it worked perfectly.

My first clay blank (Still needs some sanding on the ends.

Now, paper wouldn't let me do letters, those were still something I would have to add in later, but now that I had a reasonable means to put a decent image in the middle of the coin, I was eager to move forward. I purchased a set of 3mm letter stamps from Amazon for $12, and then sat down to letter my first coin blank.

The process was not what I would have expected. First of all... the clay stuck to the lettering stamps, meaning that what should have been a clean press would get pulled back up, ruining the clay form. After about 3 days of playing with this, I just decided that I would make a letter-less blank out of sculpy, and then cast it in pewter and make the first metal one into the master by lettering that.

The instructions on the Sculpy package said to cook it at 275 for 15 minutes for every quarter inch  of thickness to the model. I set my to 300, and left it in the oven for an hour. Yes, its overkill, but let me tell you, it worked, that first model was rock hard.

So, the next major step in the process came at Northkeep's Winterkingdom collegium in January. The event is always held out at the Creek County Fairgrounds, and the dirt-floored arena has always been the location of choice for hands-on classes like woodworking, stone carving, and metal casting. This year, Beorhlic and Ludo were co-hosting a class is pewter casting, and I showed up with my clay blank. After sitting through the necessary safety talk, and listening to a basic discussion of the theory behind sand-casting, Beorhlic set me up to do a one-sided sand cast of my coin. We used a propane touch to heat my cast-iron frying pan that I was using for a makeshift crucible.

A few minutes later, I poured.

I was borderline ecstatic with the final product. Looking back, it was more of a proof of concept for me and a functional coin or medallion. But at the same time, this was one of the few things that I have made with this type of detail that was not delicate in some way. To see something that started as an idea a few months ago suddenly turn into a physical reality right in front of my eyes was breathtaking.

So, like a kid at Christmas morning, I spent the rest of the event running around, finding friends of mine, and saying "here, let me show you this!"

Now, this lead to an interesting set of conversations, which further reinforced my original goal. Remember, I wanted something that 'landed with authority' when I dropped it in someone's hand. I didn't want a trinket, or 'something shiny', I wanted something that was going to make a clunk when you put it on a table, and move your hand when I gave it to you. It needed real, practical, mass to it.

Well, let me tell you, that was what I got. With nearly everyone I handed it to, there was an almost instant "holy $h!t" as the weight hit their palms. About half of them commented "you could take someone out with this!" and half of what was left added (mostly hyperbolicaly) "don't drop this, you'll break your foot". But between all the laughs and all of the jokes, I was about ready to do cartwheels because this was precisely the reaction I wanted.

There was also a LOT of conversation about ways to improve my methods and product better blanks masters. One of the best ones I heard was the simple act of coating the soft clay with cooking oil to prevent the stamps from sticking and pulling the clay back out when I was done.

I got home and almost immediately went to work making a case for sand casting. I used a chunk of 2" plastic pipe for the case and glues on wood for both a stand and an index set for make sure the faces matched up. It was a trial and error process, to be sure, and if I were to do it again, I would definitely do it differently. But, With the frame in place, I was able to pack the sand down and do a cast.

One of the first things I figured out when I cast my first coin was that my plan to stamp the lettering into it was insane the moment I said it. The act of lining up the dies and striking them in the right order and right force each time was too much, and about 7 or 8 characters in, I did a letter backwards and tanked the whole idea. I finally sat down and did a fresh master coin the way I should have from the start. I grabbed a piece of poster board and cut out a fresh relief of what I was rolling into it, and then borrowed something I learned from a cosplaying YouTube channel of all placed. I used a bit of duct tape and stuck all the parts, to the face of it, and then dusted it with baby powder The final result is a reusable press that will leave the coin's raised rim and trumpet in the face of any clay I push it into. With this I was able to make a new blank. And then, using the vegetable oil I was able to press "that the crown will always be heard" into the front face, and "For the love of the dream" into the back.

I cooked this one to death (I think I did 250 for like an hour, four times as long as I 'needed') and when I was done I had a hockey puck with all the details I needed to make a sand cast coin.

Now, sand casting is one of those things that looks easy when someone else is doing it, but let me say now that simple, but not easy when you are doing it. There was a lot, and I do mean a lot of trial and error with making a cast, and I wound up sanding my clay master several times to get the edges as straight as possible. It was a long, and frustrating process every time it either got stuck in the mold, or came out and took a chunk of the mold with it.

Finally, sometime around 4 or 5 PM Sunday (this is the Sunday after Winter kingdom, so lot a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but nearly endless activity on my past) I set up my frame, and sand and set to work to do a first cast of the the clay master.

Waiting for the pewter to melt was honestly frustrating just because I hate not being able to do anything, but, once I got my channel locks ready and the pewter melted, I went to pour. I had already done this once, and my major problem was the mold, and not the pewter, so getting it to pour in he right place and not run all over my work space was actually easy. I gave it about ten minutes, and then pulled the mold apart. The coin came out covered in a huge lump of sand, and it was all way to hot to touch. I waited about fifteen minutes before it was cool enough to handle and finally went to knock the sand off of it with one of my nylon brushes.

I honestly was holding my breath for the whole time as I worked to clean it off and get the coin where I could see it, but when I did, it was so worth it. The actual, final, physical product of months of planning, dreaming, talking, hoping, and thinking was sitting there in the palm of my hand.

I took my time cleaning this one off, and sanding it smooth and clean. When I was done, I put an "M" on the edge marking it as the master that all others would be cast from. (also, the coin I would keep). I didn't know at the time how many I would make, but I was thinking somewhere between 10 and 20, depending on the time and cost of pewter involved.

For the next three days, I cast one or two coins a night until Wednesday came and I went for broke after getting enough time and did a run of three, using up the last of my pewter.

I had 7 total casts now to show for it, and I was really happy with the results. And... I was out of anything to cast with so a break was called for.

The next big eye opener for me was the cost of material when I started looking for more pewter. because there are going to be coins (Or medallions)  and will be handled, I had to purchase from a source I knew would be 100% led free. I know that contact exposure from lead is minimal, and can be make even less of an issue if you paint the coin in a sealant. But I can't really depend on that, and I don't want to risk someone to lead exposure later on down the road. Its just not smart.

Medallion and US quarter
for size comparison

So, I went shopping, and got my eyes opened with a steel crowbar. 1 pound of pewter alone is $18.00 at most of the better sites, and shipping is $7.00... and then throw in tax and we're above $25 by enough to be uncomfortable. Its not that I don't have it, I do, but I don't have enough cash to buy a lot of metal at that rate, and what I can get, well, lets just say a power doesn't go very far when you're casting medallions this big.

Medallion and US quarter 
for size comparison

So, biting the bullet, I purchased another brick and waited for the order to arrive. It took almost a week and a half, but... it make it just after lunch on a Monday. As soon as I was off of work, I dove into my shop in the garage and went to work with the camp stove, the sand and my mallet.


It I got out there and started working about 5:45 in the evening.

The process was slow. First I had to set up the cast, which means packing sand down tight, and then packing it down tight on the other side, and then heating up the metal. All told, it was probably twenty five minutes or more before I was done with my first cast. It picked up a little from there, from sand casting in series is just a slow process, probably one of many reasons why the Chinese didn't do it when they were making their coins.

After all of the coins were cast, I had to trill off the stems and extra and then file down the sides, and then finally sand them in order to get the sharp burrs off of the edge. It was long, and tiring, and still so worth it. I came in the house to wash the finished coins and my hands off sometime around 8 or 8:30.

Some rough math puts the material cost of each coin just over $2.50 each, and I probably have 50+ hours of time into them, between design and production, and of course not forgetting the actually time spent casting them.

But, when I was done,  I posted my announcement to Facebook. The project was complete, my coal had been met. I was tired, and a little sore, but I was also bubbling over with pride over getting these done.

I do hereby declare the official first run of the voice heralds challenge coins...

Complete!

We have 17 total castings. One master coin (which I plan to keep)

And 15 coins to disperse in recognition of the hard work that voice heralds do, and are (in my opinion) under-recognized for.

My first-run Voice Herald Challenge coins.

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"