Forgotten Adventuring Gear | The Miner's Spike
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- čas přidán 17. 11. 2023
- The Miner's Spike is a versatile piece of gear, perfect for a medieval fantasy adventurer. Slightly later than the medieval period, this historical candle holder will change the way you travel and camp.
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Makes a "deniable" weapon for a rogue! - "This, mi'lord? It's just me candleholder."
😂😂😂
Imagine needing a weapon- this comment made by monk gang
💯
Damn it, I heard that in Arya Stark's voice!!! 😄😄😄
@@The_Sharktocrabimagine being a good class? (This is only a joke, I actually like monk. They’re a bit under powered though)
This would be a good addition to any adventure kit that contains candles. Like the wizard kit, or a scribes tools.
I think DnD 5e also puts candles in Burglar's Pack (+Entertainer's, Priest's)
Smaller tools like this are also a fun thing to add into like crafting scenarios and such, if the team has access to a forge for a brief period of time
I think Blackbear Forge makes them!
If the loop is big enough, and you were doing something like an encampment where you needed more light you could also hammer the spike into a tree and then drop a torch through at an angle.
Great point!
... or hang a lantern, or hang a hare/fox to process, or herbs to dry....
Honestly I think that is one of those INCREDIBLY versatile 'forgotten tools' that just doesn't fit how we usually live nowadays
That might actually be why one end is a loop, and not an angled spike or another hook
Black Bear Forge is a wonderful blacksmith channel
That sounds like a fantastic way to start a forest fire!
I hope you do more forgotten gear episodes! This was super interesting.
Definitely a series I want to continue to explore! Let me know if I have any ideas
@@LivingAnachronismyou should do a collaboration with Todd from Todd's workshop. He's a blacksmith and medieval/Renaissance reenactor, and he has a youtube channel.
@@studentdrakeor with Adam Celadin if you want to know what a good hurler could do with it.
Might I mention that the eye/handle can also be used to hold a torch when the spike itself is driven into a surface.
If the lantern had a handle like hurricane lanterns, you can drive the spike in with the hook below the line of the spike, and hang the lantern.
@@MonkeyJedi99 you could always flip the entire thing upside down and use the hook to hang a lantern…
@@____________838 That's another way to say what I said.
True, but you might need to put a nail in the torch to keep it from falling through the handle.
@@pirateraider1708 Leaning it and depending on friction might work.
Also, if the handle on the torch is long enough the bottom of the handle can friction against the wall or beam or tree.
The loop also fits over a staff/walking stick and will hold itself steady (when motionless) by weight alone (angle based binding. Like a tree climbing belt).
Also works well if you have some sort of protrusion on the staff to help you lean on it or fasten a bindle to. Just then it'll probably be fairly workable even while walking, giving a fairly durable alternative to a polelantern.
@@theapexsurvivor9538 Try walking at a normal pace with an un-shielded candle, and let us know how you get on. (Clue: It will blow out.)
@@sarkybugger5009 when did I mention a candle?
I said it could be leaned on or used to hold a bindle (a piece of cloth that is tied to a pole to act as a bag. Just in case people can't be bothered to use google for 3 secs...), and that when it had wait on the end, such as a bindle, it'd probably be stable even when in light motion such as walking, as opposed to needing to be motionless when just bound by its own weight...
But, speaking of candles. Unless it's windy, yes, I can walk at a fairly normal pace with an unshielded candle. I do so Every winter due to celebrating winter solstice by watching the light through the longest night. I regularly have to relight candles from one another, and have gotten quite good at striding with them. If it is windy, the walking is the least of your problems and a torch or lantern would be preferable.
@@theapexsurvivor9538 I am fully aware what a bindle is, without the use of Google.
Walking at a normal pace is more than enough breeze to blow out a candle, without putting your hand around the flame, so your _striding_ is a very strident claim, which I don't believe.
@@sarkybugger5009ye but specifically for indoor exploration like a cave or dungeon that would otherwise have random braziers in, and its too dark to see, i doubt most adventurers are gonna be striding around so much as creeping. My first thought was attach it to a staff or walking stick with the hoop part, real genius design!
Broaching that topic, I recently got into an argument with a friend about beeswax vs paraffin for "historical" candles. While it's true that candles were rarely used outside of royal halls and clerical uses, everyone had use for candles sometimes and could just make candles as needed. Those candles were often beeswax, but as indoor activities and clerical uses began increasing (and also the frequent though short nighttime uses like finding a chamberpot) the nobility began stripping beeswax sources making the commodity more rare leading to the use of tallow candles for most people.
I do not recommend reenactors or larpers burn tallow candles. Unless you really want that historical stank, in which case you should also smell like sewage and sage. Just sayin.
My friend's position was that beeswax is more historically correct while mine was that of rarity, and the alternative use of paraffin as a tallow-looking candle (also being much cheaper) rather than lighting up an area with $50 of beeswax every night.
Tangentially to that, I've been working on real wax LED candles, reworking some to look like more accurate historical candles and while I've had some small success I can't achieve the light output I really want since commercially available ones are made for decoration rather than utility. Any thoguhts?
At my local Dollar Tree store you can get reasonably long and thin plastic LED candles most of the year, again they are not terribly bright but I imagine all it would take is swapping out the LED with a brighter LED
The long ones also run off of I think 2 or 3 triple-a's, so it would be much easier to rewire your own LED inside of them as you have a bit more space than the little pancake tealite candle
While candles were restricted in use, the related rushlights (basically very thin candles using rushes or other reeds as wicks) were ubitutious across the socio-political spectrum, as were varieties of oil lamps.
You can make tallow candles that do not smell bad, but you have to render your tallow using the wet method a number of times.
Melt your leaf tallow (leaf is the part around the kidney and other organs) with about 2 cups of water and a good amount of salt. Stir for a bit and let harden.
The bottom will be contaminated with smelly bits. Scrap this off, till you are seeing only white tallow.
Then repeat the process, until the tallow is white on the bottom after melting and hardening. Then your tallow will not have a smell and burning it will smell clean.
Rush lights are the answer to your question.
If you really want a proper candle look yet to be electric I'd suggest you go for a caged candle holder - not only does it give you more space to put your battery but with a little dirt applied to the screening glass it will help hide the fakery. I'd also suggest look for those long thin 'filament' LEDs (they are actually a whole string of little separate LED in one assembly) - they glow rather evenly and brightly in a long thin line so add a bit of PWM flicker, maybe pot the bottom end inside the top of your candle and add some flame shaping blob and unless you look right at them it will look enough like a well burning and sheltered candle. Though there are lots of great ways to fake the candle more convincingly it sounds like you also want really functional lighting at the same time and this is the easiest method I can think of to get something bright enough to be useful that I think will also be convincing enough.
The most convincing look of real flame I've seen yet was edge lit fibre-optic bundle with flame like shape and a collection of tiny smaller than a grain of rice LED underneath in a collection of colours - bright enough just about, and with the many different LED blinking away at different rhythms had a very convincing flicker even though the actual flame shape never changed. Don't recall where I saw it though.
I don't know about UK/Europe. But mines in the historical US often had heavy wooden beams to keep them from collapsing. And those would be perfect places to drive that spike.
Mines in europe also were beamed up heavily. Was the only way to support mineshafts.
I don't want to shame you or something, i only want to make you aware, that USA is only 247 years old... and all the miners came from Europe, with all their knowlage and skills.
@@adamcichon6957 Thank you for making this comment so I don't have to, it's like when they claim pizza, or cinnamon buns, BBQ or Hamburgers as theirs.
That's why their "antique shops" sell cola machines and not actual 300-year-old furniture. Even Cowboys are just the Iberian campino with a dfferent name.
@@adamcichon6957 So you'd rather OP assume that everything in the UK is done how it is over here? I think the implication was that maybe they used stone or that the shafts didn't have the same engineering requirements. Not that europeans don't know how to dig holes in the ground.
@@gearandalthefirst7027 geographically UK is the part of Europe... writing about Europeans i had in mind also the people from UK... because for the whole rest of the world they are just another europeans... or they are not?
That's really cool. I like the idea of incorporating minor, practical enchantments into common objects that are already useful. Like say a new character starts of with an old candle spike they got from an ancestor that has the low key ability to make it's candles twice as bright or to last twice as long or something like that. There are also candle lanterns or "candle-glass" that could be similarly enhanced with magic. Plus candle-glass is almost as cool sounding as miners spike!
It's only a minor spike but has major potential
My daughter used to do urban spelunking and she used whatever you found in these "abandoned" buildings. Her favorite adventure was a closed up old major hospital in Memphis. Spooky!!
"Urban spelunking" is a cool term! When I was young we just called it "having a wander" ........or if the cops saw us "having a run"
There are multiple derelict buildings in Memphis that I wouldn't trust. Lol
@markbyrd7710 The old Bapt. Memorial on Union and the old Sanitarium on ...Crump?. I think can't remember the cross street, Bellevue, maybe? I wasn't afraid about the hospital because I figured they had security for about a year after it closed. It's the sanitarium that was a concern. That was truely derelict and full of all sorts of shenanigans.
That sounds like an adventure. I grew up in Memphis, (Wooddale H.S '96) and I would not go urban exploring there. There are so many places that look abandoned but aren't, lol. There are some amazing buildings there, though, and it's sad to see them being so run down, as there is some incredibly cool architecture. I imagine there was a time when it wouldn't have been so dangerous, before certain hard drugs became so pervasive, I'd guess. Even Beale St. in the 90's was a bit sketchy before they "modernized" everything.
@@Thalatash I went to Wooddale H.S. '78. I lived in Fox Meadows and hung out in Parkway village.
Please continue showcasing lost/forgotten adventure gear. Love the short to the point videos.
Same
Since you covered lanterns, I had a thought: Ultimately, we are talking about fantasy, so why not have some magical implement for light? Like a gem, which you can pull out and it would light up and hey presto: you don't have to worry about leaky oil lamps or carrying multiple candles or, god forbid, torches! Even Frodo had Galadriel's Phial. As a DM you could have similar items that would act as valuable rewards for players, aside from gold and weapons.
in the games i played my group would cast light spells into a bulls eye lantern
just in case dispell was cast , or we entered an anti-magic zone, we had the item ,ready to hand
This exists as a magical item called a driftglobe. Emits light and floats around following you
Random thought, but does heat metal produce light?
@@asahearts1 Hot enough to burn so a dull red but not very useful as a source of light.
@@asahearts1 I'd rule that it illuminates it's own tile as dim light.
I have noticed that a single candle (depending on size) is enough to act as a heater in my bedroom over winter, so if you have a flat surface that makes a fire catching unlikely, a candle in your tent sounds like a wonderful plan.
Instead of oil for lamps I use fat/ tallow during reenactment and larp. It hardens when cold so quite easy to take with you.
Whats also interesting for you to look into is the "rushlight". The piff of a rush together with some tallow makes a nice cheap alternative for a candle.
And I think Jason of Modern History TV had a video on the topic a while ago... ok found it, titled " How Did Medieval PEASANTS LIGHT their HOMES? "
If your staff has a larger diameter at one end than the other, you can slip this over the small end, and it becomes a viable impact weapon as a pick.
No. Viable for one, MAYBE two hits. But if this is just forged iron it would just bend out of shape and/or start slipping down. Not worth the hassle.
@@Nala15-Artistit just needs to be a barely decent material. My hoe is made just like that after all
Good as a threat maybe, not something you'd want to use more than once.
I use my Marlin Spike as a knot dresser/tool. It has been perfect for the field.
You can also flip it so the hook is on the bottom when you drive it into the wall and hang a lantern from it. Its super versitile.
Well, I now want something I've never heard of before...
I sat studying the artifact pictures for a long time, and am still impressed by it.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'm here for! ~~along with Cooking Anachronism~~
I like it. Extremely adaptable and implemented in the field and yeah it look like if you had you use it as make shift dagger or small piercing weapon in a pinch.
Would love to see Adam Celadin throwing it at gel dummy
Although not as convenient as this, Fandabi Dozi made a great video on scottish medieval oil lamps that used a genius design. If you search highlander lighting it should pop up
Today i learned about a unusual tool from old. Today its a good day.
I'd imagine that a medieval person with no shield and only a one-handed weapon, if they came under attack, would absolutely put that spike in their off hand. Especially if they were trained in fencing techniques. The candle holder and hook would make a pretty good handguard/nurgle combination for parrying. Of course, if it were after dark you'd immediately lose your light source, but this is more about just having it empty and on your belt when the fight starts.
Why not just spike it into your shield between slats? Or hook it somewhere on the shield. Sure it could get knocked over and out, but it could do that when youre swinging it around in your offhand too really.
@@mikewice3608 My initial response was that it would be a fire hazard, since stuff was alarmingly prone to catching fire before modern treatments. It's much less dangerous than a lit oil lamp next to a wooden shield, though, and you could mess with your opponent's night vision simply by getting up in their face while blocking. It might blow out or break the candle and leave you both blind, but that's a chance to break contact if you plan ahead.
Actually, I think I remember seeing a metal shield with a built-in lamp of some sort once, in an online museum photo gallery. It was probably someone coming at the problem from the other direction -- they had a hooded lantern and also needed a shield in the off hand, and inspiration struck.
My son is taking blacksmithing at one of the local Community Colleges. I'll make sure to show this to him as a project idea.
1:16 even if they aren't specifically sharpened, those long metal points could, in a pinch, surely be used as a pretty devastating shank!
Another simple device is a torch shield. It is a thin metal sheet with a hole in it. The torch's handle is dropped down thru the hole and some means is used to prevent it from slipping off. Now when you hold the torch over your head, sparks from it won't fall on you and your night vision is partly protected since you are in the shadow of the shield. And if you drop the torch, the shield holds the lit end off the floor, reducing the likelihood it will go out.
coming from a disaster-prone developing country, I will say that candles still have their place in lighting up homes be it times of disaster or just plain austerity. I would love to have me one of these. Doubles as a weapon as well. Good video!
For whatever reason, I am compelled to ask if it's strong enough to step on and boost yourself up.
Looks like they'd typically be wrought iron, so if you can anchor it well enough... probably!
This has now been added to my general store's standard inventory. Thank you for the suggestion!
Love it! Also it’s awesome seeing how far the channel has come I can’t wait to see what the future holds 🎉
They also had candle lanterns for normal travel which were sometimes shuttered so you could direct the light, sometimes frowned upon as a smuggling tool but useful in many situations especially for your night vision and to keep the wind from blowing it out all the time
To make it even better for hanging off of a hook, one could have the holder part be a box with two of its sides missing, with a square band that just fits around it. This would allow conversion of the holder between handheld and ring hanging configurations, without needing to bend candles. An alternative could be whittling a little wooden cup with a stopper-shaped thing on its side. Then, one could just stick that into the socket, and put the candle in the cup.
Spiking the door is very important.
Miners spikes are often forgotten
If you have a whole bag of those, you can set many candles along the way to light the way back.
Great video man. Always look forward to these.
One great way to integrate things like this is to have the players find blueprints for improved versions of things that exist. Like, maybe the kind that nail into wood are readily available and your first quest goes into some dark enchanted woods that people keep getting lost in. A local alchemist produces candles that can pierce the magical veil around the forest but the range prevents them from being useful unless a line of people enter single-file to search with one remaining outside the forest.
He finds these at the local general store and commissions a huge batch from the blacksmith, then puts up fliers for adventurers to go in and find the source of the magic that makes the forest so dangerous by creating a path using magic candles. Then, later in the campaign, there could be dwarven blueprints found for an elven version that magically screws itself into any sturdy surface made of anything harder than rock, but they don't come out once they go in. Then even later, there could be blueprints for a third dwarven version that's designed to attack to any surface by offering several mechanisms to attach it with.
When you make it useful early on, players will want to keep carrying it. And then you can reward that behavior by offering upgrades that, once discovered, proliferate and cause the item to become widely available alongside the previous, less expensive version. It makes players feel like they're influencing the world and you can even have NPCs who know about smithing/crafting/adventuring to react to meeting the player characters by remarking on how it's "such an honor to meet the group who invented the OmniHook Candle Holder!" or "Wow, didn't you guys discover the blueprints they used to make that new tool?!". Just a good way to add some flavor to the game.
You could use these as a marlin spike to loosen knots. Very functional.
I can't see that being a very effective lighting method while moving or outdoors, since a small breeze can blow out a candle. On the same vein, I've lit my house with candles during power outages and they barely give off enough light. Better than nothing for sure, and I will admit I see very poorly in the dark (abnormally bad, probably), but it's still not much.
For power outages set your candles up in front of mirrors, it will increase the light.
"I can't see that being a very effective lighting method while moving or outdoors" -- Good point! A candle lantern might be a better option. A magic spell that creates a bright light over the caster or a member of the party would probably be needed for actual combat without infravision.
@@robo5013 Hmm, I will give that a try at some point. I live very North so it's easy to make the house pitch black.
I agree the minerpick would not b that practical outdoors and a candle lantern would b better like the early ones that used horn panels or raw hide instead of glass also bout the candles not giving off enough light modern lighting very bright compered to medieval lighting of candles oil lamps and rushes
Hence lanterns. A lot of the point is to protect the flame (and somewhat things from the flame).
Now I want one
Years ago I was the blacksmith at "The Tombstone Smithy" in Tombstone, Arizona and made a bunch of these some of which were commissioned for the Arizona Department of Mines Museum! They are a very effective way of using candles to light an area away from wind.
very cool and versatile tool, thanks for teaching me about it!
Thank you for enlightening us on the brilliance of this miners spike.
if you want to use the loop to hang the Miners spike, you could use the hook to dig in the shaft of the Candle to have the Candle pointing up. Should be a little less messy
thanks for sharing! excellent utility tool
Was eagerly waiting for this from the unboxing. That time finally cometh
never heard of it. love it. Thanks for the presentation.
I am 100% going to use this concept in something. Thanks!
It also looks like a really good impromptu off-hand parry/thrust weapon.
Especially if the ring could be made into an oval, and if the central beam went down the center. Then one could grip the center beam and the back of the oval, while the other side of the oval would act as a knuckle bow guard. The candle socket could then double as a nagle for more of a guard.
this vid is a gem of forgotten knowledge...
This is actually a great explanation of usage.
New channel. New knowledge. I'm excited. That was cool. I want one now.
New item getting added to my games. Nicely done
That's so cool. You killed it again Kramer! ❤😊👌💯👍
Very nifty piece of adventuring equipment. I like that!
That. Is. AWESOME.
I love historical facts to inform gaming at the table, it adds so much !
Very cool, and oooks simple enough to attempt to make myself.
I'd love to pick one up one day.
But I also want a folding brass cadle lantern as well as if you're going to be an adventurer, sudden wind gusts can be an issue and a lantern would be advantageous.
paper lanterns would be equally useful (Maybe not as robust, but certainly lighter).
Reminds me of my grandfather's bayonet! He used a bayonet as a candle holder he could just spike in anywhere. You are right that bending taper candle is fairly easy with just a little patience.
Very nifty. Adding it to my worldbuild.
This is going on my list of cool items for sure.
I learned about these from a video on old mining supplies of the southwest and I've been obsessed with it for some reason
mind blown, gonna try to remember this little tool if i ever do any fantasy based game design stuff.
Love this! It will make my RPGs and LARPs so much more realistic!
you know I watch videos like this, because every on in a while something like this comes up and I go oh hey wait a min, I can totally make a modern day version of this!
Living in a place where winters are horribly cold, one of the things that makes the rounds with new drivers is the advice of keeping candles in your car. if you're ever stuck on the side of the road a lit candle can provide helpful light and just enough heat.
It's exactly like the first "Multi-Tool" !!!
Love this channel!! .. just found it today!!
things i never knew i needed to know! thank you! :)
Greetings from Croatia !!!
Epic part of gear to have.
I could see this as an improvised parrying dagger as well. interesting tool & good video.
The loop is probably for poles of sort, the weight of the candle and the rest of the thing tilts it, applying torque to the loop so it doesn't fall with the pole going through the loop.
Actually a great multi purpose tool. Can be used for creating an anchor point in various ways and positions. A large and robust version can be used to upright fallen wagons with the L winch. Hook to the back of a wagon to tow something large etc. I would love to have some of these for my IRL camping set up and truck kit.
thank you for this
you should do a collaboration with Todd from Todd's workshop. He's a blacksmith and medieval/Renaissance reenactor, and he has a youtube channel
Back in medieval times King Arthur had a knight that collected taxes
His name was Sir Charge.
You absolutely can bring a historically accurate oil lamp on your adventure. Find a small glass vile, fill it up with oil olive and cork it tight, take about a foot of cotton or jute cord, wind it tight to pack, pack your bronze olive oil lamp in a small velvet bag with a small cloth. When you need light pull out the vile, fill the lamp with only what you need, cut the wick with your dagger insert it in the lamp and light it. Then when you don’t need the light dump out the remaining oil, toss what remains of the wick in some brush, polish your lamp with the small cloth, then repack everything as before. It’s probably easier than taking several candles which are expensive and easily broken. Also who takes a hammer on their adventures? :)
My mom had some candles that were in a holder that became candy cane shaped because of a heat wave, just reminded me when you said that it is easy to bend a candle.
Got my first blacksmithing project down now, Gracci.
I'm glad this turned up in my recommendations -- I like learning about technologies which **could** arise in a medieval setting, even if they aren't medieval period in **our** world.
Based on some googling, it seems possible to hang it horizontally on a rough wall, provided there's something to hook onto. The spike provides enough friction to prevent toppling even if it's not driven into the surface, and that way the candle remains vertical. Or you could just make one with two candle sockets at right angles.
Also, aside from ruining night vision, parts of some mines may not have enough ventilation for a torch. An adventurer might be able to walk through with a torch, but if you're doing manual labour in the same spot for hours on end, anything larger than a candle will consume too much oxygen.
That's cool, and practical
More like this please.
A CANDLE ??? BRILLIANT!
In Finland we used ’päre’, a thin long wood shaving to give light. Does not burn very long, but had no dripping wax and could be held in tongs.
Great video.
Honestly this is dope as hell.
Great idea
Omg! I found one of those in my basement, came with the house.
04:26 The pure joy at a versatile item!
I just forged one of these a couple days ago, except without the hook. I'm going to be making a couple other designs, too.
i think for oil lamps, you would need to empty the vessel every time you are not using it to a bottle. Haven't done any living anachronism, heh, but i'd bet that's what you need to do, carry the oil in other bottle to not get messy, then wrap the lamp in a cloth so remaining oil won't stain your stuff badly.
You could flip it upside down and use the hook to hold a lantern as well. It could potentially replace a piton in a crunch as well.
I'm not a climber, so can't speak to efficacy of this tool as a piton, but pounding it into a beam with the hook side down will produce a dandy lantern holder.
Cool piece of gear, and something that is now available in any fantasy ttrpg I run.
Check out rush-lights, they're the cheap version of a candle and what farmers would use during medieval times.
Torches have an abysmally short burn time. You can see paintings with real torches that burned for hours and they're basically a quarterstaff… Real torch holders were there to keep an extinguished torch dry and away from the walls, you'd extinguish your torch before "parking" it there for when you next leave.
very interesting...never seen one, gonna have to remember to tell my Blacksmith buddy about em
I hope one day to have a smithy of my own... this might make a good inaugural project!
I think you could modify the loop to be more ergonomic, similar to the loop-handle of a dussack knife.
In a pinch, you could even add a second socket for mounting the candle horizontally. Or maybe have a notch, and have the socket be a modular piece-though as always, modularity and complexity adds room for failure.
okay, the miners spike is pretty cool.
I had no idea such a thing existed.
however, I will say, I've been in a room with multiple candles, and they did next to nothing to warm up the area (that was the only problem I had with what you said.)
great video.
A very simple design change of the cup clamp that holds the candle in place could easy allow the candle to be place either perpendicular to the body of the spike (as normal) or parallel (when hanging from an existing hook using the loop in the handle) with out bending the candle.
I have plans to work with metal, if I can, I'll do it. It's very very interesting. and it seems easy to do, once the metal is fixed to the cross, just fold it and use the hot cutting and kneading techniques like making shovel handles and it's ready. looks very useful. Even today, having two of these at home is worth it (of course considering a fair price, not the price of a historical item)
In the Roman museeum in Constanza Romania there is a stage coach lantern with glass dating to around 0 AD. A candle is obviously only useful indoors. A torch can take a lot of wind gust.