Cottage Part 2: Girdle Vertical Connectors (Hooks)

Now that I had two more-or-less complete shoulder sections, it was time to start thinking about the girdle section.   The first stop on that train of thought was connecting the girdle to the shoulders.  (What's that? I skipped the part about connecting the shoulders to each other first?  Stay tuned for the next update!)

For Newstead and/or Corbridge B/C, the girdle hangs from the shoulders via hooks and eyes.  As suggested by Matthew Amt, I made these by flattening one end of a 3/16" brass rod, annealing 3 or 4 times during the process.  Below is the first hook after hammering... you can see I wasn't hitting it very straight in the early stages since it looks a little lopsided.

Fortunately the lopsidedness doesn't matter since this will be going on the inside of the girdle band.  Following the much discussed but never published Stillfried artifacts, my hooks are riveted on the inside and then pass through the girdle band itself, as shown below.

For the sake of simplicity I put a 7/32" hole in the band to provide some additional wiggle room for the bent shaft.

I have installed my hooks with screws for the moment since I plan to anneal the rod shaft before doing the final bending -- which will happen after the girdle sections are assembled.  Below - one of my work stations up at the cottage, with more hooks in progress.

For now the matching eyes for the hooks are simply holes punched in the back and breast plates.  I will add the decorative brass work a bit later -- ideally after I've figured out how to get my repousse work to really pop out the way I want it to.