What with all the interest in Firefly shootin' iron...

[Kaylee]

I thought I'd repost this for them that are thinking of a way of carrying it- a non-canon Browncoat NCO belt.

Leather: 1.25" (I think) belt blank, dyed with Fielberg's "British Tan" - though a darker brown might have been better.

Hardware: "floral" screw-rivets from Tandy and two modded belt buckles from:
http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?c...products_id=781

Buckle: Two-piece Civil War era Texas belt plate reproduction, with the Browncoat logo* painted on. The paint does wear off, but in a nice aging way. It's available from numerous online Civil War sutlers, and I think eBay as well at least occasionally.



The original post:

It's a Browncoat take on an old Civil War belt. I always did think this kind of buckle looked cool, and I finally found a reason to do something with it.

The buckle is a repro of a civil-war era Texas military sword belt plate -- available from civil war re-enactor sutlers all over (and eBay, of course). I just turned it upside down and painted the Independent colors over the Texas Lone Star (any Texans who read this, please don't kill me, it's meant as flattery, I promise! :confused )

The belt itself isn't put together like the old Civil War belts though, which adjusted on one side. Rather, I made it in three pieces, borrowing some ideas from 20th century web belts:

Oringally I meant to make brass "hook" plates to go into the holes in the back section, but for the time being just to have something done I just fastened it up with rivets:

(update - the metal hooks on a fancy military loop style sling might work well for this application - the heavy duty competition Turner slings I mean, not the cheapy repros. I don't think you can get the hooks separately though)

I wanted something that would look right tucked up tight as a "dress" belt or could be let loose and low slung as a gunbelt.


The link hardware between sections, should anyone else want to try this, is this buckle, from Jas Townsend:
http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?c...products_id=781

I just removed the sticky part and cut off half the buckle, leaving an elongnated "D" ring. Round brass stock prolly would have worked as well or better, but I didn't have a means of soldering them closed, so I went with a commercial solution. I used British Tan dye on a tandy belt blank.

Hope this helps to them that want to do something similar.

-K

* In retrospect, I'm not all that sure it is an independent logo. Rather, I'm thinking at this point it could very well have just been a rank patch - two bars for Lt. Baker. Who knows at this point - maybe we'll find out in the future as more production notes leak out over time.

 

[pennausamike]

* In retrospect, I'm not all that sure it is an independent logo. Rather, I'm thinking at this point it could very well have just been a rank patch - two bars for Lt. Baker. Who knows at this point - maybe we'll find out in the future as more production notes leak out over time.

Based on the info in the 1st visual companion, I think you are right about the triangle patch being a rank patch. There are a couple of different styles and colors of markings. But, because there really isn't any other Independents/Browncoats symbol, the fans have latched onto the patch as the Browncoats symbol. The 76th Independent Battalion has decided to use the American rank system, devised their own battalion logo and are using the Firefly patch as symbolic of the whole Independent Force.

Based on the writing on the back, I believe they were meant to be sewn on with the triangle upside down and the blue star right side up. They appear in the series w/ the triangle right side up and the star upside down. My opinion is that they were designed to be displayed one way and somewhere between design and wardrobe they got turned around. Or I'm just wrong and they are exactly as they're supposed to be.

I'm not sure any definite verification will ever come out one way or the other. I think shoulder patches were such a tiny thing compared to pushing a revolutionary series thru production and answering FOX's concerns, that it fell thru the cracks.

Mike