I had plans on working on late 16th century outfit which would require a lot of lacing. I had previously considered buying the following types of mass produced aiglets:
Rather than buy them I decided to try my hand at making my own. This is the type of doublet I was interested in making. Notice the number of lacing holes along the bottom. I would need lots and lots of brass aiglets.
I started with a couple different proof of concept attempts. Once I determined the size I wanted I cut out a bunch of trapezoids from a sheet of brass.
The process I worked out worked very well. I had a cold chisel which I previously rounded over for making armor. The smooth rounded edge worked great for setting in the inital curve on the aiglets. I used the chisel backed on a piece of VERY thick leather. The leather had just enough give to it to allow the brass to cave in a bit.
Once I set a shallow groove along the length of the aiglet I used a small hammer on my 2 pound anvil to hammer over the edge. Once there was a small amount of curve set in the hammering served to simply close up the aiglet to a nice even cone.
Once I had made about 5 or 6 I was able to crank them out. Each one takes about 5 minutes to make and that includes the finishing filing.
Once done I used a small drill bit to drill holes in the aiglet at the top. Here you can see the aiglet mounted to one of my silk laces.
