The Armour Archive

Sean M

That is too bad, I heard somewhere that sales have been good though? I have seen a copy in the library of one armourer, but he can only make what his customers ask for. This style suits combat on foot, which is more popular today than mounted combat. It could also be a problem that the people with a...

Sean M

So, it is two years since Toby's book came out. What are some cool projects in the style of those effigies which people have made?

A lot of armourers just use Facebook these days, and I am not good at finding things there (plus it ruins photos to save space).

Sean M

Gnagy is thinking of launching another set of workshops, possibly in the New York area, possibly in other parts of the states. See his FB page for details

Sean M

I am glad that this amazing project is done! I hope that people have been saving a copy of this thread for the day that this forum goes down and does not come back up. I wish I had more words in me. A painting by Michael Pachter from 1465 has the same pair of staples and pair of straps over the back...

Sean M

The underlaping lame (like the ones you cite) does articulate. I made a pair for someone long ago. They work fine and the range of motion is comparable to the more common articulation. Ok, it looks to me like these cuisses with an underlapping lame from Churburg are articulated on rivets at the med...

Sean M

Sean, Is there a date for this effigy? Mac As far as I can tell, they just look at this group of sculptures (most of which are saints in the usual flowing gowns and draperies) and take their best guess. "Towards the end of the 14th century" or "1370-1390" are the guesses which I have seen. I would ...

Sean M

Flipping through Blair, it occurs to me that S 18 at Churburg has a 'demi-cuisse' which sits under the main cuisse plate and inside the knee. I don't know how those two plates relate, but something like that could be hidden behind the upper fringe. With just a sculpture, we will never know whether i...

Sean M

Yes, and when you just have one sculpture you can't be sure, but it is from that glorious period when they were still trying out all kinds of things rather than settling down on 2 or 3 basic solutions for each problem. I have a feeling that that fringe below the cuisse would not be a good solution, ...

Sean M

In the Belvedere in Vienna there are some beautiful sculptures from Styria by the Meister von Großlobming (who is named after the village where these sculptures were found). They show of some of the best things about late trecento art: the flowing robes, the etherial faces, the expressive hands, the...

Sean M

No. Thanks! Because this is a modern garment to be worn around town not a reproduction to wear with historical clothing, I am having to think about how modern solutions will work in a modern context (badly fitted gloves, need to be visible in the twilight to drivers ...) Maybe oversized buttons eve...

Sean M

I have cut the facing from wool and the lining from a wool-rayon mix. This will be a garment for everyday wear, so I am thinking about how to close the front. The 16th century Hungarian versions were closed with rope ties... would modern polyester braid work ok? I could melt the cut ends shut to sto...

Sean M

Sean, Here are some of the images I've collected for the arming clothes. Yeah, I am sure that he knows as much about artwork as he knows about surviving clothing (which is a lot), but Sir John Smythe tells us different things, and they are very important things to know and specifically phrased as i...

Sean M

What are you going to do for the arming clothes? Making a really good Elizabethan doublet must be a crazy amount of work. My plan is to have Mathew Gnagy make them. http://themodernmaker.net/ I have some tailored mail sleeves from Tom Biliter for this project as well. He really cares about the deta...

Sean M

It might be fun to experiment with ways to hide the stitching on covered armour, such as adding an extra facing over the functional parts, using matching-covered thread, quilting the mail with a stitch where most of the thread is on the 'wrong side' ... I suspect that there are several ways to make ...

Sean M

After looking at some other cutting plans in Drei Schnittbücher , I think I was overthinking this. Some variants of this pattern are as simple as folding your cloth lengthwise and drawing a 'snow angel' on it to get half the gown; others add even more material to the back. So I have cut a mockup of ...

Sean M

What are you going to do for the arming clothes? Making a really good Elizabethan doublet must be a crazy amount of work.

Sean M

The English records in Thom Richardson's thesis includes some lists of armour used by Edward III on campaign. Considerable quantities of mail were, however, returned to the Tower from the wardrobe at Calais in 1353, including the king’s own harness, which included two mail aventails, a pisane, two p...

Sean M

It is also worth noting, quite often when fighting on foot visors were opened or removed. Some considered the better vision & unrestricted breathing higher priority than the protection offered by the visor. In the painting of the Battle of Sinalunga by Lippo Vanni , the men-at-arms in the front ran...

Sean M

I don't think they are saying "medieval sights are straight" but "modern armours often place the outside corners lower than on the originals." Because mostly, visors, are intended for horse use in battle, while in a dueling situation, there is no need to side view anything. Or at least, most of the ...

Sean M

Also worth saying: the original drawing in the manuscript from Linz is basically a pencil sketch ... so it is always possible that some details of the sketch are wrong. The would-be master who drew it clearly knew all the proportions, and just needed a refresher on how to lay the different parts out...

Sean M

It is winter, so I am thinking of double gowns. The local wool is usually broadcloth widths (140-160 cm or ~60") and a four-panel construction works well on that. I am pondering the geometry of this example from Drei Schnittbücher p. 206. https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/ungerisches_...

Sean M

Have you tried making the armpit out of just two or three layers of linen or hemp?

Sean M

You can look at the sources , but I have not heard of anything like that. It seems that when people in the late middle ages wore a doublet without sleeves, they usually wore another close-fitting garment with sleeves over it: that is what Johann Hill and the French ordonance about jacks say. Why do...

Sean M

I think that worldantiques posted some photos of a piece of kikkô in his collection where the facing has worn through, and I have Effingham's website and the pieces which I have seen from the outside. It would be nice to handle a surving piece, maybe one day ... The Romans used heavy cord in their s...

Sean M

- You have to remove the lining to scrub the plates clean, so in practice they will not be cleaned as often If the plates are tinned, they should need no attention. Realistically, there will be some wearing away of the tin and subsequent rusting, but that's just the nature of things. I suspect that...

Sean M

Sometimes covered, small-plate armour also had a lining. There is an example in Das Brigantinen-Symposium auf Schloss Tirol and another which you will be able to read about in Medieval Warfare VIII-1 . What are some of the pros and cons of that choice? I would be especially interested to hear from p...

Sean M

It is interesting that most of them have solidly English names. Datini employed a Henequin of Bruges to make, repair, and tumble mail at Avignon, and at that time all the German cities were trying to recruit Italian journeymen and masters to help them improve their cotton industry. Nicholas Dupras d...

Sean M

I am pretty sure that it is summarized in Iris Origo's "The Merchant of Prato" or Terry Jones' "Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary." They are slowly publishing the archive but remember that it has about 600 books and 600 bundles of letters ...

Sean M

Sixty years late, but someone finally did what Martin Burgess called for!

Sean M

I got the bevor lining finished and sewn in yesterday. Rather than stuffing in channels, I quilted straight through. That seems to be "typical", if we can use that word when we only have 2 examples to go by. In the past, I have laid out my quilting lines on the helmet side and worked from there. Wh...

Sean M

It occurs to me that the breastplate-plackard system is similar to a duplex breastplate, only more complicated and adjustable.

I hope that they have time to write up more of their work in another format. I expect that they have enough tape for a two- or three-hour video.

Sean M

Also, the picture of the bloomsmith carrying a bloom which is obviously a bit bigger than he is used to was harrowing too.

Sean M

I noticed an aluminum-framed caliper on the Secrets of the Shining Knight NOVA. Maybe someone who used it could give feedback on its ergonomics?

Sean M

I was impressed that anyone has acquired a good working knowledge of mercury gilding! What do we think about their version of etching? That raises one problem which I have been puzzling over. Alan Williams argued that medium-carbon steels and quenching fell out of use for armour because against bull...

Sean M

Also, because we are all human, its pretty rare that we are in a place to give a real estimate of how common something is. My medieval hobby focusses on northern Italy from 1360 to 1410, and I know all kinds of things about the armour which was worn there. All I know about these cervelliere with ron...

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Re: A Four-Panel Gown

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Re: The Armour of Edward III

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Re: Greenwich Buckhurst armour

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Re: Sad Eyes: Drooping oculars on reproduction visors, why?

Re: Sad Eyes: Drooping oculars on reproduction visors, why?

Re: A Four-Panel Gown

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Re: separated sleeve arming coat

Re: separated sleeve arming coat

Re: Lining Covered Armour: Pros and Cons

Re: Lining Covered Armour: Pros and Cons

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Re: Lock up the data

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