The Armour Archive

Egfroth

I made my first one when I was (I think) 17. It was a sort of morion, made of galvanised sheet, and with a point rather than a comb. And if I recall correctly it was soldered together! It's actually quite amazing what can be done with the most minimal resources. I was living in a 2-bedroom flat with...

Egfroth

Nice piece of work.

Egfroth

Is there a source for those reaaally wide sleeves? Hi Egfroth, (I'm sorry -- every time I see your name, I think of an eggcream drink, the kind with froth on top!!!) That's the idea. The full name is Egfroth the Smooth, of Morang (the name of a real place about 15 minutes drive from my place!). But...

Egfroth

How about the plastic covered copper cable electricians use to wire houses? Flexible, holds its shape well, and can be joined by twisting it around itself.

Egfroth

Hugh, that web page is http://www.geocities.com/egfroth1/HbkSpangen.html - it's part of my Varangian "newbies" site at http://www.geocities.com/egfroth1/HbkIndex.html

Egfroth

I've done workshops for making simple (but accurate) belt buckles and also for bow-brooches, but I mainly stick to helmets. First because it's something I enjoy doing, second I'm pretty good at it, and have now pretty much worked out the bugs in making yer actual basic spangenhelm so any newbie can ...

Egfroth

Yeah, well, they call me Egfrothos Peripatetikos - the Wandering One-Man Group. (They call me lots of other things, too, but that's another story). I put together a booklet for newbies, and now I'm working on transferring it to a web-based resource. Being a slackarse, I'm taking much longer about it...

Egfroth

These guys all started from scratch today, with just some strips of metal and some flat triangular sheets. Happy with their progress.

Egfroth

And some more . . .

Egfroth

14 people turned up at my place, from various different clubs - several out of the blue, from word of mouth, the living history list, from friends telling them about it. The enthusiasm was impressive and contagious - thouygh exhausting. My "shop" (for lack of a better name) is the carport at the bac...

Egfroth

Saint Demetrios (he was a Greek Saint, so let's give him the correct spelling!) was first and foremost the patron Saint of Thessaloniki (Salonika) in Greece, which vied with Antioch for the title of Second City of the Byzantine Empire (after Constantinople, of course!). As such he was very popular w...

Egfroth

Mmmm, shiny! That is some seriously cool armour! And half-armour!

But - what's that strange (vinyl?) webbing strap over the shoulder of the wounded man?

Egfroth

Is there a source for those reaaally wide sleeves?

Egfroth

I have a photo I took of the helmet. It's not very good, but I remember being amazed at the fineness of the mail. As my own mail is 8mm ID, I'd say the 8mm would be OD. Also that 2mm wire diameter doesn't ring true. Get a ruler and see how thick that is. 1mm maybe, but not two. Hey, look what I foun...

Egfroth

Doesn't boiling deplete vit c anyway out of interest? it has been suggested that the vitamin is not destroyed when boiling broccoli.1, this may however just be a result of vitamin C leaching into the cooking water at a slower rate from this vegetable. But you still won't get my son to eat it . . .

Egfroth

Who's Henry? Read your Shakespeare . . BTW, is that Henry IV Part I or Part II in the tomb? (Shakespeare joke). Only fair to point out that Robert of Normandy's effigy was made maybe half a century after he died, and the armour reflects this. And there's the Black Prince's armour (what's left of it!...

Egfroth

This pattern was common all over the place in all kinds of periods, not just Roman. However, unless you can find some contemporary example for a 15th century use, I'd say - don't do it. If you're prepared to do that amount of work on decorating your sallet, do the little extra to find a pattern that...

Egfroth

Mike, have you looked at the Gothic Eye brasses? English, through the centuries, with quite a decent number from the time you're interested in. Keeping in mind that the date of a brass may not be the date of death of the person represented - sometimes brasses were made quite a few years afterward - ...

Egfroth

Yes, you also see these in 15th century pictures - again, hose rolled down below the knee. Thanks for this, Wil. It seems to support the idea of hose, if nothing else. Still doesn't give us a proper peek up under the skirt. So far only the Goliath has managed to do that. Oh, well - I'll keep on look...

Egfroth

Oops. Here it is - http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Histor ... bout.shtml

Egfroth

Just came across this on another list - six volumes on the Crusades published over 20 years by the University of Wisconsin press. A good resource.

Egfroth

Ronnin, can you post a pic or two of you kit? It might help with advice. If you're going Byzantine, (as you seem to be) you could have kresmata (protective skirt) of lamellar or padding. See m - several of the skirts come almost to the knee. Also m Where exactly are you getting hit? Front or back? U...

Egfroth

I'm the one in purple.

But seriously, MilleniumLancelot, if you don't tell us what period and region you want to represent it's just going to be a mishmash of examples, none of which will be of any use to you.

Egfroth

Onya Dan. I had Simon Schama's "History of Britain" series on tape and looked through it withiout success for these references.

Gad, you'd think they'd update their information, wouldn't you.

Egfroth

Certainly good at self-promotion, if nothing else . . .

Egfroth

Certainly, try fighting in mail, but not in that thick heavy stuff, which is not only too heavy, it's also not historically accurate. What kind of mail were these friends of yours talking about? If it's "Russian Tractor Mail" with huge rings made of 1/8" thick wire, you'll certainly be weighed down....

Egfroth

No - as far as I know there's no evidence at all for them.

Egfroth

I seem to recall a story that the word "hedgerow" was brought into use in England in the Second World War, when the Americans arrived in England and had the same problem - what they called a hedge and what the English did were very different. But it might just be one of those apocryphal stories. I w...

Egfroth

Well, it's a lovely piece of work. All power to you.

Egfroth

Mmmm, shiny!

Egfroth

Agreed. Not really the same kind of animal.

Egfroth

A nicely executed "Gjermundbu" style helmet. A couple of questions: There don't seem to be very many mail rings attaching the camail to the leather - are you sure it'll be enough to support the weight? Is there some kind of "bump" in the browband where the side strip joins it? Is this helmet for SCA...

Egfroth

VERY pretty - if it wasn't for that ghastly bar-grill (sigh).

Egfroth

A hedgerow is just a hedge. But there are some hedges in England, used as boundary "fences" between fields, that are 1200 years old (!) age is apparently estimated on the basis of diversity of species growing in the hedge - approximately 1 extra species per 100 years. Yet there is no effort to prote...

Egfroth

Agreed. And the answer may or may not be somewhere in between.

As always, we can only go by "best guess" based on the best information available to us. And that can be very thin on the ground sometimes - however we shouldn't use that as an excuse not to put in our best shot at gettingit right.

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