The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

So, give your shirt a waist. It's usually not a lot, but you get an idea of its potential when you bend over to remove your mailshirt -- more of it hangs farther off you at waist level than at the chest. Snug that in a little -- just 5 to 7 fingersbreadths worth -- and a lot of little annoyances go ...

Konstantin the Red

Doing a sallet, even rather roughly, as your first complete hat is really vaulting over a high-set bar. Guess you're pretty darn good at pushing metal around!

Konstantin the Red

Of note, a 4-plate, not a 5-plate.

Konstantin the Red

. . . I will experiment with the hammer on air technique on lighter gauge but I think for it to work well I need a proper anvil surface. Currently I have an anvil shaped object that's all of 55 pounds. Should be enough for 16ga mild at least. All the better if you can spike it down onto a 100lb stu...

Konstantin the Red

Hell, a couple nails/screws into a couple of the ribs, right down the shield's centerline before you throw the straps on would do it. Canvas facing afterward disappears these nail holes. There's also that invisible rimming goodness. I mentioned the depth before, but 5-6" depth does it. The ply will ...

Konstantin the Red

I don't see that breastplate opening in front -- I see broad, alternating stripes of vertical-slash motif and slanting S slash motif. I would suppose they are laid out from the exact centerline. Darn pretty, hey? Shoulder and neck protection is interesting too: like, it seems, a munion, without a vi...

Konstantin the Red

Chip clips even -- no possibility of iron stain and bigger jaw area too. Second the notion on carving those scales. Jobs that big are what swivel knives are made for. There are YouTube tutorials too. AFAIK, there's only one transfer film product, so any you get will be mega-fine. (I only said "reusa...

Konstantin the Red

Kon, How do you keep the ribs from twisting or shooting out once tightening it? Flat nylon cargo strap, ratcheted on each rib, and the rib built thick enough. No twisting moment at all. That's what the 2x4 bits in there do, as well as distribute the clamping pressure. You can tighten meticulously e...

Konstantin the Red

Or in this case, the Sanctified Sticky-Bomb. Which is every bit as English as Monty Python and older too. Grenade, Hand, Anti-Tank No 74 Mk I There was a Mk II -- a plastic container instead of glass and a detonator rather than a firing cap. Thus the thing was improved, you see. The potential of the...

Konstantin the Red

I do not have space for a shield press sadly. Perhaps someday. Hmm. Forming-ribs-only type press to the rescue, then. No frame, no bulk really, no nuthin'. Let's see: 2x4s are 1 1/2" thick, 1/2" ply is 1/2", so two thicknesses of that per rib, sandwiching 2x4 blocks like |o|, the former ribs themse...

Konstantin the Red

Or it's okay reusable if you used pencil on the film, not India ink. Gets grubby after a while. But it doesn't rot away or anything. You can use one corner of it for one thing, another corner for something else, and so on all over the film, for many many projects. I'd try cleaning pencil-grubby tran...

Konstantin the Red

Craftool 4-in-1 Awl: pokes holes of a few different sorts. That's its whole job. If it includes a harness awl that cuts its way into the leather and makes a hole shaped like <>, it's a good set: that's the kind of hole for really old-style stitching. So the leather resists tearing on the dotted line...

Konstantin the Red

Tube punches are the ones you just hammer in, right? Yup. Powerful. Easy to hone when needed. http://www.tandyleather.com/en-usd/product/craftool-circle-edge-slicker-8122-00.aspx and this thing, edge slicker, used "instead" of a beveler? Used with. Edge beveler first (and they can bevel flat, or ca...

Konstantin the Red

Some more from me: A leather denoobification project, of really heavy leather, featuring either bake hardening or impregnation hardening -- DEMIGAUNTLETS IN LEATHER Hourglass demi, quasi-14th-c. This is more about why it's a good starter armour project than a really good set of instructions how to d...

Konstantin the Red

Thirded on "tube punches;" the Mini and the Maxi Punch sets from Tandy, that you drive with a mallet. They deliver enough power to get through the kind of hefty leather we usually build our armor with. The plierslike rotary punch really only suits lightweight leather. Rotary leather punches come in ...

Konstantin the Red

A blue-barrel filled with water -- or sand -- sounds pretty ad-hoc anyway, Randall. Blue-barrels also taper. http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175384&p=2684660&hilit=press#p2684660 -- links to pix, other shieldmaking threads. Besides the ratchet straps you've got, about all ...

Konstantin the Red

You can shape helmets both curved and bucketlike with a Garland over an anvil face, using "soft hammer/hard anvil" technique, with using a doughnut or dish form as more or less an auxiliary part of the process -- like starting with quite shallow dished metal and then doing most of the curvature upon...

Konstantin the Red

Pix related to the Qianlong Emperor http://richmondmagazine.com/downloads/6387/download/arts_Ceremonial-Armor-with-Dragon-Design-%C2%A9-The-Palace-Museum_rp0914.jpg?cb=d23f722a965b3b7614c67959b5f8a1fd The painting, clickable Kangxi Emperor, similarly http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8...

Konstantin the Red

Yes, do let's get up an actual pic of your A:A/R6 helm. Even the layout of the rivets might ring a bell. Even better if there's something distinctive about the nasaloid tab. Did Anselm Arms ever mark like that?

Konstantin the Red

Thread with picture of an inscribed and decorated camail strap cover, and links to others: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=111665 Longer inscriptions got written on the cover too. The most typical English brow inscription is some variant of "IHS Rex Nazerenus". They are us...

Konstantin the Red

Including a mail coif in there is an option -- though I would think of it as a secondary priority. An orle as an independent (not sewn or laced onto anything else in there) component AFAIK would only appear on a cerveillière/bascinet, not with an all-mail coif. Coifs in the early XIV century could s...

Konstantin the Red

Cheap blue-barrel material (attractive because of its bargain price, buying the barrels used) runs about 5mm-6mm most parts of the barrel, and in some parts thicker yet.

Konstantin the Red

Welcome back, Ron! Yes, it could have been a cerveillière plus a stuffed cloth orle, or doughnut, put on the cerveillière to adapt its low, rounded, basin-like shape to the higher-standing, cornered shape of the top half of the helm. You say your tools were pretty limited -- I say you did a very goo...

Konstantin the Red

Might we see a view of your Maciejowski bucket-hat also?

Konstantin the Red

Yes, the more actual or actualized data you can throw at us, the more helpful we might be. And of course, to the usual degree the later the persona's era the more extensive the information one can work from constructing a persona. Nothing wrong with that way either, generally.

Welcome!

Konstantin the Red

Ka0z wrote:The price is fine, however, the execution and look is quite, um, what's a kind word for this. Not what I would pay that kind of price for.

But let us say little to nothing directly to DV, who posts here -- or did. Let him peruse this for himself... and let us cross our fingers he does.

Konstantin the Red

When the orle had a function it was as a shock absorber and adapter between bascinet and greathelm, before it became a decorative helmet wreath. Torse -- on top of a helm, generally as what the mantling depends from and a decoration of the place the tourney crest fastens at. Hides the wires. *******...

Konstantin the Red

Excellent. We get simply everyone here eventually, from foam & latex-sword+sweatshirts LARPers to SCAdians all the way through to lance-wielding equestrians and BotN contenders with rebated steel weapons, plus sundry reenactor Europeans and even Chinese who have English, or at least some English. Wo...

Konstantin the Red

This technique should be a natural for kidney belts that really fit instead of forcing a roughly cylindrical or at best conical shape on the midsection. ("Does this armor make me look fat?") (Doesn't have to, does it now?)

Konstantin the Red

Ooo, good ones!

Konstantin the Red

Other SCA-modification is to have them latch together at the chin or to a grill, too.

Konstantin the Red

Tooled or carved decorative camail/vervelles strap? Circa 1385-1400 you could also see vervelle covers, concealing the tops of the vervelles and the retaining wire with something that looked reminiscent of a wooden molding, plus some decorative edge treatment. The resulting smooth surface got some d...

Konstantin the Red

Does that 16th-c. group have a name, ML? Even better, a Web page?

Konstantin the Red

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-S-RuurK1BcU/VQrdm9ffi_I/AAAAAAAAF1w/qU3z-yj9DxU/s800/knee.jpg Re the stitch holes at the bottom of each greave in the arch -- clearly for some lining or cushion, where needed at the top of the instep. Any idea on how far up inside the greave it goes, and whether i...

Konstantin the Red

. . . don't need to be fitted as closely as the legs to give a little room for some padding so it could be more of a 1 size fits most. While I'm guessing differently that three sizes fit just about everybody -- but that's more for a loaner-piece armory than for a couple friends who might happen not...

Re: To blouse your maille or to not blouse. That is the ques

Re: Perf plate for rattan helmet

Re: ID'ing a maker's mark on a great helm

Re: best garland hammer for helmets

Re: Non ad hoc shield press

Re: Does anyone have any info on this armour?

Re: First time Leatherworking tools/questions?

Re: Non ad hoc shield press

Re: I need more information on this

Re: Non ad hoc shield press

Re: First time Leatherworking tools/questions?

Re: First time Leatherworking tools/questions?

Re: First time Leatherworking tools/questions?

Re: First time Leatherworking tools/questions?

Re: First time Leatherworking tools/questions?

Re: Non ad hoc shield press

Re: best garland hammer for helmets

Re: What exactly was a Hatanga/Khatangu Degel?

Re: ID'ing a maker's mark on a great helm

Re: Dressing up a bascinet

Re: Black Prince Great Helm lining, what did it look like?

Re: Easybake Armor: The Sculpted Plastic Armor Project

Re: Black Prince Great Helm lining, what did it look like?

Re: My Mac Bible kit

Re: Were the Xiongnu more advanced than mongols?

Re: Easybake Armor: The Sculpted Plastic Armor Project

Re: Dressing up a bascinet

Re: 14th Century Coat of Plate

Re: Laminated canvas for hidden/covered armor experiment

Re: Cuirass Arm/Neck cutout advice...?

Re: Hinged Cheek plate on SCA Helmet question.

Re: Dressing up a bascinet

Re: 14th Century Coat of Plate

Re: A vision of a dream - help me perfect my kit

Re: What goes with a Sallet ?