The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Pav, the plates are riveted at the bottom and overlap upwards and inwards. This seems counterintuitive (you want 'em to shed blows like shingles shed rain, no?) until you put the brig on, and discover that the upward-overlapping plates have now been turned so they show a downward overlap to the outs...

Konstantin the Red

Since the forehead band is confusing you, why use it at all (as a band anyway)? Just keep building on the beanie but don't put any more expansion links in once the beanie is out to the corners of your head. With the rows being made non-expanded, you will be building a cylinder down to the base of yo...

Konstantin the Red

Well, they count as "real loud."

Konstantin the Red

I got so tired of having straps blow out that I went to much heavier leather: 8-9oz belt weight stuff. Works just fine.

Konstantin the Red

Well, if I knew I'd been born to get my shank clipped off with bolt cutters and then smacked with a hammer, I'd feel pretty doomed too.

Konstantin the Red

Let's see -- and you are keeping your rivet shanks short enough so they will upset and pein over neatly, right? The amount of shaft that should be sticking out to pein down should be no more than one to one and a half times the shaft diameter. Cut the rivet shaft down with bolt cutters, if you need ...

Konstantin the Red

Or else put the flat heads on the inside, back them with an anvil horn or T stake, and use a rivet set to pein on the outside -- an approach I always liked for riveting inside deeply curved articles like helmets. It saves you having to do peining in such a confined space. ------------------ "The Min...

Konstantin the Red

Who knows the Glass Neck Knight (I think he's got his belt) in Atenveldt? He fights in a great because it keeps him from becoming a quadruplegic; perhaps his maker is still active.

------------------
"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

Konstantin the Red

Or they would attach either by strap and buckle to the outer edges of a gorget (not the breastplate), or in later armours, snap on over a spring pin in the same location. The shoulder joint is a rather "floaty" and highly flexible joint. Pauldrons all swivel loosely from some point between mid-shoul...

Konstantin the Red

QVOD, ME VEXARI?

------------------
"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

Konstantin the Red

And consider the armoire -- a large cupboard is just about the thing to store armor in. AAotMK shows us a piece of marquetry on p. 135 that shows (and may actually be) an armoire for storing armor in, and refers on the same page to a "harness barrel with a lock for the same and hay to truss the harn...

Konstantin the Red

An even better description of a wedge rivet is: it's a teeny tiny metal pizza slice. And Waaagh, you flatten wire with a hammer on an anvil/A-S-O. All of my flattening gets done to the coiled links. An initial flattening sets up the link for overlapping; final flattening occurs when the overlap is f...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by pavlovsdog: I wish I could do riveted maille. but no open flames at college. why am I even at college? it hinders me so much in the area of armoury... <HR></BLOCK...

Konstantin the Red

300-series stainless steels are non-magnetic, 400-series weakly magnetic -- you can sure feel the difference in the pull between a 4xx and mild steel.

Konstantin the Red

Three-piece knees, perhaps three-piece elbows as well. This will mean considerable dishing of the in-the-cop parts of the lames. Were your limbs plate, a fourth piece articulating to the cuisse a good handspan above the upper lame. Decorative dagging on CoP hem, but not so froufrou as to do flamed d...

Konstantin the Red

Well, Gilbert, considering the chancy things that can happen, and the instances of cup-cracking accidents recounted hereabouts, I'd say your choice is this: do you wanna be authentic, or do you wanna be fertile? Your hope of future generations rides in that cup, as a general rule. Personally, I wear...

Konstantin the Red

Parentheses, even.

Properly sharpened, they cut, not like a knife, but like a scimitar.

[This message has been edited by Konstantin the Red (edited 09-18-2002).]

Konstantin the Red

The thing that struck me about the 'Chux when I encountered them at some long-ago (sub-XX) Pennsics was that their armor seemed designed to "dress for the weather" -- they showed more skin than the SCAdians. I get the impression from here that their basic color scheme had shifted over time, also. Wh...

Konstantin the Red

Square-cornered barrel helms need to be built heavy; their mass reduces the neck-jacking effect. Like all SCA helms, they will get most of their dents and creases on the shieldside temple. If there is one plate on a 5-piece barrel helm that ought to be the heaviest, it is the forehead plate. -------...

Konstantin the Red

Boowah-hah-hah, Bloodie; now that you know how to do the Bump, we next teach you the Grind -- and use you to make the coffee with, so we can type straight...

------------------
"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

Konstantin the Red

Well, Thorvold, that's armourcake.

Konstantin the Red

Hjalmr, that's a good idea if the 17-ga. stuff is not galvy -- there's an annealing step that isn't going to be improved by zinc fumes.

------------------
"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

Konstantin the Red

The Pistoia Cathedral's silver altarpiece of c. 1376 has a snazzy-looking solution to just this problem, Wulfgar. It's illustrated in AAotMK, p.75, the bottom right hand picture. It's a tapering series of downward-overlapping plates that descend to at least mid-back, over what looks to be a leather ...

Konstantin the Red

1/8" thick 6061 T6 aluminum is extremely durable, with a weight approximately that of a plywood shield especially once you get the rimming on. Cover the face with glued-down leather or canvas, painted or colored according to your taste and device; cover the back with canvas. Some clever authenticity...

Konstantin the Red

Oh, okay; I didn't know you had a fixed bargrill. Mine is hinged, so attaching a camail directly to it is a non-starter. I am obliged to use a more strictly period technique. It certainly looks as if you should indeed have set the rings closer together; remember that camails attached to helmets and ...

Konstantin the Red

Hjalmr, if you rivet the 18ga-3/8" stuff, you will do just fine. It will be a strong shirt. You'll be building your own Steve of Forth Castle shirt, in fact. Or is it a De Liebaart? He specifies using 18ga. That size is about what I've settled on for riveted links, too: initial diameter 7/16", overl...

Konstantin the Red

Historically, armor was nearer to 20-22 gauge anyway, for plate that wasn't covering something critical. Then it got thicker. The thing about stainless steel is that it looks like nothing but stainless steel unless it gets toasted over coals or blasted with a torch. Stainless also is stiffer than co...

Konstantin the Red

I think the rivets around the edge of the left pauldron are decorative, and the rivets a couple-three centimeters outboard of the edge are the articulating ones, and I think they work on leathers -- note the rather loose fit of the articulated lames there. On the equivalent part of the right spaudle...

Konstantin the Red

Hannibal Lechter, meet Emperor Maximilian.

Konstantin the Red

Uh, Bex, cubic centimeter for cubic centimeter, Al is one third the weight of steel, Ti is half.

------------------
"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

Konstantin the Red

Kenneth, also remember not to have too much of your aventail's inner edge in front of your bascinet's face opening. Stretch it fairly tight there, and sew in the links quite tightly bunched into your camail strap (might as well call it that; I don't think anyone has actually come up with an authorit...

Konstantin the Red

ChevauchÃ©e. A mounted sweep through an area to plunder all the useful war supplies you can carry and burn all you can't.

Konstantin the Red

Pronounce it like the baby-washing article, always. The logic of the meaning turns out to be identical: either is derived from "small basin." The helmet thus called gets even more obvious when one looks at the early, underhelm forms: the cerveilliÃ¨res. I am ever so glad someone went and looked the ...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Signo: Keep attention to esalations! Use it on open air . . . <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think by this Signo means "Beware of the vapors/fumes." Does one "keep" attention in It...

Konstantin the Red

Hjalmr, a Wankel is really a round with corners; it'll fight like a bunny-round, except for its being radially symmetrical. It will operate nothing like the tall triangular shield James is describing.

------------------
"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."