The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Something damned interesting is happening at that keyboard!

...But it seems to be either interpretive dance, 15th century style, or "Help me get that damn raven off my pallid bust of Pallas!" offscreen.

Konstantin the Red

Unpadded blade polearms can get formed by splitting the end of the rattan, drilling a stress relief hole at the end of the split, and then inserting blocks to give the blade its final shape and taping up. It's a refinement of the "taped pole" kind of polearm with no foam nor foam and clacker in its ...

Konstantin the Red

Rattan can also be permanently bent dry, using the length of the stave as a lever and discs of plywood firmly bolted to a bench as your bending forms. Use a couple of these, two different diameters and fastened down about two inches apart. Stick in the end to be bent, crank it a good one, move up so...

Konstantin the Red

Yeah: roller flattening makes for elliptical links. Workable enough if you find some way to index the link ends so your closures aren't all randomly around the links, but clearly not what happened. Besides hammer and anvil, I might add a bunch of yoghurt tubs with lids, and a Sharpie, to label these...

Konstantin the Red

If you err, you may prefer to err on the thin side. Mobility is a biggie, and mobility of the arms the biggie-est. Torso not so much, legs not so difficult either since the gamby likely will flare out from the hips, and have the rider-split. Eleventh and twelfth century is the hauberk era; are you r...

Konstantin the Red

An easy tool for fully flattening rings is to have a cylinder and piston made that you can set on the face of an anvil. Though the piston flattener is not very necessary if you already have an anvil or a hunk of steel plate, the heavier the better. All else you need is a 3- to 4-pound hammer such a...

Konstantin the Red

Yes, indeed, this will be an interesting quest!

Konstantin the Red

Fascinating thread, gentlemen! Looks like one question from John S may be how to seam together the various parts smoothly -- does that need a walk-through? It also gets some posts on threads about Charles de Blois cotehardies built into armyng-cotes. Use the heaviest needle your sewing machine will ...

Konstantin the Red

The nice thing about entry level price bascinets for new guys is that unlike those easy barrels, they have very good glancing surfaces to skip swords off. So the kids don't get frustrated from getting clonked every single time.

Konstantin the Red

Wot a-prone sed. It's totally like that, and you also have to restrain the new kids from trying to insist on a twelve hundred dollar dragonhelm to Society standards, or $250 Indian-made DHSO in metal that's too thin. Fortunately, their wallets can speak loudly on this. There are threads in here to l...

Konstantin the Red

Aha, the picture is now far clearer. Yeah, time. Time, time and time, and now I know you know that the ways to get harness are either to spend considerable money, or spend considerable time. What do you find on Gordon Osterstrom's "Welded Chainmaille" site? I've never bought there, so I don't have a...

Konstantin the Red

Lloyd wrote:I know this is blasphemy, but a good mouthpiece is also critical in helping to prevent concussions....I learned this WAY too late...

Well, that's interestin'. Rubber mouthpiece like football players use? (don't know if all of them do)

Konstantin the Red

You're very welcome! Stick around, we really got about a million of 'em.

Konstantin the Red

Welcome and well come, Steven kirby. Blacksmithing and armorsmithing overlap to a degree. Our experience with armouring shows us that they evidently started with stock that was not sheet metal as we know it, but neither was it a billet like a brick. Some pieces of plate harness were likely started f...

Konstantin the Red

http://imgur.com/tPC1gmy I'd fight shy of this one on grounds of inauthenticity. If it's an über shirt you're after, you want one that doesn't use 45-degree seams. When they were wearing mailshirts for keeps, they did not build them with 45-degree Bladeturner-type shoulder sections. The shoulder se...

Konstantin the Red

Bblackwood, if budget is tight, even a used spring 'berk is -- reality check -- beyond your reach, for any boughten riveted shirt. Unless your idea of a tight budget turns out to be 2500 dollars. (Nobody ever thinks to quantify just how many dollars is "tight." :sad: Not without being quizzed.) With...

Konstantin the Red

Their intent seems to be to display insignia, and not as reinforces of any sort. The material they're made of -- speculative, except for not being metal. Method of fastening them on so they stand up like that -- conjectural. Prospect of their being otherwise useful enough to keep using more than one...

Konstantin the Red

Hmm. How many well-sourced cerveillières with certainly original post vervelles -- these date well into the full-bascinet period, a generation of men if you like -- can we find? The tunnel vervelle if any seems more likely.

Posts start around, what? -- 1365-1370?

Konstantin the Red

It keeps on giffing! Make it stop! Yeah, honestly... from what I see of Christianity, the guy who thinks it is sophisticated to blast it isn't very. He's also forgotten to look for the Marxist agenda in the Christian-bashing book. The Marxist isn't of course the only hostile philosophy, and this wil...

Konstantin the Red

Why exactly would we want a 'nym that would necessarily be an imprecise term? Quilted armour or cloth armour both already exist.

Konstantin the Red

What I've seen off my stock of Ti wire -- contaminated MIG wire on spools -- is if you try hammering it flat it splits into two flattened halves where hammered. And that I am to expect Ti's workhardening will mean that a successfully flattened overlap will very promptly crack and split using a pierc...

Konstantin the Red

And that greater amperage will mean your particular welder's duty cycle would get vanishingly short.

You've still got something you can weld bars with, and with patience make up stakes and tools.

Konstantin the Red

Mega Zenjirou Yoshi wrote:
Konstantin the Red wrote:Comes of being French. And unable to pronounce "knight."
He says he's already got one.

"It's very nice!"

Konstantin the Red

Another thread, w/pix of the reinforced standard poster Cat, of Catherine's Quest, made: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=155088&hilit=Cat%27s+maille+standard Includes all the pics of the big standard Cat built. That %27s garble is supposed to be read as an apostrophe if yo...

Konstantin the Red

Comes of being French. And unable to pronounce "knight."

Konstantin the Red

And if the elbows aren't fitting well into the sleeves, I wouldn't hesitate to revise things and point and buckle them over the sleeve elbows. Black if necessary. At least with that deal you can tweak them up and down on your joint until they're exactly where you want them, and you're not pre-commit...

Konstantin the Red

Well, I'll certainly be watching this! I like the pockets idea for laundering, of course. Formed HDPE pieces can wash successfully, but I expect they'd present problems in a dryer that already has to cope with densely quilted fabric as it is. So it seems pockets are the way to go. They may fasten, o...

Konstantin the Red

Welcome and well come to the Archive!

Konstantin the Red

The rest of the head-on view looks exactly Maximilian: wide between the visor hinges, and the bellows visor is a Maximilian feature.

Konstantin the Red

Trystyn, I'm still thinking this could be done right there in the gentleman's house, from 14th-c. battering-mill sheet. Shear, shape, bend a couple extensions at the top of a slightly elongated scale into hinge barrels to take the vervelle cord. All done cold, even.

Konstantin the Red

But no worse than any other buckskin clothing -- if you stuck to deerskin, which is very suited to use in all weathers because it does not stiffen up after soaking and drying again.

Konstantin the Red

Ease of production, updating an old piece of equipment or simply fashion. Of these three, I like His Lordship deciding to upgrade his hat after estimating it as a mite too short for comfort. This is something they could have done in-manor. In-town at the worst. Signo, do you necessarily figure ther...

Konstantin the Red

Riveted and welded Steel tends to be less maintenance. Sez Lostie, putting it absurdly mildly! That, and fifteen times the strength into the bargain. Nobody makes riveted aluminum mail because the metal workhardens and fatigues way too much; you can't fasten such links by the conventional mail rive...

Konstantin the Red

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=100312&p=1414841&h ... e#p1414841

Mostly about how to shape cowhorn efficiently, making it suitable for B-G helmets and lantern windows.

Konstantin the Red

His blog: http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/

Re: 15th Century Fat-Man -- what's he wearing?

Re: Rattan Molding Tips

Re: Rattan Molding Tips

Re: Riveted Mail Info?

Re: Fitting a gambeson for mail

Re: Riveted Mail Info?

Re: WTB Riveted flat ring chainmail hauberk

Re: tunic or kaftan-like gambeson

Re: Starter Helms

Re: Starter Helms

Re: WTB Riveted flat ring chainmail hauberk

Re: Better helmet design- concussion prevention

Re: Help! What are those small shields that cover the bicep

Re: What would you use this for.

Re: WTB Riveted flat ring chainmail hauberk

Re: WTB Riveted flat ring chainmail hauberk

Re: Help! What are those small shields that cover the bicep

Re: Question about cervellieres

Re: How Dark Were the Dark Ages?

Re: Standalone gambeson, ala Mac Bible and Konstanin?

Re: Is riveted aluminum chainmail viable for SCA combat?

Re: welder ground clamp from a salvaged jumper cable clamp?

Re: Standalone gambeson, ala Mac Bible and Konstanin?

Re: Patterns/Ideas for a Gourget That Fastens in the Back?

Re: Standalone gambeson, ala Mac Bible and Konstanin?

Re: Standalone gambeson, ala Mac Bible and Konstanin?

Re: Standalone gambeson, ala Mac Bible and Konstanin?

Re: Question on pricing resources

Re: Fake or not?

Re: Hood or coif under helm?

Re: Leather headware - seeking information

Re: Hood or coif under helm?

Re: Is riveted aluminum chainmail viable for SCA combat?

Re: Anybody here ever made a Benty Grange helmet?

Re: Late 14th C hourglass? / Galleron's grave marker