The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Hey folks! So, I've ordered a significant amount of tools . . . I have an idea what I want my first project to look like, based off of what I've seen around, but I don't know what to call it, or what even any of the parts are called. I can't even describe what I'm looking for! I presume you're thin...

Konstantin the Red

A perfect example of how little I know about the actual types of armor, then. I'll see if I can get in touch with Chuck. Thank you for the lead, and the suggestion on reading material. I'll get on it! Welcome and well come -- and we'll get you sorted, and help you get sorted, inside of six months! ...

Konstantin the Red

That pisane may be quilted cloth and not mail -- there are many examples of such cowls among the Tombs of the Kings at Iona Abbey. Highlands and Islands warriors often used quilted, long coats, hoods/cowls of the same construction and V-shaped seam lines, with a helmet on top being most of the metal...

Konstantin the Red

Nope, those stages aren't "really bad." Just not finished yet. Yeah, I thought as much -- the museum piece would have had considerably more metal up front to make its concave part of the profile and the jutting lower edge of the sight. Hotworked helmets never really look good until they're almost do...

Konstantin the Red

A leather suspension lining like yours -- it can be made in multilayer fabric too, to any specification -- well, all the suspension liners are a lot alike, simple to make and admirably airy in wear. They work on the same principle as the webbing inside a hardhat. Suspension linings are basically of ...

Konstantin the Red

The camail liner is indeed an extension of the inner liner. So the entire affair would look like a high Middle Ages hood, only quilted. For a bascinet, the hood is sewn into place through 3/64"-1/16" holes drilled in the helmet (a Dremel is very good) along its bottom edge, up the sides of the face,...

Konstantin the Red

Welcome and well come! I wonder if a sharper piercing drift might help with that deformation you were getting? Your setting pliers actually seem quite reasonably accurate. Period art shows use of something long-rein, and often a small hammer too, which we suspect was used on the pliers to completely...

Konstantin the Red

Well, you'll get there. After you build a breast and back for the pauldron to play with and sit tidily on, I guess! -- they say that's what's needed to fit them well; do you like fifteenth century? Also the making of the large, shallowish curvatures for the breast and back will translate directly in...

Konstantin the Red

If it tarnishes bluish-black, likely it was silver.

Aluminum wire can deposit a black grunge that isn't part of the wire chemistry but is a leftover from drawing the wire. Only gets cleaned off to a certain degree before they ship it.

Konstantin the Red

That would be what the rivets close to the margin at the bottom end would do. The ones a bit higher up look to be for the interior suspension leathers, fixing down their bottom ends. Such rivets would necessarily be exposed on that bottom lame, and hence are likely to be visible, so show 'em off and...

Konstantin the Red

For a salvage-project with a not too protuberant brim (generally a plus in SCA helmets) it looks well enough like a munition-grade sallet. Think you could yet even out the sight any? Observe the bottom edge of the starboard side of the sight. A bit of wary work with a bastard-cut file might true it ...

Konstantin the Red

So which of the following would I have the most success with for my 3rd project (already made some gauntlets and vambraces): Pauldrons Bevor Floating Elbow Cop Cops is cops until you get around to putting in creases or flutes. Getting good at anything cop-shaped will be useful to you immediately: k...

Konstantin the Red

Got a link for the riveting tool? :D I'd like a look at this prodigy myself. And to find out what R-W calls the thing. 3/16" dia rivets in SCA use I am sure had their beginnings in "well, that looks about right" engineering. The SCA helmet reg just assumes 3/16 is what the reader will use -- and th...

Konstantin the Red

Consensus around here for brigs is three layers -- two of canvas, for all the durability you could expect, and a third of something prettier for the outer, public shell.

Konstantin the Red

boris_ wrote:
Konstantin the Red wrote:Why in hell you're not stuffing your helms with linen I don't know.
Don't worry, that will be in there as well

Whew! (fans self, with air of relief)

I guess that poor cat is sleeping naked now.

Konstantin the Red

What is the practical reason for not making the cuirass and bevor / gorget all of a single piece, or just riveting them together? Does the gorget / bevor turn left and right with your head? For the tiltyard, such a piece of equipment would be fine. The whole concept had been replaced, by then, with...

Konstantin the Red

The family tree of gorgets shows three general types. 1. The non-articulated gorget. An all-round one may hinge open and closed; that's it. A gorget that is only the front half will be held on, say with a strap around the back of the neck. 2. The articulated gorget is a series of nesting lames risin...

Konstantin the Red

Get yourself a split-head. It's a good investment; you'll wonder how you ever did without.

Konstantin the Red

Why in hell you're not stuffing your helms with linen I don't know.

Konstantin the Red

And that won't be for years yet. They work just as well all chewed up. If you are feeling do-it-yourselfish, you can scour eBay for older models from Garland or Chicago. Cleanup, new handle, new faces malleted into place, and you'd be good to go, at perhaps less money if you can score an eBay deal o...

Konstantin the Red

Bent-arm visor hinges are known. They show up invariably on "droop snout/bag nose" basc visors, with the end of the arms given a little decorative treatment like something in wrought iron. I've never heard of anybody showing what this detail did; it's poorly understood even if readily seen, and nobo...

Konstantin the Red

Is there any historical source for a split chain skirt suspended from a belt? Why split completely? Usually they seemed to work by having a V-shaped notch to their top edge, and being of a conical flared shape. You stepped into them like a pair of shorts, pulled them up, and closed the notch with a...

Konstantin the Red

What the stuff looks like from a little way off is like silvery gray fabric, owing to its fineness and round wire.

Konstantin the Red

So, to clarify, your saying such extreme "dishing" is done by machines and it would be too hard to do by hand? To clarify, for this process in cold metal you need an entire factory -- smallish, but an entire factory. You are describing tool and die work, deep drawing in multiple steps with a series...

Konstantin the Red

Oh, you don't leave that pipe cap round in any case -- you form it into an oval. Apparently this can be done cold. I believe it was poster Halberds who offered barrelhelm kits with the modified pipe cap as the entire top cap.

Konstantin the Red

You can take a "weldable pipe cap" of suitable diameter for the top of the can, and you can hotwork that to modify it however you want. I suppose they have those in Ukraine; they are fairly easy to get in this part of California, which is the oil patch -- lots of pipes. They are shaped like mushroom...

Konstantin the Red

Yes; it becomes a two-component defense, in depth: the camail saps the blow energy by putting drag upon it and the hard gorget is the final stopper. Decelerates, and spreads the hit out extensively in time.

Konstantin the Red

Oh, I was guessing pomme.

Konstantin the Red

I think L Ruler = Carpenters' Square.

Konstantin the Red

Copper rivets are very strong; they could only be beaten by steel. If *ever* you have a concern about the strength of rivets -- solid rivets that is -- just plan to use rather more of them. Small, thin rivets -- use a lot of these, rather than the moderate number you'd use of something larger. Ratta...

Konstantin the Red

Owie. Yes, for you the smallest elbow cop, articulating a bit, becomes the better solution. Tendinitis hates aggravation.

Konstantin the Red

If you designed it to fit around the musculature of your forearm, yeah, that's a normal shape for a vamb. Hinged vambs usually fit the arm like a thick coat of paint -- as, also, the greaves.

Welcome and well come.

Konstantin the Red

In that case, curve.

Curved, or creased, has the same effect.

Konstantin the Red

What do you think, Gustovic: a wedge-actuated vise? Screw actuated, w/a sort of dogging wrench for it there on the bench? It's that thing with the diamond-shaped eye,

http://www.nuernberger-hausbuecher.de/7 ... -4-r/large

Konstantin the Red

Yep, lining under that camail -- very lightly padded -- ought to give it just the look we see on monumental effigies & brasses.

Who made your bascinet?

Re: New player in the Armour world - need some help

Re: New player in the Armour world - need some help

Re: 16th Anglo Irish armour

Re: Ugly Sallet

Re: Bascinet liner question

Re: Bascinet liner question

Re: Introduction and High Medieval mail project

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: my google fu has failed me

Re: Schloss Ambras Detail: Rivets on tassets of lames

Re: Ugly Sallet

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: Domed rivets? Or flared? )SCA-specific)

Re: Refurbishing a Brigandine

Re: Shocktec, Unequal & Sorbothane

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: Shocktec, Unequal & Sorbothane

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: Compound hinge visor?

Re: Chain mail Skirt?

Re: Anyone using machine made micro mail for voiders?

Re: Dishing / Raising Question

Re: Tips or trick on the can bascinet construction method?

Re: Tips or trick on the can bascinet construction method?

Re: Gorget preference?

Re: Where to get a helmet plum

Re: Drawing the Perfect Heater Curve

Re: Rivets for Splinted Greaves and Vambraces

Re: Bazubands and spear

Re: Introducing Myself + Pics of Completed Armor Projects

Re: Making some splint arms - what weight leather?

Re: Vervelles, how they were made?

Re: Gorget preference?