The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

...The nicest way to have your own hand gonne from scratch is to have your own lathe. One with some kind of thrust bearing feature, I'd wager, for the bore. Shaping a priming pan and boring a touch-hole seem trivial. Bore likely 1/2 to 3/4 inch, so they're even easy to buy balls for. Even if your bo...

Konstantin the Red

Hang around here; we can find the experienced barrel builders. Most of what you need would be a saber saw, an electric drill, and some method of smoothing the sawn edges -- say a mix of whittling with a knife and melting back with a torch or flame. Sanding works too. Some methods are inclined to lea...

Konstantin the Red

Yeah, a strapped cop full of glued in padding was pretty reliable; every bit as good as strapping one on over an elastic volleyball pad that would stay up by itself. The illustrations that were included give some idea that thonging and pointing might be used, perhaps more so than Aaron's text, espec...

Konstantin the Red

Always liked putting foam down as strips with channels between 'em. Got the most results for my foam dollar. We got disappointed with stuffing a tube sewn into a garment like about 2003, it appears. We felt -- quite literally -- we got better results from stacking fabric layers like lasagnas and sti...

Konstantin the Red

Whale, since you've got sewing-mavens already, stay away from the ordinary moving blanket. They're stuffed with reclaimed polyester and they are not designed to robe something that puts out its own body heat and humidity. In a word, too bloody hot. For sweatiness, it's bad enough people put foam rub...

Konstantin the Red

The real method for cold-chisel cutting seems to be a) lay it on an anvil/other metal backstop incl mild-steel 1" plate; b) cold-chisel most of the way through the metal but not all the way, along your desired cut-line; c) break the metal off along the thinned line, and dress the broken edge with f...

Konstantin the Red

I bet the very skinny splints we've seen on some effigies -- splints of a slenderness like wrought-iron grill work and much of the same aesthetic -- which are laid on probable leather, would be an indicator that that is boiled leather. Such rod-like splints wouldn't make a very adequate defense just...

Konstantin the Red

I am just looking for something cheap to get started. Then I can save up for the helmet I want. Greek is ultimately the persona I am going for. Welcome and well come. A Corinthian helmet -- that'd be a bit down the road. They run into money you know. There are other and less showy Classical Greek h...

Konstantin the Red

Equipping the SCA Man At Arms, cont'd Bit the Third The simplest and most effective method of suspending the elbow cops is to lace them to the sleeves of a gambeson. It is also a simple matter to [Here is line-art three gambesons, one with a fanless cop only upon an elbow, a second with a fanless co...

Konstantin the Red

Equipping The SCA Man At Arms, cont'd Bit the Second The strap and buckle assemblies are needed for each cuisse. Two assemblies are used to secure the cuisse around the thigh, one at the widest point of the cuisse and one just above the knee. The third assembly must be long enough to connect the cui...

Konstantin the Red

With ref to this thread in Design & Construction which began with bearpaw gaunts and now is exploring cheap/affordable newbie-gear of every sort. I have been going on so long and so much about this unjustly neglected old article on gearing new fighters up for SCA rattan-play (Palmiludes? Bastiludes?...

Konstantin the Red

Stuff Jester once said about newbie fighter gear: Helmet: buy it or make it using Sinric's pattern [in the Pattern Index] Aventail: Padded fabric. Make it. Gorget: Dog collar [type, in] leather and plastic. Upgrade to metal later. Non-visible. Spaulders: Optional. Easy to make with some patience and...

Konstantin the Red

And John, padded armor (standalone gambeson/standy gamby) is the very thing "Equipping The SCA Man At Arms" is all about. It's a quilted kneelength gambeson, with gamboised cuisses. Fanless knees on the ends of the cuisses, fanless elbows pointed onto the long sleeves, loaner-grade two piece gorget,...

Konstantin the Red

Did some digging around in my shelves: found two recipes for a scoop-like munition gauntlet in my copy of Best of The Hammer Volume 3, "A Plate Gauntlet for SCA Use: how to build a replica of a mitten gauntlet in the southern German style circa 1440." The article also refs Blair's European Armour, p...

Konstantin the Red

A-yeah! Now it's looking like armor you can live in. I think we can dig you up sundry variations on rerebraces. A quite early articulated plate arm including only a partial rerebrace is found on the Churburg 13 armour: http://muckley.us/1386/churburg_harness.jpg Note how all this shows for a rerebra...

Konstantin the Red

And this one is from two pieces, welded: http://buckwheat-anderson.com/bcanderson/smithing/pages/Rigid%20Demi-Gauntlet2.jpg Which you could assemble to articulate w/rivets. Mock up in cardboard first, w/brass paper fasteners to simulate rivets. As here: http://www.oocities.org/wolfram_von_taus/image...

Konstantin the Red

So, considering practical and cheap forming-shapes for gauntlet parts of laminated canvas construction: Ready-made, a large enough white-wine bottle, using the curve of it. Sculpt-it-yourself cuff form of plaster, Easybake style Ditto ditto, but carved, rasped and sanded out of wood for the cuff par...

Konstantin the Red

Yep, if anybody's going to place an insuperable obstacle, the wives would be the ones. I wonder just how big toaster ovens come? Or how cheap you can score a used stove at a secondhand appliance place, like where we got our refrigerator from...? If Easybake is too much trouble or too much capital up...

Konstantin the Red

Ah! I've been to Perth-Fremantle, when I was in the US Navy. Quite liked it, stopped laughing at Australian Table Wine, speedily picked up a taste for Black Swan -- and it seems almost every youth in Perth believes American beer is rather weak. Met with the friendly reception Yank military generally...

Konstantin the Red

Or just plain never store those in the shed at all, winter nor summer.

Konstantin the Red

Chef de Chambre giving Matthew Cross a good fisking, his post of May 9, 2003: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=52805 From there: Actually, for anybody with an intellect greater than a retarded baboon's, the archive is one of the greatest resources for anyone seeking informa...

Konstantin the Red

Something else I say a lot: we spend metal to buy knowledge. Don't fret over failures; learn from them. You'll know more than you did when you started, and how is that bad? Mistakes and disastrous gone-wrongs are not comfortable friends, but these friends will teach you more, faster, than your succe...

Konstantin the Red

Ain't that the truth. It'll make ya tired. If you let it, that is; best simply to ignore that stuff and concentrate on what YOU are doing -- this is surprisingly easy to do once you decide you're going to. Those other disappointing fellows can go on being disappointing and useless, and may they have...

Konstantin the Red

He builds a menpo that way, he could have his money where his mouth is.

Konstantin the Red

You said "Did I get it too stiff?" You hardened? Probably you'd like all the stiffness you can get.

Konstantin the Red

Big ole Thor LLC weighted rawhide mallet, or a bowling ball basherizer, and yes, you've got the thing for breasts and backs and dished light steel targets. A hotwork starter for helm parts, such as a helm top half that will take its final form by hot raising -- for that matter, starting any round-bl...

Konstantin the Red

Hats are well, very well. You'll do a service. With a bit more care, you may surpass even what Sevastian has done, and won't that be nice! That being said, Minnesota and the Northern Mid-west States all get ridiculous cold weather too. I can abide it. I'm planning on putting in a brick patio next to...

Konstantin the Red

What they said. Dear dear dear. Might want to try hammering on aluminum, though only try for slight, gradual compound curvatures -- the sort of subtle dishing we go on about a lot, to get articulating pieces to run together smoothly and cope with the fact that human bodies are just compound curvatur...

Konstantin the Red

. . . Armourkris, I am after full gauntlets because I'll have to make a pair to use 2 handed weapons anyway . . . Right, then, full mitts, possibly clamshell pattern (pure SCA, not medieval, but effective). . . also I don't want to have to make a sword yet, and I don't want to clamp and unclamp a b...

Konstantin the Red

Yeah, what Armourkris and Sevastian said. Welcome and well come, Mistercheese -- may I call you Wensleydale? :wink: -- and may your stay with us be long. We hope it may prosper you much. Yeah: your only problem getting those things to work is your blue plastic is like five times thicker than the pie...

Konstantin the Red

Baron Eirik wrote:Gladiatorial versions of Nascar's restrictor plates. Are you not entertained?

I R DEVO.

Konstantin the Red

I thought so.

Konstantin the Red

A lot of gladiators' sporting goods for gladiator games seemed designed to impair complete battle efficiency. There are at least two helmet types whose field of vision, well, sucks. Others seem designed to add awkwardness to the mix -- perhaps to conserve gladiators, overall, as valued investments?

Konstantin the Red

Small brims are often a good idea in SCA helmet design: you get to rock that brim thing without it affecting your blow acknowledgement. Seems like that crest up top would present more difficulty that way in the SCA game. It pays to be parsimonious up there too. Is somebody selling these Samnite (?) ...

Konstantin the Red

Sounds to me like the aesthetic thing to do with an exterior hinge of leather is to cut it out in a decorative shape, then. Just a straight strap whacked off of a piece of scrap and two copper rivets -- shows a want of ambition. The more ornamental hinge can be of chrometanned for greatest toughness...

Re: Handgonne Help

Re: pattern for plastic gauntlets.

Re: Equipping The SCA Man At Arms, from BoTH

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: rethinking my arm armour

Re: Newbi helmet wanted.

Re: Equipping The SCA Man At Arms, from BoTH

Re: Equipping The SCA Man At Arms, from BoTH

Equipping The SCA Man At Arms, from BoTH

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Various plate armour questions

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: pattern for plastic gauntlets.

Re: How would you set up shop?

Re: 30,000 topics in D&C

Re: pattern for plastic gauntlets.

Re: pattern for plastic gauntlets.

Re: Covered in Nickles

Re: rethinking my arm armour

Re: Dishing donut

Re: How would you set up shop?

Re: Advice on Hiding Ugly Plastic Bearpaws?

Re: pattern for plastic gauntlets.

Re: pattern for plastic gauntlets.

Re: Combat effectiveness of this helm, help please.

Re: rethinking my arm armour

Re: Combat effectiveness of this helm, help please.

Re: Combat effectiveness of this helm, help please.

Re: rethinking my arm armour