The Armour Archive

wcallen

When we did these, we assembled the gauntlets on/in a leather base and then attached the result to the gloves/hand using some combination of rivets all the way through (not many), stitching at the edge of the cuff and a palm strap. Seemed to work just fine. Stiching would likely be the most authenti...

wcallen

Pic?

At that price, sure. I have round rivet tongs but the more the merrier.

Wade

wcallen

What Sean said, but I don't tend to use choice B except where the thing that is holding the piece in place is some other pieces of the armour. Heat is good for big flairs. I do that lots. For little flairs I generally have my pieces tighten up not loosen when I flair. The difference is how much the ...

wcallen

It would have had scales over the fingers and thumb. This is is otherwise complete. I guess the real question is what you want to do with your left hand? Hold the front of a gun or the reins of a horse? Should work well. I don't have one of those, but I do have some earlier, similar ones. You get re...

wcallen

In this case, all sewn together as layers. I haven't tried to pull things apart, but I think that there are more layers than you can see.

Tracy will likely provide real details soon.

Wade

wcallen

Mac, I said the tassets were unfinished. Of course he needs tassets. There are breastplates that were made to be used without tassets during the 16th c, but that wasn't the plan here. I have all of the plates cut and mostly shaped for nice long ones that come to the knee. I will finish them up at so...

wcallen

By "real morion" I mean that it is an antique from app. 1600. This is the second time I have cheated a little and used an authentic bit. He was wearing a different authentic morion with his 1580 armour 2 years ago. That morion really went well with the pieces, this one doesn't do as well, ...

wcallen

This is a first couple of images before I get the real page set up. This time we played with 1540-ish and black and white. As usual, Tracy Justus made the cloth and I did the armour. I was aiming for one of those simple pointy breastplates from the mid 16th century with the appropriate gorget and mu...

wcallen

If you will put up with 15th c. Italian not German. From Churburg: All in kilos 18 - upper breast 3.60 lower breast 3.30 upper back 3.70 lower back 1.85 19 - upper breast and back together 6.78 lower breast and back with fauld/culet 11.80 20 (Avant) upper breast and back 4.17 lower breast and back w...

wcallen

I have never weighed my helmet before. 12.5 pounds. 12g bascinet and fake lining with bargrill and 3/8" id round welded aventail. Bascinets in Churburg (numbers from the original catalog) - 13 - probably with aventail (they don't say) 5.75 kilos 15 - 3.265 kilos for the helmet and 3 kilos for t...

wcallen

A21? Hmm... not a fair question, esp. in its current form. Many of its parts are late 15th c. German. Catalog claims 1475-85. There are lots of modern pieces on the armour for man and of the originals, many have been 'enhanced' in the 19th c. Like the brasswork on the legs. Right out. One elbow is r...

wcallen

If I had a 15th c. German cuirass, you would all know about it. Expensive... The closest I ever came was about 15 years ago when I was bidding on a breastplate. I didn't get it. Anyway, to the question. The 'cuirass' on A21 in the Wallace is an odd one. I played with it when they were setting it up ...

wcallen

We moved up to 12g for bascinets just to avoid dents. On our own noggins and on customer's noggins. Avoiding maintenance is really nice. SCA people get hit in the head a lot. No one likes pounding out dents and sometimes customers can feel like they didn't get what they wanted/paid for if they have ...

wcallen

I probably shouldn't play at this. 1 usable SCA helmet (bascinet with grill). But helmets and helms lying around the house? Lots. Mostly different. In all different sizes, styles and ages. Rough guess - 16 repros and 29 old ones in addition to the fighting one. If I were really playing I would proba...

wcallen

It really depends on the style for the real details, but in general it should touch at the waist and at the top. No where in between. That is how you can: 1. Move (no contact in the front between your arms so the muscles can move). 2. look cool. If it actually tucks you in at the waist a little and ...

wcallen

Yea, it is weird, but not in a really impractical way. Just funny looking.

Let's keep it.

By no means my favorite armour though.

Wade

wcallen

I would not at all be opposed to Kingdoms banning such things, but, as it does not touch on the safety aspect of armored fighting, I do have a problem with using the office of the Marshallate to put such a ban in place. Strangely enough, I would say the exact opposite. Above the actual bare minimum...

wcallen

Aaron used one in the 80's. It was wood and dished. He used it lefty and in a pretty high form. It sticks the 2 corners out right where you need them for protection in SCA sport fighting. Back when I had some arm strength I could to the same thing with my medium-ish heater with the straps set horizo...

wcallen

Gift didn't cut it the one time I tried. I was stupid enough to actually make a modern copy of a viking twisted bracelet and mail it as a gift to my girl friend (at the time, wife now) while she was in England for 6 months. She got whacked on import duties even though it was a gift, she wasn't a cit...

wcallen

An easily accessible resource for the interior of a similarly constructed pauldron is Osprey's English Medieval Knight: 1400-1500 ." It features photos of some of the components of the "Avant" harness in Glasgow, one of which happens to be an inside view of such a pauldron. I looked ...

wcallen

Those Churburg gauntlets would have had fingers. The slightly later ones from Churburg that are quasi-mittens that don't cover the fingers have fingers in them too. There do seem to be some artwork depictions of gauntlets that don't cover all of the fingers. There is one obvious one of sleeping guar...

wcallen

You have one vote for on leathers and one for riveted. Really you need to be more specific. Do you want to make shoulders EXACTLY like that (ie late 15th century pauldrons of Italian/Flemish/ possibly English origin)? or just pauldrons? From what I have seen the top plates on the late 15th c. Italia...

wcallen

Greaves are a cool piece of metal sculpture. They can be done very well and not so well. Some people really enjoy them, others hate them. I find that I actually like working on them, I just hate finishing them. If I was doing production quantity greaves, I would hammerform them over metal forms. The...

wcallen

As usual, do what you want. working on the edge of a kettle hat brim you are pretty much making it up anyway, so anything is as good as anything else. Way back when I started in the dark ages there were some claims that rolls were done over wire. So we did some that way. Then we got lazy and left th...

wcallen

Murdock My 'we hit pretty hard' was Milwaukee. I bet it hasn't lightened up a lot in the last 20 years. Aaron/Valerius would remember the hat, he was there. In fact, it is probably in TOMAR in the background... I would have to look again. Say hi to the folks. Back to topic. 12g good. 14 not so good....

wcallen

As always, your mileage will vary. Way too many variables. We always built out bascinet type things out of 12g. We built one once from 14g because it was so much easier to dish. Then we padded it up and let one of our buddies take a whack at it with a bare stick of rattan. We got a really nice 3 inc...

wcallen

I have never made one. I have looked for the right kind of leather. The closest I have found comes from: m The local contact in the US is: kenchapman@boothandco.com The leather seems to be just what it should be - thick but very supple. Some people have used it on armour. Some seem to like it, some ...

wcallen

I have been happy with sending a note to:

barbkat62@yahoo.com

She seems to sell any zirc 2X72 for $3 each plus shipping.

Turn around was quick. Mix and match grits. No problems with minimum order.

Tom and I have been really happy with her.

Wade

wcallen

<Start> I know it is the rules, but that is one reason I don't fight anymore. The whole thing is silly. I fought for years wihtout any real armour on the shield arm. No problem except one freaky hit that didn't do any real damage, just hurt some. Requiring a shield on the back of your shield is goin...

wcallen

Sean, You could have looked at the ones I did for my kid on the early 16th c. or looked at how the arms oon my 1560-80 are put together... or we could have stared at some of the other arm bits around my place. One strap running up the front of the arm at about the location of your joint can connect ...

wcallen

The left gets a big shield hanging off of it. So there is a rondel on the right. There are also 2 of them on the Wallace harness. One for the left and one for the right. You can use any thickness material you want. I don't suppose it will be used for heavy-duty jousting with steel tips. But, if you ...

wcallen

If you do make one of these, think thick. Really thick. Well, the arms are pretty thin - you might be able to get away with 12g for them. Unless you want to grind, then you probably want to start thicker. The breastplate and front of the helm are a lot thicker in the middle. The lance rest and queue...

wcallen

The answer was a big fat no, except when it wasn't. I know that helps a lot. I thought I got that many people do roll some things before curling if the piece doesn't have a lot of shape. It also helps for you to be really, really sure the pattern is right. Trimming before you roll is easy. Trimming ...

wcallen

15th c. - all the ones I have seen are pointed to something. Doublet, shoulder straps, whatever. 16th c. Pin to to a hinged plate to the gorget, buckle to gorget, probably some other odd way I am forgetting right now. The buckles seem to be done in the intuitive way or an odd way with a loop on the ...

wcallen

I leave the boots off too. You can see one of my solutions here: m Carve the base to look foot like. Paint it up a little. Done. I made the feet in a shoe shape and thought at one point about basically forming a shoe onto it and nailing it on, but never did it. I have not found a need for 2 foot lon...

Halloween 2010 - on to 1540