The Armour Archive

wcallen

OK, lots of people have been playing with COTT stuff. I have a hole in my collection of reproductions in the early 14th century, so I did a c. 1340 harness for the kid this year. It will add nicely to the educational display. Transitional suits just don't have the right look without the mail, so I h...

wcallen

Waist strap is a nice thing to have. In my (mostly lack of) fighting I have always worn a breastplate without a real backplate. Cross straps at the top and a waist belt always works very nicely. I guess I have had 3 different ones done this way, and others made for other people that worked the same ...

wcallen

The result will be about what you said, but the way I would do it is draw a full size picture of yourself. Add a drawing of the breastplate in full size. Re-work the lines until you get the right look. Then add overlaps and measure the picture to see how big each plate should be. Start with a very g...

wcallen

The last coat of plates I did, I chose to go semi-period. I have some brig plates. All of them seem to have pretty small rivets with pretty small heads. My personal opinion is that they were willing to replace their armour/fabric covering more often than we are... So I used 14g escutcheon pins set i...

wcallen

This is more like 1600 than 1500. Normally (I have played with 2) they have sliding rivets at the side and a wide leather strap attached by 2 rivets per plate in the middle. The way to pattern this is as one breastplate that covers the normal part of the body for a breastplate of the time (they are ...

wcallen

If that armour is as good as it looks, that is a major addition. Maybe I will have to find a time to come up and visit the nice armourers up in the area and see the new piece. Hmm. I wonder if we could find a way to get at a couple of pieces (smaller version of the ARS study session). I hate to imag...

wcallen

Sean,

I understand. Baltimore is the 3rd weekend of March. If you want to you can ping me beforehand. I am happy to drag a few pieces up just for private inspection/study/discussion.

Maybe we could get some people together for dinner Friday or Saturday night.

Wade

wcallen

I would be happy to make it any combination of studying authentic pieces, playing with recreations and discussing almost any armour-related topic. I do have a shop, but it isn't much to speak of. It can be used for basic stuff and could be used to illustrate some odd point that is easier seen throug...

wcallen

Cool. Some interest...

Anyone else?

I am just guessing here, but I would supposed that a weekend over the winter months (fewer events and colder shops) would be good.

Wade

wcallen

Churburg - got to be. That is the only one where the gauntlets at least appear to be in the Bargello. Look in L'Arte dell'Armatura in Italia - Boccia, 1967. Some nice pictures of the outside and inside of the breastplate. As I remember some shots of the arms and helmet too. And of course Carlo's boo...

wcallen

I had the same thought as Mr. Powers. I had a bunch of nice shiny armour stored in a room with a ventless set of gas logs. The room stayed warm and the armour now has lots of nice little spots of rust. Not nearly as bad as the condensation would have been, but still annoying if the goal was to slow ...

wcallen

Someday I will post the picture of my latest one. I did (basically) 4 rings added each row in a really well-defined way. The result looks like it will work nicely. This latest aventail was 2 trapezoids. The sides of each taper at a 45 degree angle (one extra link on each row on each end of each piec...

wcallen

So, how can one get at some of this treasure trove?

Just curious... A lot of this seems to reflect an early part of my life and it would be fun to see who was there and what was there.

Wade

wcallen

Carlyle - you were there too? Seems like everyone came out of the woodwork. I should have forced myself to find a way to get there. Just for fun, is there any such thing as an attendee list so I can kick myself more for all of the people I didn't get to see? And more pictures please - or a link to s...

wcallen

More pics. The older (almost) the better. All certainly pieces of my past. I am sure it would have been a blast to be there. Maybe (if anyone is still alive) there will be a cool 50th to show up to. Those freon cans are a blast. There has got to have been some Polidor stuff there... wasn't there? Ma...

wcallen

Have fun. So, when's the next edition of the Hammer coming out? Just kidding. That was a huge effort on Brian's part. I don't think many people understand how much he gave to the early SCA armour community putting out the Hammer. It was the core of the old Armourer's Guild. The meetings were fun too...

wcallen

I am happy to share my pieces and any knowledge I have gained from playing with them and building the armour I have built. I probably enjoy the opportunity to get together with people with a similar interest as much as any of the people who play with the pieces. So far I have mostly shared the piece...

wcallen

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.

Or driving, near where I-40 and I-85 merge just west of Chapel Hill.

Wade

wcallen

This event was a bit out of the way, so attendance was a little light. We did have lively discussions with many people and people had a chance to play with real pieces of armour. We even dressed one person interested in rapier in a morion, gorget and breastplate. They fit pretty well. Tom can post i...

wcallen

The ones I have seen handle the issue in the same way it was handled in period. There is a small gap between the plates that cover the back of hand and the plates that cover the forarm. No metal there at all. The gap is a lot narrower than a rattan stick. Hitting directly there is nearly impossible....

wcallen

Basically no. No counterweight. Sometimes things like poleaxes would have a tip in the other end, but that was offensive, not as a counterweight. The heads are usually lighter than you would expect, so the weapons aren't that unwieldy. Halberds were really a weapon intended to be used in groups (in ...

wcallen

Just for fun, I tried to load the video of the gothic gauntlet on a clean Windows XP system. I recently re-installed and have put almost nothing on the system yet. Windows Media player played it just fine. It is a pretty basic MPG file. pulled directly from a kind of old Sony camera. Maybe I should ...

wcallen

If we are going to talk shops, I think Tom would probably win for the smallest shop with the most tools in it. Tiny. Low ceiling... small. My shop is a shed behind another shed. The real shop is 12x20. Shed up front has some room used for storage and a shear. Concrete floor in the shop. Wood floor i...

wcallen

He does nice work. And he is a nice guy too. We don't hear about him in the US, I guess it is a combination of working in England and having a web presence. He was at the Wallace when I accidentally stopped by and got to play with the stech harness while it was in pieces. Well, and the A-21 harness ...

wcallen

Maybe they meant the "house on the rock"?
When I lived in Wisconsin I saw pictures that indicated that it had armour. But I never went to see it, so I cannot say anything about the quantity or quality of armor, or whether any is there now.

This is a page describing it:

http://www.destination360.com/north-ame ... n-the-rock

Wade

wcallen

There is an easy way to get some old pieces into my collection.

Just sell them to me.

I know, you already got rid of most if not all of it.

I do still have the arm.

Wade

wcallen

Not me. Aaron and I were pretty good back in the 80's. Things have changed since then. And neither of us is all that active.

So, thanks, but nope, not on the same level as Radford and the others.

Wade

wcallen

Off the top of my head, neither of those cabassets is marked. Must just be a similar one, there are lots of them out there.

Wade

wcallen

Pictures.

This is what we are proposing to display:

http://www.allenantiques.com/University ... 02009.html

Each of the pieces is in some way interesting for illustrating style, form or manufacture of armour.

Wade

wcallen

Aaron,

Boo. That can mess up a lot of things.

Good luck.

Wade

wcallen

Because you don't live near where I live.

Nothing personal, you are still welcome (but kind of a long drive).

Wade

wcallen

I will be posting more details soon, but I will be taking some of my pieces to the University of Atlantia on Oct. 3 this year. It is being held in Winterville North Carolina. Come by, play with armour, and talk to a former armourer and a current armourer. The more the merrier. The official 'class' a...

wcallen

I pulled the breastplate off the wall. There are definitely signs of the roping having been embossed into the metal. There are signs of roping on the inside of the rolls. One of the gussets is open enough in the center to see it. The upper roll also has a very aggressive central bump that has to be ...

wcallen

Thanks Aaron. I don't have those anymore. I bet you haven't used them a lot recently. I haven't done roping recently either. As I remember, we used those tools on this: m Click on the images and you will get big pictures. Using the tools let us get more fullness/roundness to the roping shape. We did...

wcallen

Any greave manufacture involves lots of hitting from lots of directions, but assuming we want to talk about how the majority of the shaping is done and not worry about the final stuff, I have done them 3 different ways. 1. Dished at the top and flaired at the bottom. The greaves on this were done th...

Halloween costume - 2009

Chance to play with authentic armour - 10/3/2009 - NC