The Armour Archive

wcallen

Having made armour back when it was cheap and seeing what has happened to the prices over the last few decades, I would bet that most of the numbers we are seeing are pretty low. If memory serves, this one was about 2K back in 1985: m That would not have included any clothing to go under it or any o...

wcallen

Wander my site. m Looking at the stuff from Gratz shows tons of the stuff. You can see it in the book 'Shiny Shapes'. There was lots of 'black' armour used in the mid-late 16th century. Lots of black and white too. It is difficult to be certain exactly how the black finish was created in the period ...

wcallen

Hmm. I think I need to get some PB80 again. I have been using the setup wheel version of things with grit on sewn cotton wheels then on to the sisal/ coarse stuff and on to stainless compound. Mainly because I can 'borrow' the setup wheel grit from Tom. I do so little work that PB80 would go bad und...

wcallen

The 'baseball cap' is fun. I had to buff a little light crud (mainly dried wax/oil/dust) off of it to shoot a picture. I was surprised I didn't have one of it before. It is pretty thin at the top. But we did manage to get a low crest out of it and rope it without breaking through. I have lots of aut...

wcallen

This is NOT what anyone would want to see, but it might be good for the history section. Fern sent me a copy of the invite for the 40th. Doug, maybe we should talk.... I actually have the first 'scratch built' helm made by either/both of us. I did most of this one. We did some freon cans too around ...

wcallen

Aaron, I bet that the stuff in the front of your picture is a newer pair of spaulders. Still very simple, but much more like actual armour. They resemble what I did for myself the last time I thought about fighting. You sure you don't just want to zap the crack with a mig welder, clean it up and get...

wcallen

I said I would shoot a picture. This is a piece Valerius and I did a long time ago. The bowl was dished into the bottom of an oxygen tank. It started out 14g (app. .072 in). It ended up pretty thin, but not completely unusable to stop a real sword (at least once). m These are some elbows made in var...

wcallen

The last time I was in that basement, there was a lot of stuff. Some of it armour. I bet that there is enough stuff to arm a couple of people, but you probably had to search a while to find it. If you were really into annoying some people here - wander around in the basement and build a pile of all ...

wcallen

I have been happy with the hammers I have gotten here:

http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/Templat ... 31609c104c

They have a variety of useful hammers.

Wade

wcallen

Thanks Jiri. I admire your work. Keep it up. For SCA stuff I would certainly start a lot heavier than 20g. I did the arms on this harness from 20g. Nothing thicker anywhere in the vambraces or elbow: m It looks like I did a good job of hiding the elbow cops in all of the pictures. The elbows are dee...

wcallen

Back when they were still cheap, I bought the largest of the 'Small Austrian' anvils (66 lb) just to see what the quality seemed to be like. I was thinking of getting something bigger if it turned out ok. I own a Hay Budden (2, but I use one), a Kolswa double horn and the old world anvil. The Hay Bu...

wcallen

Looking at real pieces, their solution was a combination of dropping rings and making the rings smaller. This works if you are making the rings from scratch and can afford to work in a few different wire sizes and ring diameters. That is probably outside the scope of most modern mail. Dealing with w...

wcallen

What Halbards said. I used to have my shop in the basement. I had full sized OA bottles and torch there. It really is pretty harmless. Your furnace is probably more likely to cause problems if it is oil or gas. My wife put up with them, and so did my insurance agent. No problems. You are at least as...

wcallen

He was a very good man. I was very sorry to hear when he passed. We go back YEARS - back to when he and his wife were the adults that helped keep us kids in line. They owned a house and everything, we were all still in apartments. He even did our taxes. I hadn't fought with him in decades. I am glad...

wcallen

Just for what it is worth. This is a picture of the inside of a real breastplate. m Unless they were working over stakes the size of hammer heads, there is no way that was planished from the outside on a large stake that simulated the desired shape of the piece. I personally think they beat it a lot...

wcallen

My guess from looking at originals is that either they had very small stakes or they 'plannished' from the inside a lot. I certainly go back and forth all the time. Whatever works. I also have various hammers that are flat, not so flat and a little more curved so I can plannish from the outside on a...

wcallen

Hey, I got one vote. I don't deserve it, but thanks anyway. There are some great armourers out there now. I bet there are a lot more really good ones than there were a few years ago. We do tend to miss the guys in europe that aren't as active in the SCA or reenactor world as many of the ones we know...

wcallen

Yes, Mac, I don't like people cutting up books either. I have seen a lot of them around. Usually from later books. There are also enough from earlier ones and I have refrained from buying almost all of them I have seen. I did buy one from a printed work. Once. Probably bad me. This is a funny game t...

wcallen

A lot of the real answer is going to depend on what condition it is in now and how much color there is on the page. Certainly don't let it get wet/damp/subject to mold. If there is color (esp), you don't want to hang it in direct sunlight. Almost anything will suffer from light. Well, armour doesn't...

wcallen

This is a completely different example. My impression is that it shows punched rings. Well, at least taken from sheet and not wire. There are lots of spots on the outsides of the solid rings which show flats that would occur if the rings were not very carefully cut from the sheet. I don't think ther...

wcallen

Yes, see if you can get into contact with Toby. This is exactly what he and a group of people are working on right now. Joust of Peace in the english fashion using armour of Henry VIII period. The last time I talked to him, they were still working on the harnesses for use later this year. He is a ni...

wcallen

The last time I saw the Coppergate rings was 2 decades ago, so take all with a big grain of salt. But... I had the rings under magnification and in my hands. The mail is definitely the nicest piece of this helmet. The work on the helmet itself is ok, but nothing spectacular. The mail is amazing. The...

wcallen

Kettle hat c. 1600:

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-106.html
http://www.allenantiques.com/images/Geo ... Armour.jpg

Most people call it a morion.

Wade

wcallen

I make no claim about military vs. civilian use for most of these, but here are some daggers. Some have high resolution pictures that allow you to see a lot of detail. Others are smaller. It depends on what camera I had at the time. m The rondel is most likely military. The rest could be anything. W...

wcallen

For fantasy, do whatever you want. Personally I wouldn't want to try to deal with a spur under a sabaton. Since it is fantasy, if you don't want all of the mess of the straps and buckles on there why not play with the screw mount? It gives a clean line with or without the spur and eliminates all the...

wcallen

Well.... There are various ways spurs have interacted with armour. Most of the early brasses/illustrations I am used to show the spur and straps over the sabaton. When we get to the 16th c. things change. The back of the greave drops down to ground level and the spur has to be dealt with differently...

wcallen

I was asked for an inside shot of the cuff of my gauntlet.

It has been a while, but I had the camera out to shoot a couple of other pieces, so I shot this too.

Here is the picture:

http://www.allenantiques.com/images/A-98-inside.jpg

The flutes are hammered in. And not perfectly, or with a lot of depth.

Wade

wcallen

This is definitely not the same thing, but there are other examples of some pretty small mail out there. Here is one: m It is from a mail collar. Probably 16th c. The scale on the right is in inches. The links are a little over 1/8" ID, but not a lot. The links on this are even larger, but stil...

wcallen

I have made globose breastplates using dishing, raising, or a combination. For those who want a relatively simple and easy process, an all dished one does work. The shape turns out just fine, the only real problem is that the thickness variation in the resulting piece is backwards - you generally en...

wcallen

Very nice guy. I spent several hours with him and a few other people playing with some of the pieces in the Wallace while the rooms were closed.

A great time all around.

Wade

wcallen

Hmm. 'MA' - probably Mass. That is a little far up, but I will be at the Baltimore Arms fair March 21 and 22. That is part way in between. m If anyone wants to play with some specific piece and will be wandering by there, I can bring a few extra pieces to show. Gauntlets are pretty small and portabl...

wcallen

Just lucky I guess. I was talking with another collector and he had these gauntlets for sale. He got them as part of a very composed suit and was willing to part with the gauntlets. Actually the gauntlets were the part I liked the most, so I was lucky. The thumbs just happened to be part of these ga...

wcallen

These are a lot like the one being copied: m They represent a very simple form of the early 16th c. gauntlet. Kind of fun. Nice to see the copy of the V&A one. My 'pair' (not a pair at all, but 2 similar ones) have some nice thumb plates at least on one of them. Before you copy my other pair, le...

wcallen

I always make my own washers. I like the result better, the hole is the right size and I get funky shapes like I should. I use my RW # 5 for it all the time. For some perspective, I bought my #5 - a real Roper/Whitney when I worked in a hardware store in 1979. I still use it. It went through several...

wcallen

The previous illustrations really are daggers, not the kind of thing that people used for normal table use. This is a couple of knives from the period. m m (actually, I think that second one is earlier, I will have to go do some more research). There are some other knives on the site too. m There ar...