The Armour Archive

Gaston de Clermont

Kenrick- I like the way your maile flows. Where'd you get it? Good helm choice too.

Gaston de Clermont

Iron is just the pure element. It's pretty malleable, but relatively soft. Adding some carbon to that gives you steel. The low carbon steels are called "mild." Adding more carbon to that allows you to make harder (think glass) and tougher steel. The razor you shave with, and the springs in...

Gaston de Clermont

Lookin' good, Louis! I'd play with it, as it might still be longer than you really want it to be.

Gaston de Clermont

Edmond- nice kit! Are you thinking Wisby style gauntlets with that rig?

Gaston de Clermont

I recently got one that writes straight to an internal hard drive, which gives you a large amount of storage for your dollar. It downloads painlessly to a PC, which I've found to be a huge plus. Mine's a Sony. I'm a little dissapointed with the resolution I'm getting in our dimply lit practice area....

Gaston de Clermont

It sounds like an outdated and baseless law which is causing nothing but grief. How do we go about changing or removing the rule? It is. We don't. Only the Board can effect this change -- and therein lies the root of the problem. OK, we don't change this directly maybe. But isn't it valid to view t...

Gaston de Clermont

I ground my ankles and knees if I can. I think of it this way- it leaves your shins against the ground, your knees against the ground, and only one femur sloping from your hip to the ground. Even a mamoth landing on you isn't likely to break anything. If anything is stacked and they land right on th...

Gaston de Clermont

If I had unlimitted resources, free time, an insanely understanding spouse, and maybe a time machine, these are the wars I'd most want to hit in the next year: 1. Pennsic -has a lot of pretty much everything 2. Gulf -friendly, and with great fighting 3. Estrella -mostly has great fighting 4. Lillies...

Gaston de Clermont

It sounds like an outdated and baseless law which is causing nothing but grief. How do we go about changing or removing the rule?

Gaston de Clermont

Wait- why do we need this rule at all?

Gaston de Clermont

How'd you end up with a Blood Guard shield in your shop?

Gaston de Clermont

Unless you can crank these out really fast I'd expect you to get flooded with orders at $300 a pair. I'd be looking closer to $450, and if you're willing to strap them up you could go about $50 higher. I'd consider stitching the finger tips to the gauntlet somehow, and changing the finger tip strap ...

Gaston de Clermont

I think the trickiest part for many folks with stuffing channels is figuring out how far apart the rows of stitches need to be. If you put them too close together, your padding will be too thin. If you want your padding to be half an inch thick, you want the diameter of the final tube to be half an ...

Gaston de Clermont

Jeff- what would the heads look like? I like the look and price of roofing nails a lot.

Gaston de Clermont

I fight in a helm with a linen liner stuffed with tow (flax fibres) wadded into little balls. I'll never go back to blue foam unless there's some kind of zombie appocalypse and blue foam is all that survives. I've never had issues with getting hit too hard in this helm. I can barely make a t-tunic a...

Gaston de Clermont

For grappeling to be accepted broadly in the SCA it needs a fairly speciifc definition. I don't think most of us are looking for chokes, punches, or kicks. Being able to grab arms would be nice. We can already push against an opponent's shield, so pushing on the body isn't really a stretch. I'd pref...

Gaston de Clermont

m It looked to me like the guy who got hurt had a knee brace on his other knee. What the guys were doing wasn't fundamentally unsafe, and the move that injured him was pretty standard judo stuff. Folks are going to get hurt when they fight occasionally. Doing everything humanly possible to keep our...

Gaston de Clermont

German, no engrish happy to be employed by them though. So the colors you're wearing aren't St. George's cross? I've seen it depicted that way, though it's more common to have the colors reversed. Anyway I'm sure a steel cage match with you would be fun, even if you're ahead on initial awesome poin...

Gaston de Clermont

Roberto- thanks for the pics. Seeing your work in such detail is fascinating. How tight is the curve of your cross pein? Konstantin- I've certainly seen lots of evidence of stitching. There's a lot in the London find books (knives and scabbards has a lot of leather in it). What do we know about the ...

Gaston de Clermont

Mac- I think I follow you. How do you keep the head of the mushroom from pressing against the plates you're articulating? Just not push it down that far? When you say you're making a low profile, do you mean a shallow dome? How do you keep the edges of the piened bit from being sharp, but also not p...

Gaston de Clermont

SyrFinn wrote:Really, really nice kit Adam.

Massive understatement, mon frere. Even if he is English.

Gaston de Clermont

Gaston de Clermont

Roofing nails work really well as rivets for a wide variety of things and are difficult to distinguish from the arming nailes used in a number of 14th century pieces. They take a bit of practice to use well, but they're cheap, readily available and can look very good. Any thoughts on my questions fr...

Gaston de Clermont

Mac's approach really does work wonderfully. I was wondering though- how do you ensure the rivets aren't too tight in a steel on steel articulation? Are there extant examples of leather riveted to leather? I thought they used stitching for that. How about copper rivets used in armour? Gavin- if you'...

Gaston de Clermont

It seems like a lot of modern eyes appreciate a very symetrical, machined line. If this helps you to get a clean piece produced faster, it's worth it. If not, it's a waste of space and money. I checked out some videos on Youtube. Most of them seemed to put an essentially formed piece in, and move it...

Gaston de Clermont

My brother has offered to buy me one of these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=97050

I'm a pretty competent armourer, but I've never used one. Is it worth the shop space? What does it really make easier or faster?

Gaston de Clermont

Man, you'd think that the french would of wised up quicker concerning cav charges around muddy, mucky terrain.....they had their asses handed to them more then a few times because of bad terrain....I'm sure it happened to other countries to, it just seems the french had it happen to them more. You ...

Gaston de Clermont

During the Renaissance, they, as well as the hurdy-gurdy were considered to be base instruments, and rousing the lower order functions, and for peasants and other people of loose morals. I like them. Earlier though, neither was thought of that way. Note the bagpipe present at the Order of the Star'...

Gaston de Clermont

Sir Alfred- I wish I could cite something more specific. I think the weapon chains which were popular in Germany in the 14th century were used earlier as well. Since they'd most likely have to attach to a plate they might give us a clue about earlier solid body harnesses. The other scattered example...

Gaston de Clermont

Would your hard body armour fit under the maile? If you're shooting for a 12th/early 13th century look it might be more consistent. He doesn't need to hide the body armor. Coats of plates over mail is contemporary for a 13th C. impression ("sleeping knight" et al). Worn with the full pot,...

Gaston de Clermont

Sigmund,
Would your hard body armour fit under the maile? If you're shooting for a 12th/early 13th century look it might be more consistent. You might also get more mobility and a more refined line if you trimmed the body harness to be shorter. I dig the helms and the maile.

Gaston de Clermont

I have one shot that's a little further around. It looks like it's all maile down to the back of the greave.

Gaston de Clermont

The holes almost line up with where the rivets on a corrazina would go to attach the outer shell. I'd expect them to curve off under the arm though, rather than doing a straight line for the navel.

Gaston de Clermont

Yeah. The weird knee and mail thing is in the Musee de L'armee too. If I recall correctly the label on the case says it's a pauldron, but I'm with Talbot. It looks like someone messed with a knee.

Gaston de Clermont

There are some fascinating details on du Guesclin's arm harness. First, they were trying to depict either an integral hinge or it looks like Chartres arm, or an internal applied hinge like the Churburg #13 arms. Both would make them typical of the late 14th century. But the second, and the really st...

HF English wheel. Worth the space?