The Armour Archive

Gaston de Clermont

David- hop over to Youtube and search for videos of Battle of the Nations. Folks fight with weapons like this a fair bit without murdering each other. It's a rough game, and I assure you folks hit very hard, but it's rarely fatal. I think a lot of our fighting games convince us that steel weapons ac...

Gaston de Clermont

Can we interest you in a linen or wool liner?

Gaston de Clermont

That pipe frame house was some of the most fun SCA fighting I've had in years. I'm glad we got to play so much in the castle, and that we skipped the ravine.

Gaston de Clermont

The axe is quite pretty, and with that kind of steel and a solid wood like walnut I reckon it's going to pack a good whallop. What kind of hardness did you temper the edge to? The problem we've found with most modern wood is that it's sawn, so there is grain run out, causing weak points in the wood....

Gaston de Clermont

Have you seen Doug Strong's data on this? http://talbotsfineaccessories.com/armour/effigy/effigy%20analysis.html The greaves have to fit pretty close to your calf to function well. They should be light, and not dig into your foot. Most stuff can be made from measurements, but cased greaves tend to b...

Gaston de Clermont

In my experience 0.030 will definitely dent if it's struck with anything more than moderate force. I wore 0.032 4130 legs and they survived, but picked up dents- nothing fatal, I still wear them. Just be sure your customers expect some maintenance. 0.030 may be a great choice for 1:1 fights if they'...

Gaston de Clermont

Do you have picture of the bell? Did it come with a reed at all? I've had surprisingly decent luck using standard bagpipe reeds in my rauschpfeif. It's an inexpensive place to start your tinkering. The blades may have to be wider or longer to get your instrument to sound on pitch across the full ran...

Gaston de Clermont

I can see some advantages to annealing the rivets first, though I don't do it. Roofing nails are usually galvanized, so annealing them means either releasing a bunch of zinc vapor in my shop or etching through the zinc first, then annealing. And then there's more rust. I just use long handled farrie...

Gaston de Clermont

My padding thickness varied, but it was about half an inch all the way round. Some of my dents were about a quarter of an inch deep. This skull never dented in a dozen years of SCA combat, and it picked up 4 dents in 4 days in Poland. I only remember one blow to the face plate because it knocked me ...

Gaston de Clermont

My hat is about 15lbs including the avantail. It's a klapvisor bascinet. The top of the skull is 12ga stainless, the sides are 14g stainless. Both dented substantially, but the dents mostly pounded out and it's still quite usable. I made a new face plate for it in 14g 4130, which didn't dent at all....

Gaston de Clermont

I'm with Malek on the roofing nails. They're easy to find a good price on. Do you really need a domed/round head? The extra metal is a lot of your weight. In the little experiment I did on rivets online the domed head rivets ended up being more than 20% more expensive than the flat headed ones. The ...

Gaston de Clermont

There are some great fighters around Dallas and on the Ok side of the border who could comment on which practices to hit. Are you coming to BAM/War of the Rams the weekend of the 17th?

Gaston de Clermont

Let us know what they say. My impression is just based on personal experience, but hopefully they hace more complete data.

Gaston de Clermont

410 doesn't need much soak time for armour thicknesses.
Despite it being an air hardening steel I suspect you're leaving some hardness on the table if you just air cool it.

Gaston de Clermont

I think Elden has the gist of the fastest way to go. I use my beverly shears and cut it like it's fabric.

Gaston de Clermont

Gregor was my first knight, and I'm very proud of his continued success. I am curious why it looks like this list was so unbelt heavy. Where are all the knights?::

Gaston de Clermont

Fascinating. I'd always pictured aquamaniles being larger.

Gaston de Clermont

Ok, a different spin- If I could cut the cost of one item in half, what would you most want that item to be?

Gaston de Clermont

4130 rod isn't hard to find at a welding store, and it welds fine with oxy-acetylene. 410 makes a spongy mess unless it's protected from oxygen. Tig is a good choice to weld it.

Gaston de Clermont

We have an odd exotic pet shop here in Austin that my daughter loves to visit. It's the kind of place that's home to a 2 toed sloth. Just last week they had a prairie dog for sale. I'd never thought of them as possible pets, but there she was running on the biggest hamster wheel I'd ever seen. Aquam...

Gaston de Clermont

Horses are cool, but showing up to an event with a couple camels would blow some minds. Our local zoo has one that's pretty friendly. I wonder if he's allowed to go on excursions.... If you see something in the news about a camel being abducted from the Austin Zoo, I was hanging out with you guys at...

Gaston de Clermont

The Medieval Experience (tm) is what I'm trying to enhance here. You guys have given me some great ideas. How about furniture- Niall touched on chests. Are there other pieces of furniture you're having trouble finding?

Gaston de Clermont

Anything is fair game here, though Galfrid was very much on my wavelength with the aquamanile. They're cool, ans some form of them would have been fairly common, but I've nDever seen one outside of a museum. Destichado's list touches on some things that are pretty darn hard to find. That's also quit...

Gaston de Clermont

Nice!

Gaston de Clermont

Are there any reenactment goods you would love to have, but just can't get your hands on? Could be tools, clothes, furniture, raw materials, really anything a medieval person could buy that our present marketplace doesn't have?

Gaston de Clermont

We have a few sheets of steel set aside for another batch, and a greave splint pattern ironed out. Ther has been interest in cuisses and rerebraces which we may dive into. I have to whip the shop monkeys into a frenzy to get them to build more.

Gaston de Clermont

Excellent! May you kick much ass with the new armour! I've sold the initial 4 sets in this offering and had demand for several more. We'll do another batch very soon.

Gaston de Clermont

Yes, they've been heat treated to a temper that has worked well for me for armour.

Gaston de Clermont

I recommend building the sabatons over a period shoe. They're low profile and lighter than modern shoes most of the time, so your final look will be closer to the originals. You may get some insights into the process from my blog (see my sig line). Search it for sabaton or hit the sabaton hot link o...

Gaston de Clermont

It's hard not to share the video. What you guys are doing is visually quite stunning! I wonder if you might be able to get a few degrees of neck movement if you were able to shorten the helmets a little.

Gaston de Clermont

It's $85 for both arms, so 10 splints total. The alloy is 410.

Gaston de Clermont

I have four sets of these vambrace splints polished and ready for sale for $85 a set (US dollars, shipping included). PM me for Paypal details.

Details here: http://burgundianhours.blogspot.com/201 ... -sale.html

Gaston de Clermont

Gorgeous work, Willy!

Gaston de Clermont

The helm I've been fighting in for better than a decade is a mix of 12 and 14 gauge. It's heavier than what a lot of guys play in, but it keeps my head pretty safe even fighting against steel weapons. Going with spring steel would optimize the weight vs. durability, but 11ga mild is a pretty cost ef...

Gaston de Clermont

A forward lean isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on the kind of fighting you're doing. Sure, Fiore's elephant moves with a castle on his back, feet well under his center of gravity, but look at I33- they typically have their pelvis back out of range. You may be able to improve your vision by r...

Re: Custom BoTN Axe

Re: I hate that blue foam!

Re: BAM

Re: Custom BoTN Axe

Re: What makes a pair of greaves good?

Re: Work in Progress: Early 15th Century ACL/BotN kit w/Patt

Re: Shawm/Cortel help needed.

Re: rivets....

Re: Battle of the Nations (BotN) Helmet Construction Issues

Re: Battle of the Nations (BotN) Helmet Construction Issues

Re: rivets....

Re: Ansteorrians! lend me your ears!!

Re: how to brace a full leg for heat treating?

Re: how to brace a full leg for heat treating?

Re: Trimming maille?

Re: East Kingdom Crown List?

Re: What can you just not buy?

Re: What can you just not buy?

Re: welding 1050 spring steel?

Re: What can you just not buy?

Re: What can you just not buy?

Re: What can you just not buy?

Re: What can you just not buy?

Re: 5 day cased greaves

What can you just not buy?

Re: Spring stainless vambrace splints

Re: Spring stainless vambrace splints

Re: Spring stainless vambrace splints

Re: sabatons ?

Re: advice on full armour combat needed

Re: Spring stainless vambrace splints

Spring stainless vambrace splints

Re: FS: Armet raised in one piece

Re: Six helm tops forsale

Re: advice on full armour combat needed