The Armour Archive

Klaus the Red

Forth Armoury had bags of riveted 9mm rings in stock when I last checked (but didn't have money at the time), which was the end of January.

Klaus

Klaus the Red

Yes, definitely learn your armor. The more I do this, the more I discover that neither armoring nor tailoring nor fighting in period style should stand alone as a single discipline, but that they are all just different aspects of the same thing and you can't fully understand one without knowing some...

Klaus the Red

Does your client plan on wearing a mid/late 15th-century harness with this? My experience is admittedly based only on 14th century style arms with fairly short rerebraces, where the top of the rerebrace and thus the point eyelets end up only about halfway up the tricep between elbow and shoulder. I ...

Klaus the Red

And here's this other cat... Johann von Brandscheit, d. early 15th c.

Klaus the Red

So here's this cat... Theodor von Witzleben, d. 1376:

Klaus the Red

I have it second-hand from Robert "Mac" Macpherson, who said that the period liners he has handled were about that thick. Is the 16th century liner you saw from a war helmet or a jousting helmet? I would expect the latter to be thicker in any case.

Klaus the Red

In re: the upper arms- it's been my experience that pointing arm harness to baggy arms is problematic, since the rerebrace will sort of sag away from the arm and drag downward more than is desireable. It also helps to have some stiffening or quilting at the point of tension, where your sleeves have ...

Klaus the Red

Well, I just have the Harbor Freight generic knock-off version that's cheaper to replace complete when a die goes blooey than it is to buy proper Whitney dies for. It'll go through 16 on a good day...

Klaus the Red

Kinda what I want my lovely wife to "whip up" for me.. but mine will probably look more German. There at least two German effigies I've seen from bildindex.de (courtesy of Ivo) dated to the late 14th century wearing very similar coats- with the body quilted in a diamond pattern and the peplum horiz...

Klaus the Red

Through 12 or 14 gauge??

Klaus the Red

See what happens when i have no money!?!?!?!?

Patience, young Jedi... remember that I will always need a guinea pig to test new patterns...

Klaus the Red

http://www.gildedboar.com/klappvisier I've been working on my mk. III liner since I posted these pics, which uses 5 layers of cotton batting instead of loose cotton and fits much better. I'm trusting that suspension of the helmet away from my head will compensate for a reduction in padding thicknes...

Klaus the Red

I went with paint instead of tinning because A) I didn't want to delay this project indefinitely while waiting for someone local to find time do it for me, and B) it being 16 and 18 ga. mild, not heat-treated 20 and 22, I didn't want to add any more weight. My reasoning on painting the fabric-covere...

Klaus the Red

Have you gotten any farther with your BP version, since your thread was last poseted to in February? Last I saw, you had silk velvet fabric, and a shaped breastplate and faulds. That fabric should look beautiful when you get it done. I've been working on this on and off, depending on my attention s...

Klaus the Red

It makes sense for the joust- if one is hunkered down behind a shield with lance couched, one is less likely to get struck in the stomach than in the upper torso, yes?

Klaus the Red

That's darn interesting. A reverse placard?

Klaus the Red

Possibly added after its working life for wall mounting? I'm reproducing this one too, slowly (and adding back coverage)- you may find something useful over at my thread: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=714092#714092 It should be interesting to see how our versions compare.

Klaus the Red

Is this with a visor, or without? Depending on how the face opening is cut, you may be trying to wear it too far down on your forhead and/or tilted too far forward. If the face opening is high, the bulk of your forehead may be covered by the visor.

Klaus the Red

It's Murdock what needs 'em, not I. I'll have a pair when I get good enough to make them myself.

Klaus the Red

It's our evil conspiracy to drive you mad (Yo, Clay... he just bought another arming coat. Quick, make some gauntlets.)

Klaus the Red

And yes, this was the Maid's harness like the Great Pyramid of Giza is a landing platform for an alien mothership.

Klaus the Red

There is a helmet in Curtiss' "2500 Years of European Helmets" that was claimed to be hers. The bascinet had a small hole near the R temple that was supposed to be from a crossbow bolt. This one is on display at the Met, hole and all. I believe it was kept in the cathederal at Orleans for a long ti...

Klaus the Red

Max was in Boston for a business trip last week, so we sat down over dinner and knocked around a few ideas for the final design (boring the bejeezus out of my wife in the process). Once we work out some technical issues vis-a-vis the lame dimensions and tempering the steel, he's going to start up a ...

Klaus the Red

Vielen Dank, mein Herren... Ich verstehe jetzt. It looks as though the word lentner means roughly the same as corrazina. I was never especially comfortable using it in reference to a surcoat since I didn't have a proper translation for it, only third-hand knowledge of its use as such. Time to tweak ...

Klaus the Red

OK, that's fair. Nothing sadder than a potential piece of armor trapped inside a bit of otherwise useless steel trying to get out. Say, how long does it take you to assemble a pair of finger gauntlets (either style) once the parts are done? I have a colleague fixing to make me a set of gauntlet part...

Klaus the Red

It's called a Lentner, and is cut like a big-sleeved short cotehardie, which is contemporaneous. TOMAR includes a pattern for a Lentner in Chapter 25, Padding and Arming Points. (I'm sticking with German capitalization because as far as I know this critter was only German.) Um... and what would you...

Klaus the Red

Damn it, can't you see I'm not done with the greaving process?

Klaus the Red

The elbows are very pretty, but my feeling is that 14 ga. throughout is a little overkill. I mean, your elbow ain't your head, and think of the extra weight. You should be able to get away with 16, esp. since it will be work-hardened, and maybe even 18 for the lames.

Klaus the Red

Strapping young man. Riveting delivery. Don't buckle under the pressure.

Klaus the Red

Ah, yes... forgot about the camail... but good God, man, don't profane a piece of fine armor with blue foam! Or at least, make sure your armorer of choice puts in the liner lacing holes that you may add a proper linen suspension liner at your earliest convenience. Trust me, it's better for your head...

Klaus the Red

$500 should buy you a fairly darn nice hat, depending on what kind of visor(s) you need, vervelles and liner included or not, any additional decoration, and whether or not it's heat-treated steel vs. mild vs. stainless. I don't know if Cet does heat-treated, but Jeff does.

Klaus the Red

Throw his ass in the brig.

Klaus the Red

That book is on my wish list. As for the Met arm, it's not just the borders which are latten but the fan as well (or at least an applique cover for the steel). It looked authentic enough to me when I looked at it last in person, and I don't know if I want to give Dean enough credit for faking detail...

Klaus the Red

One could surmise that the 13th century hauberk with integral coif could simply lose the head area of the coif, in response to the development of the full heaume, and evolve into an early 14th-century version with an extension to cover just the neck; but I would expect to see a front-opening collar ...

Klaus the Red

Thanks- how about the earlier vambraces on display? Neither Boccia nor ffoulkes go into much detail about what the balance of the non-helmet pieces were.