The Armour Archive

Klaus the Red

Bonus points for anyone who can hide a camera in an authentic-looking period accessory. (Anyone remember the loaf of bread in Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run"?) I bet a compact digital with a flat LCD display could be built into a breviary, allowing one to go around camp praying fervently with...

Klaus the Red

Ie, Murdock's coat? 1 layer of cotton batting (about 1/8" thick when fluffy) throughout. The more of these I do, the more I'm convinced that this is all the padding that's required if worn under good quality late transition harness.

Klaus the Red

Sorry, I was using "jupon" to refer to the full quilted coat with arms such as the garment in Chartres, not the sleeveless or short-sleeved surcoat. This is the problem with the damn medieval terminology- unless you add subtitles, a single word can mean three different things to three different peop...

Klaus the Red

This is a foundation garment, so the only thing that might go under it is a shirt. A coat-armor/jupon/lentner (so many names) to go over armor is a different sort of thing altogether. My sense is that this latter garment is too late in the century to be worn with a coat-of-plates (technically) but i...

Klaus the Red

Oh, yes... and more pictures.

Klaus the Red

this means Zil is getting a good job aprÃƒÂ© commencement?

Yah... she will be an engineer for Spansion (they make flash drives and such) in the San Jose area.

Klaus the Red

Well, think of me as a defector returning home. Since I started my SCA career in the West Kingdom and Zil is a California girl to the core, I think of it more as coming in from the cold (figuratively and literally).

K

Klaus the Red

Sorry, Tasha, that leaves the East Coast entirely in your hands.

Klaus the Red

I took a bunch of detail photos as well before I shipped it to Murdock, which I can post tonight if anyone wants to see more features. For anyone else who wants one, I'm afraid I'm just teasing you for now... I have four orders for these still in my queue and am still a little too hesitant about my ...

Klaus the Red

Yes to both. The critical measurement at the top of the liner is to fit your head; at the bottom, to fit your helmet. I start by drawing up a paper pattern based on the OUTSIDE of the helmet. This provides just about the right amount of excess fabric to allow for the fact that your liner will lose c...

Klaus the Red

Oh, yes- and I have liner holes about every 1/4" and about 1/4" in from the edge as well.

Klaus the Red

I keep in mind the principle that one is trying to protect the head from the helmet, not the other way around! I've seen instructions to make a cone-shaped liner to match the inner dimensions of the bascinet, but what makes more sense to me is to make it fit closely over your head with a rounded top...

Klaus the Red

PS- having just spent a week hand-quilting a teeny little helmet liner and appreciating the distinction in time and difficulty between running-stitch quilting of three layers and stab-stitch quilting of eight, I am even more inclined to allow compromise in the coat department. I wouldn't want to hol...

Klaus the Red

Sorry, Gwen- I was over-generalizing and should have checked my facts. I think I was thinking of Revival's earlier ones and those by Sir Gareth, and my memory threw in the fact that you also use cotton twill as a shell material (though not all the time) and glossed over the good points of yours. I w...

Klaus the Red

Do corrazinas usually have a strap holding the front faluds together

This one certainly seems to have them:

Klaus the Red

Sounds as though I should buy a new pair and, um, deflower them with this project.

Klaus the Red

To paraphrase Robert "Mac" MacPherson, none of the surviving period liners is thicker than a pot holder. You are correct that they are suspension liners and provide additional protection by holding the helmet away from the head. I started my new hand-sewn liner last week and it's nearly complete- I ...

Klaus the Red

I don't know what I would charge personally- I don't consider myself a professional armorer, and so much of what I have done on the piece thus far has been experimental that I have lost track of how much time I spent. Jeff Brunner (aka Sir Gaufred Kelson) is asking $300 for a front-only covered BP w...

Klaus the Red

Excellent couple of suggestions, thanks.

Klaus the Red

No, but I bet the same thing can be done roughly by hand. This is going to be an entirely hand-done project.

Klaus the Red

Thanks, Bob. I'm doing internal y-straps for the shoulders underneath the fabric and shoulder plates (per the Munich example) and four buckles down the back, so I shouldn't need much.

Klaus the Red

Ow! Good.

Klaus the Red

Okay, since the velvet was woven on powered machinery, the leather for the straps is probably chrome-tanned, the buckle rivets are filed-down carriage bolts from Home Depot, and the armorer has all his teeth and wears contact lenses when he works, when you come down to it, nothing about my project i...

Klaus the Red

Thanks. I'll bring both pieces to show you when we follow up my brigandine project.

Klaus the Red

Bob, I can't find your e-mail- I don't believe I have any recent messages saved, and I've switched providers in the last year so it may have been lost in the shuffle- but if you can contact me at redbarbarian (at)comcast.net, I would appreciate it. Thanks! I'll be in Boston at least until May. Any c...

Klaus the Red

I see- it was a fast-and-dirty Google and all I caught was that they were no longer in business at the location they'd been at since the dawn of time, etc. Thanks for clarifying. Anyway, they make good stuff.

Klaus the Red

No, just the West Kingdom.

Klaus the Red

Why do you think I want to borrow your plastic corazina for Birka?

Anyway, it ain't about the money, but I'll probably throw on a surcoat when it comes to rattan combat. Abuse from rebated steel (some day) I welcome.

Klaus the Red

Yeah, but who wants to fight in wrought iron? Besides, it's supposed to be Milanese work, not, as Dr. Williams so succinctly put it at the ARS conference, "Medieval crap metal" from Germany.

And all the plates are done, so at this stage it's moot.

Klaus the Red

I stumbled across the velvet on Ebay and paid about $225 for a 2-yard piece, and another $80 or so for a yard and a half of gorgeous silk brocade. Both are by Scalamandre, which I believe is a company based in Brooklyn, NY that recently went out of business. The seller was in Brooklyn so perhaps the...

Klaus the Red

I was recently lucky enough to get my hands on a piece of silk brocade fabric and another of upholstery-weight silk velvet; the latter is destined to cover my new brigandine and the former to be a grand asiette coat. The brocade in particular seems to be rather fray-ish about the edges. I am looking...

Klaus the Red

(X-posted to Armour Design and Construction) I am about to start assembly on a late 14th century covered body armor, consisting of a solid breastplate with fauld based on the Munich BP, horizontal upper back plates following the back ribs and a split back fauld, the whole back buckling closed down t...

Klaus the Red

(X-posted to Interpretive Re-Creation) I am about to start assembly on a late 14th century covered body armor, consisting of a solid breastplate with fauld based on the Munich BP, horizontal upper back plates folllowing the back ribs and a split back fauld, the whole back buckling closed down the ce...

Klaus the Red

The plan is that I will be completely off the radar by summer, but more on that later. I'll show you the grill at Birka and we can discuss.

Klaus the Red

T- do you have a welding set-up of any sort currently? I'm hoping to get my Brian Price hinge welded to my helmet grill (currently riveted).

Klaus

Need advice on cutting silk velvet and brocade

Authentic brigandine construction (x-post)

Authentic brigandine construction (x-post)