The Armour Archive

Marshal

Nice, though it would be far too small for my, er----head....

Anyway, here's hoping it will "frighten the clergy".

Marshal

Very entertaining and interesting!

More evidence of the usefulness of plate armour against swords ( even if they weren't using sharps in the videos ).

Didn't see any halfswording with the longswords used.

Marshal

Maybe when they perfect this stuff:

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,1 ... 04.00.html

Marshal

Likewise, I'm sure.

Marshal

Sometimes the mekugi ( peg ) will be under the menuki ( little decorative plates on the tsuka ). The tightness of the traditional tsuka is almost always a function of the tightness of the wrapping ( ito ), so if the wrapping is at all loose you may need to redo it...which can be a complex process. I...

Marshal

Perhaps your motto could be "La Brayette, I am here!"

Marshal

Ideally you want to avoid synthetic fibers altogether, as they are going to make your gambeson very hot. ( Seriously, even lightweight wool is likely to be cooler than polyester. )

We all understand tight budget constraints, though.

Marshal

23" at the brow, i.e. exclusive of ears. Or a 6 3/4 hat size.

Marshal

Don't the governing documents actually try to characterize the SCA as living history? Which clearly, small subgroups aside, it is not... Anyway, I don't think we're cohesive enough to say that the SCA is trying to recreate anything. Individually and in affinity groups we are doing lots of wildly dif...

Marshal

Does anyone have any experience with non-elecric-powered grinding wheels? Are they substantially slower/more awkward to use that bench grinders? I wonder whether it's possible to hook up a modern grinder to a foot-treadle of some sort...just because I like the idea of making armour without recourse ...

Marshal

I have used hydrogen peroxide and Coca Cola to strip galvy mail and loose links. It can also be burned off, though I'm not sure if that would affect the temper. As has been noted, do not breathe the fumes generated during the removal process, they can make you pretty sick, even though the effects se...

Marshal

Er...it makes me fit to be tied...

Actually, I have made a couple of padded caps ( to wear under mail coifs ) by sewing together cotton rope. It works pretty well. Never tried macrame, though! Very novel look!

Marshal

The Plains Indians may not have had roads, but neither did the settlers travelling west---in wagons. It seems to me that instead they simply felt that their travois sufficed for their needs, so why go to any great lengths to make wheeled vehicles? The Mesoamericans may not have had to move large amo...

Marshal

There's no reason to get emotionally invested in a theory when it comes to history and so forth, so it doesn't bother me much to have a conviction exploded. Although sometimes I'll cling to it just for the sake of the argument...

Marshal

Carried by your servant.

Marshal

Very droll!

Marshal

I always just bought or scavenged screen-door springs and cut them up for links.

Marshal

Couple of images here, including close-up photos of the gauntlets and sabatons.

http://www.gothiceye.com/pictures.asp?c ... &offset=45

I'll check my books when I get home tonight. May be a few days. Hopefully someone else will get it posted first.

Marshal

I think it depends on your intentions. If you are making armour to be worn and used---pragmatic armour, practical protection---sure, extrapolate away. As long as one isn't trying to present oneself as historically accurate---to say not only that "it was possible to have done this at so-and-so time" ...

Marshal

A duck!

Marshal

More like everything behind a line drawn from the back edges of the ears over the point of the skull get shaved or cropped short, so there's just a thatch on top of the head. Sort of like a bad toupee. I once tutored a college football player who wore his hair in a Norman cut. He thought it was his ...

Marshal

It looks to me as though there are flaps going up from the bottom edge as well, underneath the upper dags. Sort of like stalagtites covering stalagmites. Or are the apparent segments of the bottom half of the collar representative of folds or wrinkles in a uniform layer of mail? The dags are easy, b...

Marshal

Not sure if this belongs here or in the armour forum, but:

Has anyone ever seen this? Does it represent a workable idea, or is it an artistic conceit? And if real, how the heck would it be made?

http://www.gothiceye.com/images/large/R003-2.jpg

Marshal

I've done a little experimenting with the thongs-through-the-rows business, though only on the torso. It does allow you to get a closer fit to a loose hauberk, acting as so many drawstrings, so I surmise that if this was indeed done historically it was done for that reason rather than for any stiffe...

Marshal

Hoplology is the study of arms and armour generally, not limited to the medieval. It's not a word that seems in current use in academe, though, so it may draw blank looks from historians...

Marshal

Quick answer: it didn't exist. The illustrations which led some hoplologists of the 19th century to speculate on how it was made were just led astray by a couple of the bewildering array of different artistic conventions for drawing or carving regular, garden-variety mail...

Marshal

I'm getting the feeling that he really knows he isn't going to be able to get that information, and this "failure to disclose" will let him rationalize a decision he's already made. I could be wrong, of course, but that's the vibe I get.

Marshal

'HÃƒÂ¡konarmÃƒÂ¡l' is included in 'Heimskringla', which latter was written down in what? 1220 or so? Composed much earlier, but still, there's that lag. I doubt that the connotations of particular terms had gone unchanged for 300-odd years. Add in the translation angle---as someone noted, forcing a ...

Marshal

All that only works if there actually is a shortage of labor in a country; a situation very few countries actually have. Better is to support companies that actually do pay better, and provide better conditions. Smaller companies tend to be where you need to look. A good example is MayaWrap. www.ma...

Marshal

And here I was expecting Mr. Arthur Frampton...

Marshal

Talbot wrote: Does it come with a brain interface so I can get the information out?

Male tools do not interface with brains. Ever. Totally incompatible hardware.

Marshal

I was the model for that sign! You now owe me a residual for using it.

Marshal

The Olympic venue is one of the bigger projects, but China is industrializing in a big way generally. Factories, high-rise buildings, bridges, railways...

Just wait 10 or 20 years until India begins the same process.

Marshal

Could one just add a central ( wood ) rib the length of the bed, through holes in which ( or over which ) the ropes would run? Thus making two rope sections, each of which would sag independently?

Marshal

Thanks. The blasted soldering is what always defeats me.

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