This question is maybe a bit off topic but concerning the change of breastplate curvature throughout the centuries - how does it relate to breathing and the movement of the upper body? diagram-of-breathing-and-exhalation.jpg If wearing a narrow waisted fully enclosing cuirass, diaphragmatic breathin...

Having finally found an armourer willing to make the arms and shoulders I am facing some new problems concerning their design. We roughly agreed on the construction and materials (details will be posted) but are a bit confused about the proportions of the shoulders. Ak-St-Georg-vom-Wolfgang-Altar-vo...

The doublet came out quite nice. I could have made the collar a bit taller, there are a few wrinkles here and there, and the holes for the arming points and hose are missing, but movement is good and it feels comfortable. The only adjustment will probably be to place the neck ties one hole lower, I ...

The doublet is coming along much nicer than I expected. After connecting all the separate pieces with a whip stitch, using either linen thread for the places that need a stronger bind, or cotton thread for the ones that do not suffer such pressure, I hemmed the pieces with a simple overlap. 41320122...

A new, and improved, doublet is one the way. This is my fourth or fifth attempt at making a doublet and I'm more and more satisfied with the finished pieces. This one is made from two layers of linen, the outer one being a heavy weight, densely woven linen, and the inner one is much more light weigh...

Thank you for the links, Tom! I've seen the threads some time before, along with the pictures, and it was very, very valuable information. One thing I couldn't find so far is if people who worn and fought with maille worn as gussets sewed to the doublet, and maille worn as "seperate" reported any ma...

While searching for another armourer who would finish the legs and maybe start with the arms - the arms! It is visible on the statue that the saint wears maille, under the armpits and we also see some visible on the inside of the elbow. This is, of course, expected, as such a high class armour would...

Hello again, there have been a few delays and drawbacks in the project, but I'm not letting it stop :) The greaves and sabatons are almost finished - only the hinges need to be gilded and riveted, that should be done in the next week. We had to make a small adjustment to the design, the top back of ...

The work continues: the pieces have been annealed and most of the smoothing out has been done. 24.jpg On the statue we're not able to distinguish if he has a belt to hold the bottom of the greaves so we opted for a pin, but also because I find it a lot more elegant 26.jpg The armourer will try to te...

Another update: After making a paper model the pattern for the sabatons was made. They will be connected to the greaves and made without a heel. On the statue of Saint George the sabatons count 9 lames in total on the left foot, the one we have a clear view of, but they are not presented as even in ...

The second fitting went by well. I forgot to bring my shoes so we had to try the greaves just over socks, although in general the shape fits me well enough. It still needs some twerking here and there (there were a couple of places where it was pushing the muscle too much, and others where there was...

A quick update, as things have picked up pace: The next step is to anneal the pieces before the final adjustments, as they are becoming just too brittle to work with. 16.jpg 17.jpg The armourer also started experimenting with the knee and he notes how the material behaves very much like mild steel a...

James and Mac, thank you for the link, I'll consider the steel for the next piece with the armourer. The progress was slowed down a bit by this point as we had really bad weather, but hopefully the sabatons and greaves will be finished by the end of the week and ready for tempering. The back of the ...

If we come into any serious trouble with this steel we'll consider using the one suggested, but so far I wasn't able to find what is the name for it in our standardization. No shattered steel so far :) The first fitting went good, it needed to be tweaked a bit now that the we saw how different my le...

The question of steel was a tough one. Although my knowledge in metallurgy is bellow basic and having only read parts of The Knight and the Blast Furnace , again I had to consult more experienced people. A friend of mine is a very fine swordmaker and has a good background in the engineering of metal...

It just so happened I had the chance to go to the workshop, and will be able several more times while the legs are being shaped, so the need for a new cast is not so important. Either way, we will maybe do a leg cast as Chris G. suggested as it would be valuable experience for the armourer and me, t...

Next up was the specifics of the leg design. The legs are typically gothic in their appearance, with nicely pointed sabatons, flutes on the knees, filework on some edges and it comes high up the thigh. The upper end of the leg is obscured by the maille skirt so Pacher (or whoever in his workshop did...

The finished halves were "corrected" (as in, the crests created by the nylon bulks were smoothed out) with vaselin-clay, oiled and the cast (that is, the newly poured wet plaster) was lined/filled with square bits of wet canvas to act as support for the finished piece. And a piece of wire was also i...

Ok, now a bit about the praxis : As I decided to start from the legs, apart from the undergarment I already had (which I'll cover in a later post) I needed a copy of my leg(s) as the armourer, with who I made the order, lives and works in another city. This turned out to be a bigger challenge than e...

First of all, I had to do some research on the subject, collect as many pictures as possible and see if there are any extant pieces similar enough to be used as inspiration. The job was made all that easier that Mac, and his August Patron, collected images of the St. Florian statue on the same altar...

Fellow armour enthusiasts, after years of larping and light reenactment I have decided to dive into serious (as serious as it can be while still being fun) reenactment, along with all the related activities, such as bohurt, HEMA and jousting. It has been going on for some time now and after making s...

While visiting the Bargello museum in Florence I stumbled upon an interesting piece of late 14th century ivory and just had to take a photo of it. I don't recall seeing it posted before and thought it would be a good piece for this thread. Avorio.jpg Putting on helmet.jpg Shield strapping.jpg Aleksa

Considering this is my first arming garment I'm quite flattered, thank you :) My armourer was clear on the subject - the upper sleeves need to be tightened. I will see it done in about a week or two, as soon as I have some free time. For future reference, my farsetto is made out of heavy cotton velv...

Sean, are you maybe quoting from this thread? http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=181664 I haven't read the actual book but it seems more likely for me that that is an ordinary (civilian) doublet and not an arming one, while the aketons mentioned are arming garments. One poun...

Mac, may I ask why no padding? The upper arms and shoulders seem to me like one of the more important places to have enough padding as they are a "hard hit" area, at least much more than the legs, especially considering that the Italians would sometimes even discard their pauldrons during battle, fo...

Thank you, Mac and Sean, for your quick replies. I looked over the sources in that thread again and without a doubt can agree - there certainly was a solution back in the day, it's maybe that I'm just placing too much attention to this problem, if there is any. I will speak with my armourer tomorrow...

Hello all forum members! I am in the process of getting a mid 15th century italian harness and, while the cuirass is almost done, it's time to think about the pauldrons and arm harness. The suit was originally planed to be a copy of the Galeazzo da Arco suit (CH#21) but due to lack of very detailed ...