The Armour Archive

Signo

I would like to partecipate more for the people than for the armours, every piece of armour has a story to tell and a lesson to teach. If the plan is to make the study session with your private collection I suspect people would like to see the pieces to see if it's interesting to them. Otherwise if ...

Signo

Well, actually a sponsorship could help cover part of those costs, and thus the final book could have a lower cover price, a factor that may boost sales a lot. If the sales of the book must not cover all expenses, maybe it's price will get affordable for the reenactor community, and not only for arm...

Signo

As Konstantin said, from around 10.000 to more than 100.000 depending the ring size.

Signo

This will be a "must have", and it's just time for human kind not to need to rely on books written 30 or 40 or more years ago. Thank you, your name will resound for centuries to come.

Signo

Several thousands more than you think.

Signo

... Signo, very interesting theory. Do you have any proof of that? Especially for the XIVth century. Some literal evidence maybe? Well, for the XIV century I don't have nothing at hand, but for example, there is the example of Henry VIII armour, he had an armour built for a foot tournament, then so...

Signo

He says that the right and left armour over the shoulders are not equal, the right one is more open in the armpit to allow to sit a spear on the rest.

Like these:
http://www.ageofarmour.com/instock/pauldrons1.jpg

Signo

Often we think as armour as an "all around tool" instead we know for sure that armour was a specialty tool and thus was made accordingly. We see armour as an expensive thing, thus, we think that an armour is an armour and should be used for everything. It's quite clear that a lot of medieval knights...

Signo

You live in britain , you should have no difficulty to find good medieval shoes, you can't complain if your make in whoknowistan shoes don't worth the money, hell you bought them on GDFB, what did you expected? Consider the idea of looking for a shoemaker that can make a pair fitted to you, and lear...

Signo

I think it would be pretty frustrating for one of those painters to know that despite their effort to paint better than their contemporary, today it's not always obvious to understand what the hell they were depicting.

Signo

Any chance that is a poorly depicted crank for crossbow?

Signo

Admit it, you sold your soul to the devil, your gift came directly from the furnaces of hell. :O

Signo

You don't even need to worry about pulling the trigger of a crossbow if you can't pull a quarrel from the quiver and place it correctly. Other than this, hunting may require to make other action than need some finger dexterity and sensitivity.

Signo

This doesn't seem right to you? It's strange, because it's how things have been done for something like 3 hundred years.

Signo

Pay attention the neck opening has been photoshopped.

Signo

Funny stories or porn?

Signo

Mac, surely this could be a workaround for commercially bought greaves "one size fit most...almost" or even for greaves made by a beginner armourer that has not yet developed the skill to make a custom fitted greave. This idea is an adaptation of something that I thought for this problem, here in eu...

Signo

You're probably right, but I think the support should be near the hinges, opposite to the rivet and buckle. But on the same principle, mimicking the vambrace posted before, a longer strap that pass inside the tubular shape, will have the secondary effect to squeeze the limb inside the armour, hopefu...

Signo

Looking at this interesting discussion, I had this idea, that could help better support for greaves that fit "so so", do you think it could work? I hope the sketch is clear enough, but the idea is to offset a bit the pin hole and the rivet hole on the other plate, and have a long strap that wrap aro...

Signo

Another aspect of being in armour, is the confidence and the boldness that this give to you. It's quite normal, if you think that your opponents can't seriously harm you, then you can be much more aggressive, the opposite happen to your opponents, if they know that their weapons will have little eff...

Signo

Awesome, and I agree on the waistline.

Signo

IS that maille riveted? If so, how can you say that it's not suitable for combat? Smaller is the ring, stronger is the suit,

Signo

I would not call it "destructive testing" but "Hey let's have fun with this crossbow and/or warhammer on this old junk, or "I bet a beer that I can hit this helm at 100 paces, at least 10 times in a row".

Signo

This helm lack just a sip or two of mountain dew!

Signo

While your theory of testing on outdated armour may be do you have evidence to show it was a common practice? RPM It's just speculation but from direct experience from the AA, testing scrapped armour is one of the most funny thing you can do with unsuitable pieces of junk. So, as stated several tim...

Signo

Sadly we will never know, but I appreciate that they didn't look for the stunning awesome effect of saying that the helm was surely damaged in a combat. Archeology, and history should stick to facts, and not to assumptions to raise more interest around it.

Signo

Only if you can producre primary sources and accounts of how you passed those 700 years, and the years before your supposed passing.

Signo

Someone ever tried to give a look at spray quenching? I was thinking about it, and found on the web that is a consolidated technique that can give very good performances. In short, instead of immersing the object in a liquid medium, you expose it to a nebulized liquid, that will be water. Controllin...

Signo

It would be surprising if it was not that way. But warfare was in general pretty different then, but different was the mindset of people. We tend to think that medieval warfare was more brutal and ferocious, and probably was, but there were a lot of things that could prevent any bloodshed. We know o...

Signo

Signo

I wouls like to figure how many times the value of a common maille these high end mailles could have had.

Signo

How does the faulds of the first armour work? Are there sliding rivets? It's mounted on straps? I thought the back faulds should have had more lames than the front, do you find that your solution allow plenty of movement?

Signo

So... Good or bad =)? Good or bad depend on your priority. When I commissioned our two great bascinets for our tournament, we decided to have them tempered to have them last longer, not for them to be safer. They are great bascinets, we don't do full power like BOTN so I'm not worried about cracks ...

Signo

I think it make sense. A tempered steel helmet is not to be viewed as a solid structure. I mean, the hardness imparted to the metal what actually means? It mean that the helm has the ability to return to the initial shape after we remove the force we applied on it. If we would look at an helm made o...

Signo

This is the proof that you don't need to know anything that your job require, and still be able to raise money from it... and worse of all, having people appreciating it. There is this italian comedian that use to say something along there lines: "There is no pleasure in Italy to be smart". Maybe th...

Re: Study session in Italy

Re: Free preview of my new book on surviving bascinets

Re: High quality maile

Re: Free preview of my new book on surviving bascinets

Re: High quality maile

Re: arm harness thickness

Re: Gothic Armour

Re: arm harness thickness

Re: How to hide modern shoes...?

Re: 15thc. Plate Voiders

Re: Were bead rollers used in armor construction?

Re: Pheonix Dawn Plate Armour: Sabatons

Re: Maximilian style hunting gauntlets

Re: Greaves + Articulated Knees

Re: Eastern Maille

Re: Fun Historical Stories

Re: Greaves in Progress

Re: Greaves in Progress

Re: Greaves in Progress

Re: Is full harness an advantage or disadvantage on foot?

Re: Gothic Armour

Re: Extra fine/dense mail

Re: Great helm found in Moravia?

Re: Building a Milanese Sallet - progress (pic heavy)

Re: Great helm found in Moravia?

Re: Great helm found in Moravia?

Re: Edward II Conspiracy?

Re: heat treating 410- Water, oil, or air quench. Temper or

Re: Medieval Knights May Have Had PTSD

Re: "Viking" Clothing from History Channel's New Series

Re: Extra fine/dense mail

Re: New Italian export cuirass and some new W.I.P pics

Re: Tempered steel helms

Re: Tempered steel helms

Re: "Viking" Clothing from History Channel's New Series