The Armour Archive

Signo

Well, you are not going to pay 10.000 $ for a 1 hour of flight on a small plane just because the pilot's license cost thousands of dollars and the airplane cost hundreds thousands. Armourers are the same: they don't build their shop to make YOUR armour, they don't learn the trade the make only YOUR ...

Signo

Yes they overlap, I've made finger plates for those gauntlets and they are not flat, but have a little arch in it, and made them roughly 1 cm tall. Overlapped almost half of their height eachother. For that reason I've made those plate with 0.6 mm mild steel, and never had a problem with safety beca...

Signo

We had people asking if the campfire was ... true fire ... I can only imagine what HC can do to poor minds.....

Signo

I would consider it a early great bascinet, a bascinet skull with a neck protection, solidly riveted to the skull in the back, and pivoting in the front.

Signo

No, you are looking it wrong, the head of that knight lean forward, the eyeopening of that helm is that horizontal strip flesh colored UNDER the circular devices. There is another knight seen from the side that clearly show these blue circular stuff as on his forehead, over the eyeslots.

Signo

Clichè number one of medieval age: all people are dirty, just from birth to death. Clichè number two: it's always muddy and rainy Clichè number three: all fights are to the last man, axes makes only scratches on good guys while bad guys explode with a toothpick. Clichè number four: armour is for idi...

Signo

If you work with a modern version of autocad , you can use to your advantage parametric measurements. If you learn to use them properly, and lose your time to tweak the system, you could (in theory) adapt your patterns to any customer's measurements. If you don't know what they are, is just a way to...

Signo

Well, if the joint is just as strong as the ring itself, then it can break just like the ring can break in any other part. If few rings show this rupture, it is just because they were not as strong as the ring, or more simply , because it is a unavoidable statistical occurrence.

Signo

Start with more and cut the edge, if it's your first raising I can expect some wrinkles and some cracks. Making the blank a little larger will give you the chance to cut away those errors instead of messing the piece trying to fix them.

Signo

Randall, I'm sure that high glossy buffet to mirror finish pieces will be make people ... a bit upset, but I think that a satin finish with a bit of aging, will give a pretty acceptable result. Other than this, in all honesty, the italian average reenactor is several years behind the average contine...

Signo

I think it's coming along nicely, you will discover soon that you don't need those cuts you made in one of the pieces.

Signo

Those are very interesting info schreiber, thanks!

Signo

Here in europe two parts is the standard. In fact I think I'm one of the few here to have tried to make a three part bascinet.

Signo

Good, you did a good job! I love this armour! But remember that those pauldrons that are mounted with the armour, are pretty later than 1410-15. They are later in shape and have acid etched decoration in the rondels , a technique that was not yet in use at the time of the armour.

Signo

Thank you Gaston, I will take a look at your pages.

Signo

For experimentation purpose, you should be able to find such kind of gelatine in stores that sell to pastry shops, there is this kind of product in powder instead of small sheets, that is promptly soluble and sold with a better cost/weight ratio. For small batch that stuff should be avaiable in supe...

Signo

I would need to know who are the armourers that work with those materials, I think only american armourers use them for now, so I think this is the right place to ask. One of my friend is looking for some bit of armour, and we would like to evaluate this option. The purpose is reenactment not sca, s...

Signo

Several years ago, a user, called Carmel had a website (carmelmanuel.com I think) with a good step by step process for this very piece. Sadly his website is no more existant, but maybe with a wayback machine someone could find it again.

Signo

Well, I will try to remember about these suits the next time some priest will beg for money.

Signo

What do you pretend from a business with that name?

Signo

There was someone experimenting with tallow soap sometime ago, following some kind of ancient recipe.
Someone remember? How it's gone?

Signo

Well, if it was supposed to match a very specific bascinet, so it was not padded on the skull, but only on the brim (as holes suggest), then I doubt we could asses if it was bigger than a standard bascinet, because I suppose that the copper is quite thin and there would be no clearance in the middle.

Signo

The waist of that doublet is pretty interesting and tell us about it's functionality. The tight quilting and the lacing holes suggest that it was supposed to be firmly secured over the hips, and that should have been able to sustain some stress (to contain the belly or to sustain the weight of armou...

Signo

Yes Randall I understood the point, I was just pointing a possible solution to overcome the A4 limitation. Obviously on the computer you have the whole pattern so that you can understand it. Drawing it again on metal, instead of simply follow the edge of a papersheet, is just another step that let y...

Signo

For semplicity I use autocad, as I have it always in every PC I have at hand, at work or at home, as you pointed out, printer dimensions are a problem, so, when I cannot use some waste paper from the A0 plotter, or the A3 copier, I don't print the actual pattern in A4 making a collage of the various...

Signo

Klaus, do you think a man of the elite, wealthy enough to wear such rich clothes, would have used it so much to wear it visibly, and then buried with the same dress? He was not a reenactor, he probably had a dozen of such garments. We all would want to see the tear of years of use of such equipment,...

Signo

It's still a brick theatrical or not, it's weight will prevent you from using it at his best and with a bit of realism. As you are not going to use it for BOTN, you could profitably employ a lighter weapon (I would go for under half it's weight). Other than this, keep your finger all in the same pla...

Signo

Yes I know those thight fitting long sleeved mailles of the XIV° century, but even then, with a simple hook it's quite easy to fish a lacing under the maille and pull it through it, something like this maybe: http://www.guidaconsumatore.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/uncinetto.jpg And sorry to say i...

Signo

Hello Ken, if you don't mind, I would like to translate your interesting writing (even ìf I've not read those novels) to let the guys of my group read it. I think it's a very interesting history lesson that I could feed into their brains.
Can I ?

Thank you

Signo

Why? Simply because we have proofs that garments had lacing points, so sure, that they were used even in civilian fashion, so sure, that they are still used today in military uniforms, evolved in a purely symbolic fashion. On the other hand, we have little proof of maille that had points directly la...

Signo

We must consider that the fact that a piece of armour is worn over the head, doesn't mean that it's purpose is only to protect the head. Chapel de fer, kettle hats or how you prefer to call them, offer a valid protection to the whole upper body, and under certain circumstances, maybe more. Thus, tho...

Signo

Destichado, swords that are so old, and appear to have been dug from the ground, often are largely made of oxides, very little iron is in the form of metal anymore. Those are not the kind of reperts you want exposed to moisture or to casual chemical substances.

Signo

This is interesting, but it's quite surprising that even in that bad conditions, a documented helm like that goes A: on Ebay, and B: for such low price. The same seller sell a sword in very good conditions for a very small sum for a sword 700 years old. http://www.ebay.com/itm/MEDIEVAL-SWORD-Circa-1...

Signo

I bet the picture on the book is different. The skull shape is not convincing, or better, who took the pictures didn't know how it was supposed to sit over a human head. Even in the supposed book picture the placement is wrong. I don't think the people that wrote armours from Rhodes didn't know how ...

Signo

I agree that this closure appear to be more modern that the greaves, because the riveting of the leather in place has deformed the whole brass strip. But I've seen several other cases of greaves closed with laces, some of those in Vienna, I'm quite sure. Years ago there have been effigies discussed ...

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