The Armour Archive

Kilkenny

These bazubands are hammer raised and acrylic hardened. They follow the historic line, and so for SCA purposes require additional elbow protection. Simple pointed elbow cops in acrylic hardened leather are part of this package. The bazubands are a dark blue, elbow cops a dark tan (undyed leather). T...

Kilkenny

That's a beautiful finish! Could you share the name of the product? If not, I understand. Nice job! Cat I don't have any trade secrets These were done with Johnson Wax Professional Low Maintenance Floor Finish. It's an acrylic floor polish. I find it intensifies color saturation quite significantly...

Kilkenny

Hardened leather (arcylic floor finish hardening), tooled and dyed vambraces. Full leather hinge and strapped, ready to wear. (photo taken before hinges and strapping were installed) 8 and 3/4 inches maximum length, app. 7 inch cir. at the wrist and 10 3/4 at the elbow. $70 for the pair, plus shippi...

Kilkenny

and a view of the arms and legs.

Kilkenny

trying again

Kilkenny

Having some problems with pictures.

Have there been some changes since InsaneIrish wrote his "how-to" on posting pictures here ? Pasting into the comments box doesn't seem to get my photo attached....

Kilkenny

*SOLD* A matched set, black with gold edging, with an S pattern stamped in the edging: hardened leather rerebraces, elbow cops with rondels, one piece vambraces, cuisses, greaves and gorget. All wet formed and hardened using acrylic floor finish. This gives an end result somewhat less rigid than the...

Kilkenny

But, yes, stakes are a damnedably expensive proposition. The cheapest was I have found is what my knight showed me. He buys a box of 12" nails ( don't remember what they are but they look like REALLY BIG Nails) and large fender type washers. We use them as stakes, not only are they cheap but they w...

Kilkenny

Well, there's really two ways to go about this. Get land. Put it in a land trust of some sort, get it reclassed in some way that makes it sheltered. One: Start building wooden, brick, and wattle and daub buildings. Then get around to the keep sometime. Two: Start quarrying stone right away, because...

Kilkenny

Well, actually...I was thinking... Before I injuried my ankle, I was going to issue a challenge, to be held at Pennsic, that I hold a very small part of the field. To accept my challenge, you would have to loudly insult me in a period way in front of witnesses while I stood there. Then we would fig...

Kilkenny

Do you use a handle or a strap across your hand ? I would think it would be pretty easy to do a hardened leather cover over a strap that would be low profile and could cover as much as you need. Dealing with a rigid handle makes it more difficult, you have to form the "basket" deeper and it's not go...

Kilkenny

What, no pot jokes yet? Maelgwyn, do you know anything about using hide glue? Cause hide glue I got. Seriously, I've got scads of 10oz sitting around (just organized the leather recently) and 2 guys I need to armor up in the next year. I've never done any hardening other than the generally frowned-...

Kilkenny

Alfred, I have the even larger Past Tents round pavillion (16 ft. dia. at the hub). It came with large stakes for the ropes and smaller ones for the loops in the wall. While clearly designed to be set with two entirely different sets of stakes, I've found that it isn't entirely necessary. On my pavi...

Kilkenny

Gravity has this relentless effect on any piece of armor; the stuff does not ride quite like cloth and requires seriously sturdy suspension from either the shoulders or the natural waist to remain where you want it; don't squeeze your limbs with tight strapping, it never works. Not to disagree with...

Kilkenny

Guitar Man - What sort of latex paint are you using for the weapons? The designs I've seen, that I'm planning on following, use a cloth layer over the blade. I've heard, but have not first-hand experience, that the latex LARP weapons are not very durable. I'm planning to foam pad the pommel and qui...

Kilkenny

arg arg arg. Really arg. I think I recognize the legs. If I'm right about them, while I don't believe "estate sale" as the source of the items, I do believe they were acquired legitimately. For Easterners who might recognize the name - Caitlin. I may have made the cuisses in the picture, I made a pa...

Kilkenny

Heck, even complete SCA harness isn't all that heavy. If you're talking SCA Rapier, yeah. Padding is bad, and we tend to go with the thinnest that will still pass with the drop tester. No need to be talking rapier. Perfectly "legal" SCA heavy harness need not weigh very much. As to the initial ques...

Kilkenny

There are far too many beers between then and now for me to remember all the specifics of gauntlets I never wore. I do remember that he bought them at Pennsic under the pretense that they were heavy-legal gauntlets. Indeed, under the rules of SCA combat, they were heavy legal gauntlets. I do rememb...

Kilkenny

My gambeson has a minimal quilting to it on the forearms - I would have to do measurements to see how much it changes my forearm dimensions. I wear any forearm armour at all for two reasons - it looks better, and it keeps stupid tippy glancing blows that shouldn't mean anything from tearing up my fo...

Kilkenny

My favorite tourney: the Calontir greatsword tourney. The tourney was hosted by the very gracious King of Calontir, and was won by an Australian knight named Sir Brucie. The tourney prize was a beautiful sword, which Sir Brucie donated back to Calontir to be an annual prize, saying that he didn't k...

Kilkenny

Hhhhhmmmmm Not in the woods. Prehaps we could coopt the arechery area for a day??? Do it at the top of Mt Iseland? There is a hay field past the camping in the B blocks. I beleive that it's still technically in the site. Perhaps there. Why not in the woods? Trying to take over the archery field wou...

Kilkenny

"Personally, I would think that the answer lies in no tape at all. There's got to be some sort of paint on material that would provide similar effect as tape without the look." Tool dip???? I'm really thinking more along the lines of some kind of polyurethane... I wonder what that stuff they use on...

Kilkenny

It looks pretty good, for a brief while. It would be necessary to retape it prior to nearly every tourney to continue to look sharp. Matter of opinion. To me it always reads "tacky fake sword stick" in much brighter and bolder letters than plain ole duct tape. But then, I've been known to tape my s...

Kilkenny

Some thoughts on this idea. Who is it for and what is its purpose ? If it is for the select few permitted to participate directly, and for their gratification and naught else, then hold it someplace within the boundaries of the woods battle. There those who wish to transcend time will have the least...

Kilkenny

Personally, I would think that the answer lies in no tape at all. There's got to be some sort of paint on material that would provide similar effect as tape without the look. Wouldn't the behourd weapons look better if they openly looked like wooden batons, rather than trying for metallic coloring a...

Kilkenny

I am sure Robyn is a perfectly nice person. In deed she is probably wonding why on earth everyone here is gawking at her and not her nice new armour. (This is in no way stating the contrary of all these gents statements mind you). RPM Chuckle. I had the pleasure of Robyn's company one evening at di...

Kilkenny

I guess my question becomes, why not make suneate ? The forming is less complicated/difficult than the European greaves - doing the shape in three pieces that lace together means you don't have to get the same level of compound curvature out of your one piece of metal. If you're going to make the ce...

Kilkenny

Just don't let Nissan wear that Somen when playing poker - you can't see his eyes at all behind it.

Really looks great and in person it's almost disconcerting that he speaks but his lips don't move.

Gavin

Kilkenny

Thanks for all your words of advice and validation of my acts. I will take them to heart. And as you say, the King and his knight seemingly had no further concern for me---they were GONE and apparently believed their work done and that I had been vanquished. While I might have perhaps considered ma...

Kilkenny

One thing that I personally haven't seen discussed here (doesn't mean it HASN'T been discussed though, I just don't recall seeing it) is something that the people at the leather store told me. They say that soaking the leather and then drying it out weakens the leather. They said dry leather is jus...

Kilkenny

Ultimate? All of the above, plus they would be "Spock-proof" finger gauntlets - ie ones where the fingers could not be forced apart within the plane of the hand. Those are called mittens. If spreading your fingers is undesireable then you should be quite happy with mittens. Any finger gauntlet will...

Kilkenny

You know, I hadn't thought about floating elbows. I was thinking of some kind of articulated elbow or some kind of fan attached to it but the floating elbows sound perfect! Thank you very much for the suggestion! Now about the size of these - I used an existing pattern and did not modify the size. ...

Kilkenny

A little searching on the archive will yield lots of information about methods for hardening leather. There have been quite extensive discussions about various ways of doing it, and about which ways are most likely to be historically valid. There is so much discussion in the various threads that it ...

Kilkenny

Cat, I made a similar pair of bazubands not long ago and ran into the same problem. If one makes the piece so it looks like the surviving historic examples, it's not "SCA legal". I found that one solution is not to change the design of the piece, but to wear a floating elbow cop inside it. I made a ...

Kilkenny

Accuracy is important - doesn't matter if they never saw you move if you never hit them, doesn't matter if you broke their shield if you missed the slot and the shield took the blow. Speed is useful, quickness as well, and I agree with Logan that there is a distinction. But "speed" isn't just how fa...

hardened leather bazubands, w/elbow cops

hearts and flowers vambraces

Hardened leather arms, cuisses, greaves and gorget for sale