The Armour Archive

Kilkenny

well, the SCA requires hand protection already, right? so you're not going to be putting out a bare hand. then, there's a rule about no wrist/hand shots in the first place. there's another deterrant to hand injuries. the attacker is supposed to avoid those targets (yes, we all screw up, but still, ...

Kilkenny

Howdy, With all the compromises required (or suggested) to achieve the Peerage, is it really worth it at all? When Babe Ruth was out there, it was great to be a baseball player. Now with all the drugs, corked bats and other nefarious ways to increase performance, it's about as glorious as being a f...

Kilkenny

The reason people are hampered by being 'period accurate' is that they are trying to apply rules and principals that existed in real combat to a game that only slightly resembles combat. If you were allowed to use weapons that actually feel and behave like real weapons, be able to grapple, half-swo...

Kilkenny

"It's also important to understand that part of the hazard of grappling in an SCA context is simply getting to the grapple. Reaching your hand out is a darn good way to get it hit with a stick and broken, even when there was no intent to hit your hand". This statement is puzzling to me. I have done...

Kilkenny

[The Medievals were certainly competitive and strove to do their utmost in the lists. They even engaged in tactics that we would find reprehensible (such as, in a hastiludes or tournament, sitting with their armed retainers with the declared intent of only watching and then, when the participants a...

Kilkenny

[quote="Doug Confere"] Anyway, yes I'm aware that a lot of Fiore involves slamming people on the ground. Shit, so does Liechtaneur, the Codex Wallerstein, Vadi, etc. And while my group has never had anyone get hurt after being taken down in this manner, primarily because we don't slam we j...

Kilkenny

I guess my point is that a lot of grappling in the fechtbuchs that is used while wielding a weapon is not dangerous and is perfectly fine in Dagorhir. People seem to be thinking that all grappling in a historical context is limb breaking and kicking people in the teeth, but it isn't. Doug I would d...

Kilkenny

Sir Vitus, I apologize for taking so long to respond to your post. I needed to gather some information before I stuck my foot in. First I don't think that the fighting is fine. Yes we hit each other, so what. To my mind most SCA fighters are poorly trained, inept, and lack an understanding of what ...

Kilkenny

Very, Very handsome. And I like your reasoning

Gavin

Kilkenny

BTW, for anyone wondering, this is for display/costuming only. I don't even know what kind of maille...thing I am going to weave. It's way too heavy a gauge for a full hauberk, so I am still on the fence about that one. I may go fantasy or something until i can pick up some lighter material for a f...

Kilkenny

Anton, Thank you for responding. I am not quite sure what you mean. The front half is already seperate from the back half so that it can be put on and then buckled. I am wondering if the chin is what's making it look...not right. I am also wondering if I should get rid of the overlap, or just make ...

Kilkenny

Here is the effigy of Walter Von Hohenklinken m [img]http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/garments/charlesVI/WalterL.jpg[/img] I believe this has a fully formed, probably one piece backplate. My reasoning? I do not believe that criss-crossing straps across the back would provide enough suppor...

Kilkenny

Unfortunately the descriptions given for the foam being sold are not very useful. Closed cell or open cell doesn't tell us about the resilience of the foam, or its energy absorbing characteristics. It's nice to have a fabric layer between skin and hair and the foam, but depending on the fabric that ...

Kilkenny

Wolf wrote:isnt there an sca rule about padding covering the entire part of the inner helm?

Nope. In fact, doing so is a bad idea for at least two reasons - hearing and heat.

Gavin

Kilkenny

Well, I started thinking about the standards and rules of the Pennsic "Battle of the 30" and how it relates the Heavy List... ...and thought this might be a practical follow on. By creating a venue that has standards and rules focused on the authentic, it will allow heavy list to focus on being the...

Kilkenny

InsaneIrish wrote:[quote="brookswiftFrieman:

I have never heard of a "college" being designed to go dorment. They certainly DO go dorment from time to time due to graduation and lack of interest, but I dont' think they are Designed to do that.

As I recall the entire reason for the "college" category of branch is that it is allowed to go dormant. Again, from memory, it was introduced as an alternative to the canton and meant for use for subgroups within Baronies which could be expected to have a cyclical activity level.

Gavin

Kilkenny

Greetings and welcome my fellow newbie. 10) Shield (many places require sword and shield authorization first...poor wording can allow for other forms first like in the EK) 13) Cleats for melee, sturdy boots or sneakers for practice and the list Joachim I'm going to disagree with one item on your li...

Kilkenny

Thank you both for the replies. 3) During the '30s, you usually don't see the cuisses - the cote is too long. The exceptions include Roger de Kerdeston, who has some kind of stripy-thing going on with his cuises (looking for all the world like the splints I started out with lo these many years ago)...

Kilkenny

They could have entered battle starkers. This would account for the lack of armour evidence around the place, and also the popularity of eunuchs. And they're not depicted anywhere out of a sense of morals. Yeah, that'll fit. Edit: Spelling is a bad thing at 2 am. Which "they" do you have in mind ? ...

Kilkenny

I find the rigidity of the method to be good for finding the metaphorical trunk of the tree, not so good for finding its leaves and minor branches. i.e. it gives a credible though narrow view. it seems just as foolish to say that the entire puzzle looks like this one piece i have as it is to say it...

Kilkenny

It's funny how people will say that "if there's no historical record of it then it didn't exist". ... ...If you limit your thinking to the materials and techniques of the time, then if you can make it work, chances are someone from the time period probabily did too. They had water in the middle age...

Kilkenny

i agree that a good number of our rules are far from realistic. my point is that we have created a very unique set of conditions. one of those conditions involves things like being hit in the leg causes the penalty of having to fight from your knees. has nothing to do with the reality of a tourname...

Kilkenny

...but for the most part, we're all ok with dem furriners doin it. Yall just weird, thassal... who are YOU calling "Dem Furriners" Seriously though, I can see the point the EM of Glenn Ahbann is trying to make. It is the same that has been hashed out here on this forum time and again. If you got sl...

Kilkenny

Mrs W. That's a doozie. Bruises tend to look less impressive in photos, but that one looks pretty brutal even in pictures. In case nobody has told you this, both tiger balm and Bag Balm seem to make bruises go away faster. Welcome to the club. I actually had my diaphram bruised not too long ago. It...

Kilkenny

Cat, in looking at your pictures of the leather, and the finished example you showed from the tutorial, I have a question about how you would open the gorget you are making to put it on. It looks like you are making an opening on one side that will buckle close, which is fine, but the other side of ...

Kilkenny

The trick to not hurting yourself on a miss is to relax and allow the mechanics Paul describes to happen. If you try to stop the sword (a natural reaction), pain will usually ensue (the worst injury of this type I have seen was a tear of the bicep tendon that detached the muscle from the elbow. Sur...

Kilkenny

Charles, Thanks for that info. I figured the sinew wouldn't shrink, but I wasn't sure if it would help hold the shape of the piece or not. I'm still not entirely sure that I will harden it this way. I think I read something about less shrinkage when using the baking method, so I am going to investi...

Kilkenny

[quote="Asbjorn Johansen"]How do you need to hit someone wearing X armour with a sharp steel sword to get them to stop fighting? I think that there is significant room for debate if try to do destructive testing even if you use accurate reproductions. Even if you can develop test that very...

Kilkenny

Why the need for catchy phrases? "Positive Mount" "Direct Touch" ? Why not just say "Directly riveted to the helm" Is there a charge per word on new rules? We writing telgraphs here? I'm just happy that I've got a 1/2" strap kevlar chinstrap riveted directly to my helm. Maybe because it doesn't mea...

Kilkenny

I am soliciting for testers for new arming and fighting garments now in development. Testers will receive one or more beta garments to test and critique. In return, they will receive a free, brand new production model** once the patterning process is complete. (**Unless they are happy with the fit ...

Kilkenny

The "cut the chain" standard requires swinging for the fences on every blow, all the time. This is a presumptive statement Vitus. I've yet to see any solid quantification as to how much force is required to defeat mail, or how that compares to how hard we hit (in all of our wide variation). There a...

Kilkenny

I wonder if a lot of this has to do with the culture of the day so to speak. When I started playing in 78, we were told that we had SCA minimum armor on, and we were using swords made of better steel. This was to give us an idea of how hard to hit. It was the old canard that European steel sucked, ...

Kilkenny

Hello. For my statistics class, we are going to do research projects. The other 4 people in the class are all doing things they are passionate about, horseriding, or baseball, so I am thinking of doing the ration of slag to iron to martensite in steel, comparing examples from Italy/Germany from rom...

Kilkenny

A word about ABS. Several in our fighting group have used ABS to good use. The difficult part is heating it evenly. We happen to use a screen printers conveyor dryer and then press around the body part holding it until it sets-up. My sons shest and back plates are I believe 1/4" and the ribs are 1/...

Kilkenny

http://www.sca.org/officers/marshal/combat/armored/marshal_handbook.pdf I've been a knight since 1983. I know what good blow is, right? And if there's any doubt as to what a good blow is, a quick reference to the Sacred Canon (see the above link) will clear it up. Right? Uh...not so much. I quote: ...

Re: Let the Peerage save themselves.

Re: 1330's cuisses & polyens

Re: Product testers needed for new arming/fighting garments

Re: statistics project

Re: What's Good?