The Armour Archive

James Arlen Gillaspie

This feature of having the medial pivot spacing wider than the lateral spacing is more common than I had thought. It is not, by any means, universal. Indeed, I'm not even sure I would call it typical. The only sort of knees where it seems to be more or less normal are Gothic ones, and even here, th...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Overnight, it also occurred to me that having a lame 'pop' would be high on my list of equipment failures that I 'd not want to happen in a real fight. Fighting like you mean it is very stressful on the equipment, and I have a knee lame that occasionally 'pops'. I could see someone wanting a solutio...

James Arlen Gillaspie

James, Have you tried making them with leathers like that? Do you suppose the leather is there to prevent gapping ( :shock: )? or are they any more comfortable that way? I can sort of imagine the leather giving you something to kneel on. (prepares to duck rotten tomatoes) German 'Gothic' armour is ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Ooops, forgot to mention, all those sliders in the poleyns of German 'Gothic' legs take care of length expansion/ contraction problems. They truly cover a multitude of sins.

James Arlen Gillaspie

A big part of riveted articulation of a joint is length expansion or retraction. An arm that has it wrong will have the cuff either move up your wrist or down as you bend your arm. Also, for knee cops, the S curve through the leg (viewed head - on) needs to be accounted for some how, and making the ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I think I just realized that we might be having a case of being divided by a common language.

When I say 'gapping', I mean that the lames could move right past each other and create an opening. Is this what you mean by 'hyper-flexing'?

James Arlen Gillaspie

James: in the A62 do you mean to say the leathers prevent the lames from hyper-flexing? The leathers appear to be there to prevent them from gapping, unless they are there to lessen wear on one's hose (?). I had the distinct impression they were there to prevent gapping, however, but would like to ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Hello, Tom, I have long owed everyone my paper on A 62, but there remains the business of putting the finishing touches on it and actually finding a place to publish it. Look at the knees of A 60 and A 62, and you will note a rivet right in the middle of the medial ridge. All the lames of the poleyn...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I also was originally of the conviction that the mail must just be a fringe around the bottom, but having looked at everything I could find on the two piece defences (Ralph Greene, for example), I reluctantly yielded to the idea that they usually wore them over their mail aventails (no way I'm doing...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I used the above recipe on some of my arming clothes that had been peed on, and it worked great, despite my disbelief.

James Arlen Gillaspie

I may draw some flack for saying this, but let me hasten to say first that the late German 'gothic' style is my favorite armour style. Now, having wrapped myself in the flag, let me say that I am also very fond of its opposite in so many ways, the mid 15th century Italian heavy cavalry armour, as we...

James Arlen Gillaspie

THE RECIPE • 1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide • 1/4 cup baking soda • 1 teaspoon of liquid soap Gently mix all ingredients in a non-metal container. Do not mix or shake vigorously! The mixture is best used when fresh but can be stored. Do not keep mixture in an airtight container as baking soda and h...

James Arlen Gillaspie

It was more work than I wanted it to be. I brushed it with a stiff bristle brush before and while vacuuming it.

James Arlen Gillaspie

It looks to me as though the plate gorgets are often worn over a mail aventail. Considering how often I remember people in Froissart dying of neck wounds from lances, I think it likely they handled the blunt trauma that mail doesn't handle so well.

James Arlen Gillaspie

I would have pushed down the crest first and then worked out the two resulting bubbles on either side, but hey, nothing succeeds like success.

James Arlen Gillaspie

The mail I've had to clean has usually been Eastern, and I put it in a barrel with diatomite (cheap cat litter) and rolled it around the yard. It requires some more work to get rid of the diatomite dust. It produced no additional wear that I could detect. I also add to the chorus: NO ACID. EVER, EVE...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Looking at many paintings and sculptures over the years has convinced me that the artists often did not have the armour in the studio for as long as it took to complete the project, and as a result were working from memory on the last couple of laps. It is apparent that memory is a poor guide when i...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I know it. There's so little to go on, that it's worth while to look at the questionably stuff as well.... just to have something to think with.

We haven't forgotten Wade's gauntlets, have we? Did I miss that?

James Arlen Gillaspie

Yes, a fair amount of the better stuff is already on display.

James Arlen Gillaspie

Edit: posted before I looked at the next page. In the immortal words of Emily Litella, "Never mind!" It probably wouldn't work proportionally, but I'd be looking at replacing the base of the thumb. Or trying to weld on an extender, despite how much fun that can be. Easier with a MIG! And some pre an...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Tom, you have some iffy stuff in there. For example, 1325 is from the 'Siegmaringen' harness in Detroit, and is a restoration.

James Arlen Gillaspie

I seem to be in the minority here. I hang my greaves by the post and back staple from the poleyn. It helps to have the cuisses hang from a doublet that sort of works right.

James Arlen Gillaspie

Ah, there we go. Those photos cast considerably more doubt on the already iffy association between gauntlet and hinge. It is interesting, though; if the little flower shaped bit of latten were removed, the holes look like they would line up for moving the hinge forward to a better position.

James Arlen Gillaspie

This piece in Berlin has a very similar hinge. The Max finger lames tend to cast a shadow on it, but the St. Florian statue backs up the hinge. The apparent hole between the rivets appears to be part of the decorative design, best I can make out from my large photos. I haven't looked in Goll yet. K1...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I got nuthin' on that harness. It's a hodgepodge, as you might guess. The thing is, I have run across this form of bevor a number of times in a Vic'y context. The Philly example (with its liner still in!!) might be the original from which they were all copied, perhaps. It's the first one I've seen t...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Day-um... How could you wear that, except strapped directly to your head? Weird bit of hardware indicates tournament use to me. Maybe some sort of reinforce protects the base of the neck? I'll have to think about this one. Meanwhile, the one in question looks like a high quality specialty item done ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

That thing just won't stop jabbing its thumb in my eye. I wish I had saved many more pics of all the Vic'y stuff I've run across over the years, but it never had much hold on my mind. It is true that how a schaller and bart are arranged can make a bart look pretty bad, but this one... I don't like h...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I'm having problems with that bevor.

James Arlen Gillaspie

The backplate looked a little unusual (but by no means unique) in that it just went straight into the rolled edges around the arm openings without the recessed border which one usually sees in most 16th c. armour. It was obvious that there had never been a step. The flutes went very close to the rol...

James Arlen Gillaspie

James Arlen Gillaspie

'A Craftsman's Legacy' is a half hour show on PBS' 'Create' channel. They shot a spot on me last week, so I expect it will be out in the fall. I tried to illustrate how I think things were done 'back in the day' by a small shop in some Bavarian town or other, with some departures; after all, we only...

James Arlen Gillaspie

The Devil is ALWAYS in the details!

James Arlen Gillaspie

I have been going through the entries one at a time, and so far have got to 1545. I have come across the already mentioned Berlin examples, a number of repros, several that I strongly suspect are, and four early helms that are usually smaller than the classic type for some reason , at least in my ex...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Bascinets were very tightly fitting. The average ear to ear size is 18 cm. Where did this average come from, Gustovic? Most of the bacinets of this type that I have seen have been at least 21 cm. wide. There are, admittedly, are a few, such as the one in the Wallace Collection and in Berlin that ar...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I have long had the impression that the side straps are a feature of Italian export pieces. I have seen a fair number of German breasts that have only the central rivet, as absurd as that may seem.

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Plate Aventail???

Re: Coat of Plates-Cloth vs Leather?

Re: Designing a knee, trying to get it right

Re: Coat of Plates-Cloth vs Leather?

Re: Cleaning an antique maille shirt of it's rust

Re: Plate Aventail???

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Cleaning an antique maille shirt of it's rust

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Higgins Museum Auction Catalog

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: 14th Century greaves and cuisses- floating greaves or..

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: Goll's Thesis Topic #4: Interesting New (to you) Objects

Re: Goll's Thesis Topic #4: Interesting New (to you) Objects

Re: Goll's Thesis Topic #4: Interesting New (to you) Objects

Re: Goll's Thesis Topic #4: Interesting New (to you) Objects

Re: Dusting off the cobwebs

Re: TV show- 'A Craftsman's Legacy' -armour

TV show- 'A Craftsman's Legacy' -armour

Re: Question about the Lyle Bascinet authenticity.

Re: Question about the Lyle Bascinet authenticity.

Re: Question about the Lyle Bascinet authenticity.

Re: Goll's Thesis Topic #2: New details on well known object