The Armour Archive

James Arlen Gillaspie

Ernst, that's the whole point of a globose breastplate. It transfers shock completely around the rib cage. A good solid impact on a flat breastplate at about 50 to 60 mph can stop your heart.

James Arlen Gillaspie

I can't speak to 'superquench', but I used to use the lye based formula that the fellows from Sandia Labs used to use, which worked quite well on 1018 and above. I also used case hardening powders in conjunction with the lye based quench. The biggest problem was warping, but as the results were not ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Thanks, Ernst! A client of mine was once hurled headfirst into a 4" wooden fence post when his horse spooked and ran for the edge of the paddock and then abruptly stopped. He was wearing a pointed top bacinet. The point tore a chunk out of the post. To the overwhelming joy of all the bystanders who ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

My German is just not good enough to figure out what that black riveted-on patch is in the crash dummy impact test is. Anybody?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuqWWfecj14

James Arlen Gillaspie

He removed the red rust, so we can see it better, but he didn't supply a new photo of the inside.

James Arlen Gillaspie

The thing that bugs the stuffing out of me is that almost all the 'splints' I see are flat pieces of metal, with no shaping to the limb at all. Just plain SCA-dumb.

The narrow ones obviously have to be stronger than wide ones, so shaping and tempering would help a lot with that.

James Arlen Gillaspie

When I was researching the 'Wars of the Roses' years ago, I remember getting the idea that sanitation in London became worse under Henry VII than it was before, whereas Flanders was a much cleaner place. I don't remember why I thought that, but I strongly suspect that the way people dealt with sanit...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Well, I didn't mean to shut down the conversation. I am with everyone else; I wouldn't bid. I have to admit in all fairness, though, that I just don't know much about these helmets, and have a notion that they can vary considerably.

James Arlen Gillaspie

Yes, I was keeping all those factors in mind when I asked that seemingly naive question. I was, however, hoping I would lure out one of our European members who might have seen SOMETHING relevant taken out of the ground. I would say that till the live rust is removed it is hard to tell anything, alt...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Does anyone here know what a freshly excavated ferrous specimen looks like? I've only seen bits of whatchamacallit I've dug out of the back yard, and it seemed to be pretty colourful, though having been there for years. I've never unearthed an armour bit, though. I would expect to see a hole or two ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I would use #0000 (extremely fine) steel wool, even on the inside if there is active rust there. It won't hurt the hard black oxide :D . I often use Autosol, but it depends on the job; the stuff can make your piece too bright for modern connoisseurs (surviving 'white' finishes are mirror bright slap...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Or could it be that rendering all the ropes would have been terribly tedious and visually chaotic, posing huge compositional and aesthetic challenges?

Sorry, just had to say it.

I think I am favoring the hoop notion, though, for many of them.

James Arlen Gillaspie

MOF, I noticed that you were using the 'TOAH' part of the Met website. If you don't already know this, try
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the ... h?ft=armor

James Arlen Gillaspie

Yes, that sure does sound like good stuff, with enough carbon so that it doesn't dip below optimal (0.4% C), but won't go higher than 0.5%.

James Arlen Gillaspie

The higher carbon steels will give you more trouble than strength.

Now that's a quote to live by!

James Arlen Gillaspie

I'm not bothered by the new rivets and leather (new as in 'Vic'y' new). It was just something the dealers almost always did, and they never thought to put sewing holes in it for some reason (good thing, too!). Peter Finer's lads usually replace all the rivets for the sake of consistency. That leathe...

James Arlen Gillaspie

The carbon content is too high, too; it could be brittle, and break as a number of tempered steel helms have done. You should not use anything over 0.5%.

James Arlen Gillaspie

If they had to cut something to get to the form they thought would sell, they would just go to it. Often, though, it seems they would try to pop the links so they could reuse them (rivets still busted, they weren't that hardcore).

James Arlen Gillaspie

I agree with Signo. Get me three good journeymen who are also good strikers (or one good journeyman and a proper triphammer), though, put me together with a sword smith who refines his own wrought iron and steel, and I do believe we could come pretty close on the stuff that I have the most experienc...

James Arlen Gillaspie

My instant read is that they look early 16th c. The single articulation over the metacarpal is something that crops up from time to time; have a look at the right gauntlet of the 'Frederich the Victorious' harness, and, if memory serves, the KD garniture 'basic harness'. Weird partial finger arrange...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Get a piece of metal. Hit it with a hammer until it looks like it's supposed to.

If I remember rightly, that's how Ugo got started forging faces, wasn't it?

James Arlen Gillaspie

I would say it all depends on what some dealer thought would sell the best, and what he had available. Simple as that.

But I could tell you some stories...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Back when I started out I was able to get latigo that I absolutely loved. I used it for all my combat armour leathers, whether internal or external, and it would survive a decade of hard use, maybe longer (I sold off all the early stuff). It just kept getting harder and harder to find, though, and I...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Which is why it would make better articulation leathers than buff.

James Arlen Gillaspie

That is latigo, in essence. Once upon a time it was tawed leather, dyed and dressed with stabilized animal fats, bovine or marine. Kel, thank you for that clarification. I am astonished at how correct my suspicions were. Now I will go further; as one who restores real armour, I had long wondered ab...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Is this your first try? If so, you're doing pretty well.

James Arlen Gillaspie

As far as dating the Army Museum example, I do not have a really good notion of how to date animes. I need to go back through my data some time and try to get a good fix on the 'when' of this roping style on the rolled edges. Here is an example from the army museum in Vienna c. 1600 showing what hap...

James Arlen Gillaspie

The bling we are looking at is a lot later. It might be a mistake to think that something put on a mail shirt in one century is a good match for something put on a breastplate much earlier, though admittedly decorative jewelry type stuff tends to be more constant than armour styles, say, in many way...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Hello, Mac, yep, you got it. This shirt is even closer. It is interesting that the stars are so similar in size across the examples I have been able to dig up. A nagging point is that the anime, according to a very august authority, dates to the 1560's. The stars would need to have a flatter cross s...

James Arlen Gillaspie

It is not uncommon for holes to be filled with butted mail... or pieces that did not belong to each other to be brought together with them.

James Arlen Gillaspie

Obviously, having the breathes on the top helps with resistance to cavalry lances. If you want to see your rein hand, though (or what's in front of your feet, in your case), you put them lower. It would be a good idea to forge your bellows flutes higher; it will improve your optical geometry, so to ...

James Arlen Gillaspie

I'll relax a bit on confidentiality here and show what I'm looking at. The stars were an inch and a half from point to point (~38 mm), almost as wide as the lames (about 2 inches, or 50 mm).

: IMG_5531crp2.JPG (26.26 KiB) Viewed 187 times

James Arlen Gillaspie

I actually have to have something pretty close to work from. Making it up out of my head just won't do, alas. The mail examples get me closer, though; while I would very much prefer something on an anime or artwork of the time showing such a thing, finding a close example somewhere else just might b...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Mac: Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. A spring is a "beam in bending" and as such, it's strength is based entirely on its physical dimensions and the modulus of elasticity for the material. Crazy as it seems, three identical bars (one of mild steel, one of annealed 1050 steel, and the t...

James Arlen Gillaspie

Thanks, Ernst! I had only seen one of those examples. The animes seem rare (so far as I know at this point), and usually have been stripped. Amazing to see so many shirts that still have almost all their bling. I'm thinking these appliques are some sort of Central European fashion statement.

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