The Armour Archive

St. George

Michael, I was always serious about the offer. I had just figured that you had gotten more busy or just decided not to accept it. I also thought that we had cleared up many of the issues in our nice personal emails. I am sorry if we had a regional difference of usage- where I am from we regularly ca...

St. George

Stonekeep- I agree with most of what you are saying. I have personally been negotitating with Indian producers for the last few months in order to see what I can get them to produce at the right quality level and the right price. I would love to come into a region and knock this guy out of his busin...

St. George

The issue is that a Marshal is basically the safety officer and enforcer of the SCA rules. When there is a tournament or even that an SCA marshal has to be in charge of, anything that happens that day is on that Marshal's plate. If something bad happens to someone as a result of an armor failure tha...

St. George

A lot of hardware stores sell conversions for a regular oven to propane. You could look into used appliance stores (or used restaurant appliances), for something that might be big enough, and then just convert over to propane. That might be easier and more effective than trying to build something. A...

St. George

Bottom line this guy makes his living doing just what he does, and he doesn't care one flip about what's said on here because his customers are renfair goers up in New York or wherever it was stated he is from. If you really want him to actually care, then you are going to have to take higher quali...

St. George

Try:
http://www.armurerieduduche.com/Site%20 ... 0Coude.htm

It is an excellent "how to" in photos of the making of a couter.

Alaric.

St. George

I had a set about 10 years ago, and they were damned safe- ugly though. They got stolen at Pennsic about 8 years ago- even though they have my name engraved on them, I don't think they'll ever turn up again. I really haven't felt safe in other gauntlets ever since, so I have kind of shied away from ...

St. George

something that is moderately period looking and reflects the style and period of the rest of your kit. If you could let us know what you are wearing we might be able to give you better advice, or a broad range of choices that could look good within the scope and parameters set by the rest of your ge...

St. George

Malcolm, Also, when you put your shield high, and "duck" the tip of of your bascinet needs to lean towards or into your shield not away. When you duck behind your shield and lean away from your shield, you are creating a great landing pad for a sword- the lean away creates a horsizontal surface that...

St. George

the top edge of your shield is too flat, so you are not utilizing your corners as natural passive "flat snap" blockers. If you pull your front corner a little higher and tighter to your face- think nose-ish level- and then use 2-3 inch side to side blocking motions you should be able to pick up aalm...

St. George

Alfred, I didn't grow up in the West, with their direct links to the original founders (Flieg, etc) and their intents. I grew up under different circumstances, and my initial introduction to the SCA did not lead me to think that people were really re-enacting, but rec-reating not re-creating medieva...

St. George

Robert, I agree with you 100% that the basket hilt is ugly and has nothing to do with Medieval Fighting. I also believe that the manner in which we fight sword and shield also has very little do with actual Mediavel fighting. I prefer to think of it as a sport much in the same manner as Kendo is to ...

St. George

Baskets are still not hands. they are not even armored hands. They are part of a sword- and you can actually wear gauntlets inside them.

If we are going to discuss aiming for hands or making them legal targets, lets at least make sure that we are hitting "hands."

Alaric

St. George

Thorfinn- Having worn brass lamellar for a few years, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I used Black paracord, and if you used leather I don't think it would ever go. Certainly it has never eaten through in the course of a fight- if you just keep you eye on it, you can tell when it is about to eat...

St. George

Cet,

I thikn that a lot fo the eastern fighters might have developed basket blocking after being part of the Eastern shield wall, where they were told to keep their baskets infront fo their face, and block with it.

Alaric

St. George

I think Man O War too:

Brothers of Metal
The Gods Made Heavy Metal
Kings of Metal
Heart of Steel
The Warrior's Prayer
Metal Warriors
The Power of Thy Sword

oh yeah- and Blow Your Speakers

I figured everyone listened to ABBA or maybe the Psychadelic Furs

Alaric

St. George

Alfred, Where is your line as a FARB? I don't mean this in an insulting way- but rather trying to get a gauge on your feelings about the SCA. There are a lot of things that we in the SCA don't do correctly, yet we choose to complain about others- for example- we don't ride horses into combat. SCA fi...

St. George

I don't see what the argument is- baskets are part of swords, not hands. I have no issue blocking with people blocking with baskets- I find it no different from people blocking with any other part of a sword. Now on the other hand, I think that we should be finding a way to make gauntlets cheaply, e...

St. George

My knight made a helm from one once (and I thought he was insane every time he went out to fight in it). We burned through a bunch of Ti and Cobalt bits trying to put holes in it. I think eventually we used an arc welder to just burn holes. All in all with the time and effor wasted on the army pots,...

St. George

If you are in Calafia and going to armor workshops there, I would say that getting the pre-dished stainless helmet halves from Dave Rylak are a much better option for you. They might cost a little more but would actually give you a real helmet shape and not just a cone. For a little more money, Dave...

St. George

Gotta be more than 5 pounds my 18 ga spring one is about 6

Either way, it ain't going to weigh a lot, and at that price, you will have a good looking, no maintenance kind of kit.

Alaric

St. George

Morgan, Let me applaud you trying to get fighters onto the field in decent looking armor. I would like to ask something. Is the following quote representative of something you have actually seen or experienced? "I also feel that wearing "acceptable" looking armour is good incentive for our fighters ...

St. George

Gregory, you live in California.

Most of the best anime and comics conventions are there. Heck you're only aout 4 or 5 hours from San Diego and Comic Con (the biggest and baddest) is in a few weeks.

http://www.comic-con.org/index.php

Alaric

St. George

Hi,

I thought we did send you a pair of shoulders as well as knees.

just my recollection.

Alaric

St. George

Era and geographical location will help "Kite" shields encompass a lot of shapes.

Alaric

St. George

Animal,

even though the pattern is not the same, he might have some good ideas about construction and be abel to give you hand in that area

Alaric

St. George

You could always drop Master Bohemond a note, and ask how he made these.

http://www.highfiber.com/~bohemond/Boot ... rsian.html

Also, I think that Talbot got his Laurel in shoe making- you might be able to check in with him too.

Alaric

St. George

Felix, Plastic is probably going to be in the 450 degree range to get flexible, and 450 is hot enough to temper 1050 steel. Personally I don't think that a few seconds of plastic cooling shouldn't ruin the temper, but stranger things can happen. If you are only going to use the legs for as shaping "...

St. George

Compare them to the ones Valerius and Magnus made, and come to your own opinion. They also have a nice little how to on the same page.

http://home.earthlink.net/~old_bear/id4.html

Alaric

St. George

I would have to say the Finals of Crown have ben one of my favorite combat scenarios

Other than that- The Battle of the 30 is probably at the top of the list, ven though I missed it last year.

Alaric

St. George

No offense Your Grace, but remind me to get in another line then- because I think your interpretation of this rule is significantly off. You might want to re-think your reading, as I think that most sopvereigns would over-rule you. Especially Eastern Kings.

Alaric, Dux

St. George

I think you may also be able to put a layer of clear resin over a painted canvas- essentially you could do a really nice version of your device, and then just clear resin over it.

Alaric

St. George

We the shield made it through the first weekend of testing just fine. I let one of our local hard hitters, Sabah (a former Prof football player and power lifter) take a few whacks at it and it seemed to hold up just fine. I am going to try and find a way to paint my device on there and resin over it...

St. George

Teaching fighters, and hopefully getting some sparring in.

St. George

I am going to try and have a new sword and shield ready for this weekend. The sword is going to be made from rattan and have the sides shaved and routered. My previous tests with this seem to have gone well, and really didn't greatly impact the life of the sword, so I am going to try it again with a...

New Sword and Shield