The Armour Archive

Russ Mitchell

DWG files have been sent to your email, Cet. No rush on response, but pls do me a favor and confirm receipt when you can.

Thanks.

Russ Mitchell

As usual, Kade, that's first-class work.

Russ Mitchell

Painted panel boards purely, or painted-and-carved? The nature of medium would preclude any judgments at all on line, etcetera, if the latter.

Russ Mitchell

Sure, Cet. Given a choice, I'd love to throw the business your direction anyway. Just give me a bit to convert over the files.

Russ Mitchell

Notice, Ernst, how with a thin layer the lines of the plates rapidly become visible through the shell? #20 for example. The diagonal-cut garment I wore that time was a lot like that.

Russ Mitchell

Been making stl files for some arrowheads, lances, a mace head in my collection. While I'm talking to a company that does sintered metal 3d printing, it occurs to me that I don't know anybody who does powdered-metal or just 3d laser cutting (in metal, anyway. I know a guy who can carve you a freakin...

Russ Mitchell

Thank you, KHtE. One day, just by cosmic luck, I *swear* Dan and I are going to agree on something. It's uncanny how we almost always wind up interpreting in exactly opposite directions. :lol: I see a mail coif and shirt and an unusual armored surcoat with a scale upper torso, possibly over the regu...

Russ Mitchell

Don't forget "in two hands," too. Qoja put paid to the Fourth Crusade with guys fighting that way, too.

Russ Mitchell

Miscreant: Basically, humans don't act like computer parts. If every knight in a charge scores a solid lance hit and takes his opponent out of the battle, RIGHT THERE, the losses are considerable. Combine that with momentum and the ability to utterly destroy formations that the western knight posses...

Russ Mitchell

My apologies, KHtE, I'll bow out now.

Russ Mitchell

In this period? Got me. Historically, there were trade ties and such. But given that you see it in a Byzantine thing (single-riveted scales on military saints, Demetrios? Gotta check. Another "fanciful" armor I've wanted to reconstruct for a long time, b/c I have some theories about it), a Hungarian...

Russ Mitchell

Here's one version, though the art doesn't show the rivets (not conclusively, they can "sorta" be identified in the first one). http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Derzs4.jpg/800px-Derzs4.jpg http://www.ezerdely.hu/pics/kepek/bg/ezerdely_udvarhelyszek_regio_szekelydezs_szekelyde...

Russ Mitchell

Ernst: Diagonal-cut plates like that are all over the place in art. Just remembered a Hungarian example from the St. Ladislas Legend. It's what's known in the field as a "scholarly commonplace" -- an assertion which is then then repeated as if it is authoritative, and very rapidly become the accepte...

Russ Mitchell

I don't make the same argument Buster does, so I'll let him speak for himself, but Randall, I think there's significant evidence to suggest that these guys had a much better knowledge of what they were looking at than we typically give them credit for. 1. splinted vambraces -- proven archaeologicall...

Russ Mitchell

It's not "really simple." We know that not all mail was the same: we have numerous references to versions of mail for which we have NO IDEA of its visual appearance. What was "doubled mail?" What was a "hauberc de jouste," and how did it differ from the version Joinville was wearing in combat *befor...

Russ Mitchell

Thanks. That's only a 12-hour drive if I could figure out the wife/chicky angle (one-car family).

Russ Mitchell

A better comparison might be "people drawing pictures of cars." Medieval people saw armor all the damned time. The longer I'm in this game, the more and more skeptical I get of the "this was stylized" argument -- I've just seen far, far too many "that can't possibly be real" items turn out not only ...

Russ Mitchell

Thanks, y'all. Yeah, this is a guy who runs a viking-age museum who's making bloomery iron.

And, um, what's Battlemoor?

Russ Mitchell

Sorry Dan, no pics. It was basically an armored surcoat with the plates on the inside, and I gotta say, it worked and worked well.

Russ Mitchell

I'm interested in Russ's harness. Wasn't mine, and didn't belong to my group, so I only got to wear it once. But what was kinda neat was that the lines were sorta perpendicular to where the right shoulder wanted to "push in" against the armor when crossing the centerline, so it was rigid, but didn'...

Russ Mitchell

I've worn something similar in Hungary and greatly appreciated the flexibility. Would be very surprised if it were a mistake.

Russ Mitchell

Thanks, yáll.

Russ Mitchell

Got a guy who's making his own iron, and he's willing to cast some arrowheads (and if I'm real nice, a couple mace and lance heads, too). The ability to make duplicates would be nice, of course, where arrowheads are concerned. Problem with all the sand-casting how-tos I'm seeing is that, like the on...

Russ Mitchell

Thanks, Isabella, I'll check it out; it's too low-temp for iron, I think, but I might be able to make reference materials with it that could help.

Russ Mitchell

Hey folks, I know a guy willing to donate the ironwork to reproduce some period stuff if I can get it molded...but I've never done it and find the process, quite honestly, to be a bit on the intimidating side. Does anybody know a good "making molds of stuff for dummies" that doesn't assume ANY knowl...

Russ Mitchell

You shouldn't need to reinforce the stitches at all, but it probably wouldn't hurt anything if you did. It may be my tendonitis talking, but I'm tending to go further and furrther away from riveting in general, and discovering that a TON of old leatherwork was either butt-stitched on the inside, or ...

Russ Mitchell

No rivets whatsoever: butt-stitch internal leathers so that they never go through to the outside to mess up your design at all.

Russ Mitchell

Actually, the rawhide/moisture problem is pretty overblown. It takes a LOT of heavy rain (and direct exposure to it) in order to saturate rawhide, and any regular old paint will do the job (as seen in the surviving rawhide jawshans regularly used in the region through the 14th century).

Russ Mitchell

Folks, this is a VERY good bow. If you have the cash or can make the trade, it is UTTERLY worth your time.

Russ Mitchell

These would be in the Mongol/Tatar/Hungarian style, rather than the Turkish/Korean/Persian mode, and they'd be fiberglass types -- I won't even touch horn/sinew stuff from a bowyer I don't know, or that I don't know is working it (for instance, contrary to reputation, Kassai himself is an *awesome* ...

Russ Mitchell

This is not a definite, but there's a possibility that I'll again have my hands on a few bows to sell (for those who've not been around before, I do this every 3-4 years if I can, basically selling for just enough to clear my shipping costs - it lets me quality-check bows for interested folks). I've...

Russ Mitchell

I can't believe nobody's bought the sport-armor chahar-ai-ne yet. The burgundy color's great, the craftsmanship's spiff, and with accoutrements it's one of the best "adaptation/fantasy" rigs based on real stuff I've seen in a long time.

Russ Mitchell

Spending priorities. It's not a question of "can" for me, but a question of "how do I choose to." If I've entered into a layaway agreement, I've committed to that spend, and I don't spend it somewhere in a cafe on a whim. (Though I agree that folks who are truly economically marginal probably should...

Russ Mitchell

Sounds like really good stuff if you're working regularly with horses.

Russ Mitchell

Go to your local community college and get time with the ceramics instructor. You need an experienced eye who can spot trouble ahead of time.

Re: STL prototyping recommendations?

Re: Selling leather lamellar chest piece.

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: STL prototyping recommendations?

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

STL prototyping recommendations?

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Mounted Cavalry Charge with lances

Re: Mounted Cavalry Charge with lances

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: NEED TUTORIAL: mold-making

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: NEED TUTORIAL: mold-making

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: Can anyone shed some light on this "Splinted Coat of Pla

Re: NEED TUTORIAL: mold-making

Re: NEED TUTORIAL: mold-making

Re: NEED TUTORIAL: mold-making

NEED TUTORIAL: mold-making

Re: Articulating leather breastplate question

Re: Articulating leather breastplate question

Re: Mike Loades tests Egyptian Scale Armor

Re: WTS Grozer Hungarian Extra III

Re: Feeler -- Horsebows for SCA: what poundage would folks n

Feeler -- Horsebows for SCA: what poundage would folks need?

Re: Price drop "Untold Wealth"/"period gorget" links

Re: Buying Armour the Good ole fashioned way... layaway...

Re: 430 Stainless Experience?

Re: Have kiln, will heat treat. Advice?