The Armour Archive

Andrew Young

Business has picked up considerably. Ive hired two assistants and am now thinking of making a treadle hammer. Ive seen plans and commentary around here. I guess what Im interested in in something thats fairly simple to build and yet packs a helluva punch. Id be interested in hearing about any member...

Andrew Young

Same here....its odd.

Andrew Young

Love em!

Andrew Young

here are a few:

www.historicenterprises.com

www.revivalclothing.com

Andrew Young

Ditto, very nice!.

Andrew Young

Konstantin the Red wrote:And the pic notwithstanding, the chin cup does not surround your mouth. It just cups the chin as a chin cup should.

Lol....Konstantine is exactly right.......it goes around your chin proper, not your mouth.

Andrew Young

Well, in effect, thats what many faulds and coat of plates did. It tends to work when the body part is sliding together or compressing. But it doesnt work as well when bending at anything more than 20 degrees (and most historical cops and lames achieve close to 30-40 degress I would estimate). But i...

Andrew Young

On a recent trip to the beach, the wife and I met up with the curator of a great museum in Delaware. Its called the Discover Sea Shipwreck Museum In talks with the curator I may be doing some repros for the museum which is always fun. But the cool part was when he took out the 300 year old English R...

Andrew Young

Word to the wise:

Just because it has fluting doesnt mean its gothic or authentic.

....or pretty. (although in this case, its not too bad).

Andrew Young

Oh man Karen, you caught me with my pants down ("toiletries".....ba dum chhh)

Well I was thinking more in the way of latter middle ages/renaissance to say...the mid 17th century (that silver jamestown earpick might be a clue

)

Andrew Young

I haven't had a complaint yet, only compliments. But I'll let someone else chime in for me. I whole heartedly say amen to that. Best Armorer I have ever delt with, hands down. But what are your criteria? How many armourers have you dealt with? And what types of things were you aquiring? I could say...

Andrew Young

No. In my opinion, the SCA is about the Age of the Armoured Warrior, the Knight in Shining Armour. Once you start getting into Three Muskateers, my vision is shattered. Steve And yet Steve, by the time of the Knight in full and completed Shining Armour (circa 1400)...guns had been around for the be...

Andrew Young

I grant that they look decent and have good potential but I see prices like that and can easily envision the slow decline of armourers here. Its the Walmart syndrome: cheap products from overseas destroyed manufacturing here. In that same vein while there is a degree of bias against such products, t...

Andrew Young

I jest...but seriously....how do you define a clean track record Matt? Because the problem as I see it is that its really arbitrary. Case in point I will never screw anyone over and I always deliver....but there have been miscommunications which were not always my fault. And in some cases delays hav...

Andrew Young

I have a bunch of six foot long shallow pits in my backyard that has nothing to do with my clean track with even the most trying customers.

Andrew Young

Hey Karen --Im looking for earpicks and funky toiletry items...can you oblige

Andrew Young

I might be picturing this wrong, but it seems like that design might be helped by a third hole on each side. Run the loose ends back through the chin piece before tying them together, so that the knot will rest against the leather rather than sliding back towards your throat, or rubbing skin raw or...

Andrew Young

Well I can say for a fact that parachute cords WILL hold up for years, decades even. Ive not yet heard of any new anti cord rule, but I can say that Ill quietly ignore it for safety sake because I know for a fact that my parachute cord used for my chinstrap will hold up under extreme duress and cond...

Andrew Young

I think its especially cool when someone in historical armour "masters" their fighting and wins against someone in modern, less restrictive armour. I think that proves that it is possible to engage in a fast paced, highly mobile sport with period equipment. It can be done. also, these guy...

Andrew Young

Few thoughts. Look at actual nails on historical furniture. You can contact most museums for photo requests of their collection and most will oblige. But chances are you can find images online too. Translate the word nail into various european languages when googling....remember not everyone speaks ...

Andrew Young

I often think of sca combat as rather akin to latter medieval tournament combat. Similar but toned down. In this way I can reconcile it.

And fortunately the PAS folks have sprung up to help satisfy a closer ideal for the cap-a-pied tankboys.

Andrew Young

This is the image which I described above.... The X is where the cord would be tied to a steel loop welded inside the helmet. The upside down U curved shape of the cord (next to the X) is where the cord would be looped through the steel loop and pulled to tighten it. http://www.partsandtechnical.com...

Andrew Young

Yes that is cool Duco.

Nice job.

Andrew Young

Nice.

Andrew Young

You can wear cuisses around your waist quite comfortably IF and only IF your belt is curved and several inches wide.....ie, not thin and straight. The curved belt fits wonderfully at the hips and allows for excellant weight distribution. Fundamentally speaking its no different than a tight fitting a...

Andrew Young

Bearing in mind I make and sell leg armour....Im keeping my opinion to maximum objectivity here. Id say they need more than a little tweaking. Cased greaves, if not made properly can create a number of problems and there are things you should look for which Ill rattle off. It can begin to hurt the i...

Andrew Young

lose the strap and buckle. Forget about it. Rather use a pully system. Basically one end of a cord ties to a small welded in loop inside, near the ear. Then loop the cord through two holes on the chinstrap .... ...pull the cord through the welded in loop, and back down. By pulling the cord, this cre...

Andrew Young

Eh you make good points though. Except that I think SCA armour has evolved to our interpretation of the rules though excessive slacktitude. Now, if I could shuck blows that wouldn't have penetrated real armor, I could wade all day through single-handed sword fighters without a problem. We simply don...

Andrew Young

Its also worth noting that there were most certainly "off the rack" munitions greaves that were not made for any specific person, rather incremental sizes. To that end, one should achive the approximate location of curves, lines and shaping per the incremental size.

Andrew Young

Im shamed and stand corrected.....

Andrew Young

Nah, the full set of legs only takes a few hours to make. Ive made so many at this point it goes pretty fast. Our materials we get virtually free and I have several assistants so it works out pretty well. Well, when you get it figured out and can get the price down to $365, I've got about a half do...

Andrew Young

My point exactly; you can have legs with a correctly period profile, or you can fight SCA-style. I have another gorgeous set of legs from Jeff Wasson that not only have the tapering cuisses that don't allow for fully flexed quads (and they're heat-treated to boot so there's no stretching them), the...

Andrew Young

Post some pics of your stuff.....

Andrew Young

Hi Klaus I cant speak for James but I dont think there is much you can do about that unless the design is modified quite a bit. Ive fought in many different legs and always found some tight muscle squashing happens when fighting on the knees.....but that position is not necessarily all that common i...

Andrew Young

Granted. I dont know casual conversational german other than VW german engineering http://a.beining.com/blog/uploaded_images/drop-it-like-its-hot-20060227054320212-775708.jpg but within the context of history or archeology that gist, grows deeper the more one familiarizes themself with the language....

Treadle Hammer Plans (and thoughts)

Rum, Sodemy and the Last Vacation I wont forget.....