The Armour Archive

Matthew Amt

Yeah, dog chews shouldn't be any problem, but they are generally boiled or otherwise treated, which not only makes them opaque white but also makes them a little weaker, and they don't shape as nicely as untreated rawhide. For a shield rim, it shouldn't make much difference, especially if you're goi...

Matthew Amt

James, how long have you had this wonderful site, and why didn't you TELL me about it?? Gonna add links all over my Midgard and Legio XX sites.

Oh, not sure if this will help, Rondel, but

http://www.larp.com/midgard/

Good luck!

Matthew

Matthew Amt

That cheap one with the blue handles is the same one I have, though yeah, I think you can find them even cheaper. Been using mine for years, made several loricas with it, and the 1/8" bit is getting worn but no other trouble. I never drill a hole unless the punch won't reach it! I think mine wa...

Matthew Amt

Khaire! Hah, thanks, Johann, you beat me to it! Some LONG discussions on the Roman Army Talk board that might help: m m Geez, that second one is 21 pages, but it should tell you far more than you ever wanted to know about the darn thing! I wouldn't say there was an EASY way to make one of these, sin...

Matthew Amt

Something that came to mind is that lorica musculata may only have been worn by highranking figures as a status symbol. Since pyre funerals seemed to be the norm any surving piece may have been burned. The deceased in a Roman cremation generally wore his toga, not his armor. The lorica musculata do...

Matthew Amt

The longer the shank, the more likely it is to bend rather than peen. Using nails to rivet two layers of metal together is not hard (though a little practice helps!), but trying to peen something an inch and a half thick, yeah, that's a pain! You might be better off clenching the nails, rather than ...

Matthew Amt

It certainly wasn't Caesar! It was a Roman author from a couple centuries later, as I recall, and it did not refer to Britain at all. It's a very brief and off-hand comment that armor of hide was useless in wet weather. It might even have been in a discussion of hippopotamus hide, I just don't remem...

Matthew Amt

"Mom, I need an asparagus costume for tomorrow." (When you're tucking the 3rd-grader in at 9 PM....)

So how's it going? Ten more hours until trick-or-treating starts!

Matthew

Matthew Amt

Just as a side note, *soldiers* considered barley to be punishment rations, since it was normally used as horse fodder. Wheat was the staple grain for troops. They also had plenty of meat in their diet. Beans were certainly carried on the march because they were easily dried for preservation. Can't ...

Matthew Amt

Oh, yeah, Holy Grail is the way to go. Or if you think something actually educational might be acceptable, History Channel did a rather good one called "The Quest for King Arthur". And I'm in it! Red tunic and green cap, rowing and handing things off the ship (we were Saxons migrating to B...

Matthew Amt

My own humble contribution:

http://www.larp.com/midgard/shoes.htm

Good luck!

Matthew

Matthew Amt

My wife has done glassworking, mostly marbles and doll eyes, and it can indeed be tricky. She uses MAPP gas with a "Hot Head" torch, and has a kiln with a programmable thermostat ($$$). And things can still crack. The concept is similar to annealing metal, but glass can be a lot more sensi...

Matthew Amt

I have no experience with SCA armor, but would rawhide work? I used that with alternating rows of bronze for my Mycenaean scale armor: m m Real unbleached rawhide works a lot better than dog chews. Apparently rawhide scale armor was hugely popular in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Bronze Age. Even Kin...

Matthew Amt

What, done with Hussites already?? You're worse than me, boyo...

Matthew

Matthew Amt

Fun stuff, Mark, you've been busy! (Does Katy know about this?) The advantage of a Yahoo group is that if there is information which has to get to people, it lands in their mailboxes. You don't have to remember to check whatever part of a forum to find it. The forum works better for us Bronze Age gu...

Matthew Amt

Isn't that amazing?? Almost dropped my teeth.

Here's another one, a tad cheaper and easier shipping for us Yanks:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ROMAN-GREEK-ANCIENT ... 0092370855

I've actually seen that one in action, at Roman Days last year. Can't believe he's selling it! Quite a machine.

Valete,

Matthew

Matthew Amt

Heck, Tolkien is what got me into medievalism and reenacting, back around 1980. When the movies came out I was a bit burned out on historical stuff, but jumped into making Uruk-hai armor and some other things. It was a blast! m Drooling over some High Elven armor made by various folks at Dragon Con ...

Matthew Amt

Neil Burridge in the UK:

http://www.templeresearch.eclipse.co.uk ... r_sale.htm

http://www.bronze-age-craft.com/products.htm

Those ferrous-alloy things are just a fad!

Matthew

Matthew Amt

HAH! There's our next impression, folks! Note that the lady on the right has her head properly covered. Authenticity or Death.

Matthew

Matthew Amt

Can't wait to see some future archeologist try to date your house with dendrochronology, Atli! ...Ive never heard of a coppiced tree... Never heard of it?!? YOU have been spending too much time with the metal stuff, boy! (Slap, slap!) Spearshafts were typically made of coppiced wood (or at least fro...

Matthew Amt

Ha, love it!! He's from the Bayeux Tapestry!

http://www.larp.com/midgard/baytap1.jpg

Gotta hand it to someone for sticking with the evidence. I'll bet it's even linen ebroidered with wool! Sorry, I realize that's not *exactly* what most folks are looking for on an SCA battlefield, but it's still hillarious.

Matthew

Matthew Amt

Avete! I realize most of these are made for SCA combat and aren't meant to be replicas of ancient pieces, but thought I'd throw in some originals for inspiration. m (From the Legio VI "Real Gear" page, m ) m m (Already mentioned above) m m (Muscled pectoral plate!) One thing to remember wi...

Matthew Amt

Well, not sure I can give an unbiased opinion, since she's my sister, but: m I don't think she'll do hand-sewing for you (hems and cuffs), but otherwise she's got the least expensive generally-accurate clothing around! Like she says, you tell her how accurate you want to be in terms of cut, fabric, ...

Matthew Amt

Ave! Head on over to the Roman Army Talk board and dig around there: m The search function works a little too well, so it may take some combing through way too many threads, but I'm sure there have been a couple on making musculata, there. Check out the Greek section, as well. Also DO look through T...

Matthew Amt

Not sure if either of these would work for SCA--it would probably depend on what wood you use, the type of glue, and what you cover it all with. These are for making the Greek hoplite shield or aspis (often called a hoplon), the first method being the popular plywood ring method, the second being th...

Matthew Amt

Well, the box that contained the Roman Corbridge armor hoard was dovetailed, so that's early 2nd century AD. Doesn't mean the method was used by everyone after that, though, of course! The box shown in your post doesn't seem to be dovetailed, just butted. (The Corbridge box also had iron reinforceme...

Matthew Amt

Wow, we're trying to cover almost a thousand years of evolution, here, over a very wide area. Not easy! Yes, bronze swords of a couple different styles from the Late Bronze Age were also made in iron. In Greece that would be the Naue II, which is intriguing since the Bronze Age Greeks had never been...

Matthew Amt

Ave! If you want to do it inexpensively, why not just use steel? You can probably scrounge it from a dumpster or trash pile without even looking for scrap yards. A steel musculata is even more likely, historically speaking, than a leather one, and will shine up prettier. Cheap, too! Finding a piece ...

Matthew Amt

Avete! Yup, pretty much what Tascius said. I couldn't say one way or the other about it being derived from a Celtic practice, but it really does seem to have developed from having several split ends on the belt hanging down. There are several clear depictions of this in late Republican Roman art. It...

Matthew Amt

Sign me up! Doing the "Quest for King Arthur" filming a few years back was great fun, and I even got my face on film! So I should definitely get on your list. (No idea if I'll actually be able to make it to any of these gigs, but...) You know I'm good for just about any era you can come up...

Matthew Amt

Mathew...by the shit, I meant deep and far from supply lines.....not in a battle OH! Okay, gotcha. The Romans had VERY good logistics, so they always had their supply lines--you can't keep your army alive without them. You can do short hops in "light marching order", meaning the men's pac...

Matthew Amt

Wasn't the state issuing armor directly related to when they started allowing non landholders into service?I know towards the end of romes expansion and the splitting of the empire the equipment was showing the effects of most mass produced stuff...Namely it kept getting simplified and aesthetic ap...

Matthew Amt

Not to be dragging this farther off-topic, but the supply system for the first and second centuries AD is very puzzling and unclear. It does appear that the army is having gear "mass produced", or at least continuously produced, probably mostly by local contractors, but some may have been ...

Matthew Amt

Ah! That's actually conceivable. One of the finds from Chichester (I believe) is an apparent upper shoulder guard that is all one piece rather than 3 plates hinged together. While it has been interpreted as part of a set of plate shoulders attached to a mailshirt (and I feel that the long rivets sti...

Matthew Amt

Ave! Nope, never seen solid shoulders on any Roman armor! You mean like a one-piece dished pauldron, right? There are some nice ones from Bronze Age Greece, several centuries before Romulus and Remus, but they don't even survive into the Archaic or Classical eras, much less the Roman Empire. The art...