The Armour Archive

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Dude, why do you even need to ask???
I've seen period armour straight out of museums that looks crude in comparison.

Ditch the glasses and the vinal siding, rumple the hair just a little so the style doesn't look quite so modern, and you could have stepped right out of an effegy.

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Board thickness varied wildly....cemetary finds of boss rivets show board thickness of 3.8 mm all the way up to almost 9 mm. You keep saying "all the way up to" - you do realize that 3.8 mm is less than 1/8 of an inch , right? and 9mm is less than 3/8"!?! That means the thickest shield we've found,...

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The complex curves. The shield appears bell-shaped in cross-section: very difficult to achive in wood. Not impossible, but very difficult.

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I didn't know that lime was also from the linden, but yes. It's just that so many of us who've dabbeled in carving are familiar with the properties of basswood. Dave, are you certain about those thicknesses??? I find it hard to immagine defending myself with nothing but a 3/8" thick disk of un-rimme...

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trystan wrote:...they're uglier than a hat full of assholes.

I'd like to ban that hat full of assholes, please!
What an immage!

*shudder*

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Something to toss into the ring: We hear of "lindenwood" being used as a common shield materiel. Linden, however is basswood . Yes, that soft, ultralight wood so good for carving was apparently good for shields. So yes, I can see a well-thrust spear passing through an inch-thick shield of basswood ....

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"Eh ", I thought upon seeing the first pic, "okay. Could be a hell of a lot worse" "OH. " I said to myself after seeing the second. "Never mind. This guy nailed it." seeing the gauntlets articulated and wraped around the rattan really makes them look sharp. Well done. Those flutes look like English ...

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Mon Dieu! Put in that context, that' frigging CREEPY! Dang it, I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

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Oops. Typo. Adriano: The reason two-sword didn't get used historicaly becomes BLATENTLY obvious the minute you pick up a real sword. A sword like a Viking Type K or S, or an Oakshotte Type X, is a CUTTER. They're vicious, brutal, cleaving swords, and a well made example can match any Katana ever mad...

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No, never heard of Jesse Bycock -nor any of the other authors. I just read the sagas every now and again.

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The arguement, however, goes like this: the sagas--especially the family sagas--were not written down until 200 to 300 hundred years after the event. The saga are a product of an oral-historic tradition interrupted by someone writing them down (namely Snorri Sturluson and friends). Over the hundred...

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Sir Mord, I've been hearing the exact opposite. The amount of detail provided, concerning the ways of life and the particulars of combat that we can and have verified through new dig findings and experemental archaeology, leads us to believe that the sagas largely *were* based on real life happenings.

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Yes, I'm quite aware of what steel skined doors are.

I, however, had no idea they made hammers specificly for their repair, and by their name, one would have though the hammers were MADE from said skins.

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Sword and Spear (actualy, maybe it was a glave -"hewing spear", whatever that is) -Grettir's Saga, when he takes on the dozen (or was it twenty) drunk, unarmored bandits caught in the stairwell. That would be FUN. A short one-handed spear-shaped polearm and a stout hard-hitting sword... Goooood stu...

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Door skin???

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Hmm... I would have guessed around $5000, but whatever. $1300 it ain't.

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so "in chief" is anything above the main charge? Interesting. I know a charge is "proper" when it's in it's natural ordinary position -in the case of a spearhead (pheon), that's up and down. But how about a diagonal one like this? Example 3 And you can say there's two phaeons in chief and they'll be...

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Now that I've got your attention...! I have a number of "problems" with placing multiple symbols on a single coat of arms that I don't know quite how to deal with, so I'm throwing up examples, and I'd be obiged if anyone could help me describe them in proper heraldic language. Here's a pair of simpl...

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Life-Sized Fly.

I love it!

Thanks!

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Fantastic find. Can we get a date and location on this?

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How long does/did it take to get your horse accustomed to the lance?

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Make many. Go to anime conventions. Sell to gamers as dice bags for exhorbitent profits.

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I'm speachless! The only things I can think to say aren't fit for public consumption.

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...whatcha gonna do with a longship in Missouri?

Cooooool toy.

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No, sometimes the customer is damned wrong. But the customer is ALWAYS the customer.

You can be right if you want, but you might have to give up the customer.

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There was a picture in Warfare in the Classical World of an unfolded Caliga cut from a single piece of leather, in all it's intracacy. It's a single pattern that you can flip to do either foot. I think that's what you are looking for. Don't be descieved by the looks of the book, it's quite good. Joh...

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http://www.lcgworks.com/movies/pictures ... 20arc.html

That one was Joan of Arc. The Made for TV movie was superior in most respects.

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Umm... I didn't.

Maybe I'm just careful. ...or maybe I designed my mace so I couldn't hit my own hand with it.

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Ugh. I detest their stamped stuff, and I don't think they fly well either. They make great tomahawks, decent knives -although I have issues with some of them as well- mediocre swords -you can actualy get more bang for your buck from del-tin or even windlass- and crappy stamped weapons. I'd prefer ma...

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Thinking about it from an economic perspective, slightly different from Chef's, it would make perfect *sense* to want to decorate one's armor -along with everything else- with fragile, beautiful, disposible items. In the economic model of the middle ages, the great Lords were the instigators of near...

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Don't know about purpleheart's, but leather shields in general are TOUGH. Very durable and resiliant. I don't know how they'll hold up against aluminum wasters or steel blunts, but if your training with wooden wasteers or rattan, it ought to be better by far than anything made of steel.

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YIPES! Now THAT'S what I call a sporting chance -but why would the *men* subject themselves to that? Chronique de Lombardeaux , Mar. 9, A.D. 1386 Sports Cat wins! Gulian the brewer lost the use of one eye in yesterday's match, along with other less disfiguring injuries. He is currently in the care o...

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Wait, what? You don't know the Pater Noster already? YOU NEED THIS : http://home.earthlink.net/~thesaurus/ Sorry, the 23rd isn't in there. May I suggest the 84th? and after the battle -especialy if you're victorious that day, the 150th. If you want, I can try to record .wav files of me the Pater Nos...

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Hear, hear!

an inverted demicrescent in chief!?! or: heraldry problems!