The Armour Archive

Mac

It would be interesting to caliper some of Wades elbows between the wing and the bowl. He was thinning them a bit more than I was comfortable there, at least for SCA combat. But different forces are at play there than for real armour. In theory, one could make the wings any thickness that one wante...

Mac

I would probably do it in just one piece folded over. No need for clamping. Or just have some extra material and rivet the end. This sounds like a great idea, but I wonder if it doesn't have practical problems. In my mind, I see it getting out of control as the two layers do slightly different thin...

Mac

Sean, You have got me there! I should have thought this out more carefully before I made a blanket statement like that. :oops: Now, I would argue the the rivets on Ulrich's helmet may be for a lining strip, but the ones on those gauntlets are clearly decorative. Likewise, the big fancy rivets around...

Mac

Here is another example of those rivets in the demigreave underlap. This one was formerly in the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester MA. I don't know if it ended up in the Worcester Art Museum or not. https://i.pinimg.com/564x/01/f8/c8/01f8c8b6df59edfa9b5a9548955c2bf1.jpg I think these might be the o...

Mac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmKghGw6MA I like the way Slava P. has done this project. Beginning by thinning out the parts that don't need to be thick is a thing I have always wanted to play with, but never had the power hammer or the elbow to do. Performing that process with both blanks at once...

Mac

Glad I noticed this! I was going to add liners to some reproduction late 15th cent gothic cuisses. I added the lining strips years ago but never got around to making them. I remember asking Mac the same questions. I wanted to make a padded liner at the time. I remember Mac saying if I was going to ...

Mac

Did you have any other thoughts on how the "lining strips" might have been used? The important thing is that they didn't put rivets in for decoration until the 17th C. If there's a rivet there (and no reason to think that someone made the hole recently) it did something. Now, that said, there's bee...

Mac

I like the lower gorget front, wich looks like a nice fit to the stop rib on the breast plate. Is that a thing? I never saw.. or to be fair I never noticed something like that. Do you mean that gorget/bevor thingy, displayed under the kettle hat? They are certainly a thing, but probably not a very ...

Mac

It seems like the consensus here was inconclusive on lining. Any other thoughts? I am sorely tempted to try a fairly lightly quilted lining that extends from the cuisse to the knee but I keep debating on how that might impact function. Any thoughts? Whatever you decide to do about linings, I recomm...

Mac

It's the Agincourt center, in Agincourt (I think), France. The armour has been made mainly (if not only) by Rudolf Harywald, french armourer. Thank you! I had not previously been aware of his work. This is what it's like sometimes, being an Old Goat. Some days you look around and find that some you...

Mac

This image just came across my Pinterest somehow.

It's a nice display of high quality modern stuff. Does anyone have any idea where it is?

Thanks!
Mac

Mac

I've sent an email to the nice folks at Thermomart to see how to proceed on getting the extra SSR. And a new ceramic insulator for the thermocouple. If you look closely at the picture you can see that the thermocouple has a small chip in it. That insulator had been in the middle and chipped in ship...

Mac

The thermocouple is oval shaped and I will need to wallow out the round hole in the kiln for it. No big deal. The shape of the "plate" on the thermocouple shouldn't be a problem, so long as the business end gets all the way through the firebricks. I have the thermocouple of my kiln just stuck in th...

Mac

You all mark every piece of armour that comes out of your shop? Elbows, vambraces ? Or just the larger assemblies. One stamp for each arm harness, leg, Helm or BP? I like to stamp a mark on anything that can be thought of as "piece of armor" when you go to put it on, or on any piece that can easily...

Mac

Ok... so I'm thinking about how I might go about this punch, and I have a different idea. Rather than making up a counter punch with the crossed swords, I think I would make up one with a single sword and stamp it twice into the final punch. This eliminates the difficult place in between the sword h...

Mac

So.. lets talk about the punch itself. https://i.imgur.com/sItaSUPl.jpg?2 This is a pretty ambitious punch for a couple of reasons.... --It looks like you used a counter-counter-punch to make the circles in the pommels, and that's certainly the thing to do. :) --The space between the hilts is diffic...

Mac

There's a lot of material to cover here, so let's start with the question in the title. I have used a kick press to stamp signature rings for mail. It's pretty well suited to that, since the stock is flat and I can stamp up a string of "presumptive rings" and then blank out and finish the good ones....

Mac

Mac, I flattened a piece of thin copper wire and bent a small lip under it. I was able to slip it in there but I'm not sure if its going up into it or just under it. Let me rethink this and try again in the morning when I'm not full of pizza and beer. :oops: :wink: Okey doke. I know what effect a s...

Mac

Otto, It looks like there's a fair bit of space under the head of that rivet that holds the tail fragment . Can you probe the underside of that rivet head with a very thin bent wire? A paperclip is probably too thick. A sewing pin might work. A single strand of copper electric wire from a multi-stra...

Mac

--Although there is a leather lining strip in the forehead which appears to have been sewn to, and there are lining rivets around the rest of the skull, there are no lining rivets around the facial. I expect to see them there, but I must admit that I don't know if they are "mandatory": we seldom ge...

Mac

--There does not seem to be any delamination of the edges or the surfaces that I can see. This suggests modern steel. I've just had a closer look at the image which shows the edge of the bevor hem . I do see what appears to be delamination there, so I'll back off on that objection... especially if ...

Mac

Of course my opinion may be swayed and I still welcome any comments. If anyone things its real, please chime in with any reasoning, If you think its fake please do the same. the more trained eyes looking at it the better! I want to believe its real, but I cant let that cloud my judgement. In fact, ...

Mac

Indeed, I have never been one for waving hand around issues, I like to try to investigate and find out.. Good on you! I find that there are so many difficult issues that I have to hand wave a bit on the really dicey ones or I'd never get anything done 8) I think this requires a pinterest board.. Ye...

Mac

So, now we come to the difficult questions. Making the stuff we can see work with the stuff we can't see is always trouble. I am happy that I am not the only one being confused and troubled here. :D Ah... but now you see.. you're obliged to try to figure these things out and tell us how you did. :w...

Mac

An ancillary question might be "how are these guys holding up their boots?" https://i.pinimg.com/564x/64/c3/fe/64c3fe88eee96ea744a83d004d25a26e.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ab/7b/50/ab7b50caa753591a3b08820db82a43a3.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/6d/2e/ec/6d2eeca381d979caaae91674c5546429.jpg Perhaps ...

Mac

When we are discussing this, can we elaborate on the pointing of legs during the 16th century? There are a few areas where I have trouble understanding how they did things. So, now we come to the difficult questions. Making the stuff we can see work with the stuff we can't see is always trouble. 1....

Mac

Rene K. wrote:

Now, this is starting to ring a bell.

Somewhere in the back of my head I think I remember shorter tassets with unaccountable pairs of holes. I can't remember where, though.

Mac

Mac

Do you mean like this here ? https://i.pinimg.com/564x/96/1d/a5/961da5f697778c982d5fbd8d4483f5d6.jpg Oh dear! That's not going to work very well at all. Twisting at the waist will try to drag the cuisses around, with unpleasant results. I think we are seeing something that was done to make the armo...

Mac

Xtracted wrote: I am looking for evidence of cuisses being "pointed", perhaps by the use of straps and buckles, to the inside of the lower part of a fauld or lamed tassets rather then being pointed to a garment.

That's not ringing any bells for me.

Mac

Mac

Do you mean something unusual than a 3/4 armor like this one?

Mac

Mac

That's a very nice shape! It's good to see it in straight side views. What a shame about that big dent in the back. :cry: I could tell that there was damage there from the previous photos, but it was hard to judge the depth and extent of it. It looks like some well intentioned person has tried to "f...

Mac

Hmmmm.... someone else's head, then.

Mac

Mac

.... and have you tried the helmet on your head yet? Of course you have

So, let's see the pics

Mac

Mac

Yes the bevors closed, but a bit warped. The spring catch is there but no longer engages. Things that have gotten warped out of shape can usually be brought back to the way they were with a bit of careful persuasion... especially if nothing has gotten kinked or stretched. I think I see what your sa...

Mac

I'll be back with more pics. Starting to think it "might" be real. Still cant believe it. Need to keep calm..... Feeling giddy and dizzy. Cant ..let ..my....judgement be clouded. I'm thinking it's a nice modern(ish) helmet.... perhaps Ernst Schmidt. That said, though, it looks like there has been a...

Re: A video recommendation

Re: A video recommendation

Re: Late Fourteenth Century Arming Garments III: The Legs

Re: Late Fourteenth Century Arming Garments III: The Legs

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Re: Late Fourteenth Century Arming Garments III: The Legs

Re: Late Fourteenth Century Arming Garments III: The Legs

Re: Where is this?

Re: Late Fourteenth Century Arming Garments III: The Legs

Re: Where is this?

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Re: Kiln and the heat treating rabbit hole.

Re: Kiln and the heat treating rabbit hole.

Re: Anyone use a press for "striking" Touch marks?

Re: Anyone use a press for "striking" Touch marks?

Re: Anyone use a press for "striking" Touch marks?

Re: Anyone use a press for "striking" Touch marks?

Re: Question about tail attachment on Maximilian close helm

Re: Question about tail attachment on Maximilian close helm

Re: Question about tail attachment on Maximilian close helm

Re: Question about tail attachment on Maximilian close helm

Re: Question about tail attachment on Maximilian close helm

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Strapping cuisses to fauld/tassets

Re: Question about tail attachment on Maximilian close helm

Re: Question about the tail attachment on Maximilian close h

Re: Question about the tail attachment on Maximilian close h

Re: Question about the tail attachment on Maximilian close h

Re: Question about the tail attachment on Maximilian close h