The Armour Archive

Mac

Jestyr, Thanks for posting the reversed and isolated heads. It helps to see it a different way. A thing I was trying to do in addition to tilting the helm to a more normal position was to tilt the head within the helm back to normal as well. With a great basinet, there is a certain amount of movemen...

Mac

Irish, I like how you have dealt with the place where the visor interacts with the weird crest and "notch" of the bevor. Making the visor's posterior edge have a point there, and continuing the crest onto the visor both look good. I wish that Konrad Leib had painted it that way! On the oth...

Mac

Here is the next version. I have reduced the point to vestigiality in response to Jeff's poignant query. I have also added the visor and the "dorky little crown" to the side elevation. I can't tell what the decoration is really like on the crown, but this can stand in for it. I've also alt...

Mac

Irish, I don't really like the chin either. I'm trying to reconcile Konrad Laib's painting with mechanical reality and the necessity of fitting a human head; but having difficulty. The chin has to be pretty prominent to work with the visor. I have altered the size of the "lip" in the next ...

Mac

Thank you Jeff! You are absolutely right. If the helmet in the Laib painting has a point at all it is very blunt. I don't know why I didn't see it that way. I guess it goes to show how we are blinded by our preconceptions. Since this is one of my standard teaching points, I'm kind of humiliated to h...

Mac

Here is today's sketch of the helmet. I have made it a little wider at the temples, as per Aussie Dave's suggestion. I made an effort to make it look more like the cool red hat that Longinus is wearing. To this end I also moved the point farther forward and swung the converging lines of the sub-occi...

Mac

Dave, Thank you for posting that pic. That's a liner for a stechhelm. It's a different beast really. As for the gorget lames on leathers; I think we would be on very shaky ground if we tried to define the great basinet in term of out perceptions of its purpose. There are no surviving great basinets ...

Mac

Dave, I can not bring to mind the thing you are talking about with the head models and the padding. Can you find a pic? You may well be right about the padding. Adding a little more room around the crown of the head would make the thing look more like Longinus' red hat. I'll make that change tonight...

Mac

That would be excellent Sasha!

If the tent is made in an older tradition, a few good
photos could tell us a lot about bygone practices in
tent construction.

Good luck and God speed.
Mac

Mac

Here is my sketch of the helmet from the Crucifixion scene that begins this thread. I am presuming it to be a great basinet with two gorget lames. I am presuming that the bevor pivots at the same place as the visor. This is certainly not the only way to interpret this helmet, it's just the way I int...

Mac

I have been inquiring about this tent on another board. It turns out that it is a 19th C tent. It is in the Samarkand museum of the history, culture and art of the nations of Uzbekistan. The label in the adjacent picture turns out to have nothing to do with the tent. Even, so it would be interesting...

Mac

Deirick, I wish I could be 90% certain of anything about the helmets of that period. So little has survived from an age that seemed to be filled with wonders. I started making a sketch of the helmet the other day, but I can not satisfy myself that I understand it. I think you are right to be concern...

Mac

Galvyn Lockhart wrote:Does it appear to anyone else that the archer's horse has an armoured belly?

I think he is supposed to be a "dapple gray". I have seen similar representations where it is clear that the artist was showing the horses color(s).

Mac

Mac

could it be a ger that someone kinda made "Square" in displaying it? The hangings on the inside really make me think Ger. Maeryk, If you take a round canopy and make it square, the edges will not be straight and horizontal. It seems clear to me that this tent has always been square. As to...

Mac

Norman,

I saw that the label in the subsequent pic mentioned Timur Lenk, but I could not tell if that applied to the tent.

Wouldn't it be something if it were a late 14th C tent!?

Do you think you can find out anything more?

Mac

Mac

Christopher,

I feel certain that it is square. Look at the layout of the seams
on the canopy. If it were round, the seams would radiate from
the center.

Mac

Mac

I followed a link by Len Parker in the leather armor thread and found this image of an (Usbeki?) tent. The image is at this url m Can someone who can read Russian tell me more about this? Thanks! Mac [img]http://museum.velizariy.kiev.ua/uzbek/uzb/images/uzbek001.jpg[/img] I'm sorry to start one of t...

Mac

If you go to museum.velizariy.kiev.ua and click on Y3bekictaH, then click on the leather boot, there's what appears to be a full suit of leather armour. I dont know whether it's original or a repro based on finds or someone's imagination . It's worth a look, sorry I don't know how to link it. I fol...

Mac

I'm just jerking your chain (as usual) Wade. The armor look nice, and Tracy has done a fine job on the clothing. Geofrey looks pretty pleased from his equestrian vantage point. I look forward to seeing the tassets when they are done. (We may make it down there for Christmas this year; perhaps we'll ...

Mac

No tassets??!!...

Wade, if you really loved your son, you would make him some tassets....

Mac

Mac

I'm thinking "fake" as well. The hinges would never work, yet there is no evidence for a centrally mounted hinge. The sights are too far apart and at the wrong angle to work with the rest of the shape. The "mouth" reminds me of a couple other fakes in Paris. The only thing it has...

Mac

One thing about warping and carburization is that the piece must be held at a at a high temperature for a rather long time. this is necessary for the carbon to diffuse into the steel. A piece that will not warp appreciably if it is in a kiln at 1525f for five minutes may well flatten out of its own ...

Mac

I fixed one that had been carburized. It had warped badly (or perhaps more likely saged) in the carburizing process. It was a basinet, and the cheek pieces ended up about 5 inches apart. The heat treaters did not quench it, because even they could see that it was screwed up. Instead, I suppose they ...

Mac

Errant Knight wrote:thanks Mac,

much appreciate your knowledge and effort. Small plates is the winner.

I have some questions about some other projects, I'm hoping you might be able to help out with. If it is all right with you I might send you a pm when I put the post up.

You're welcome. Please do.

Mac

Mac

Here is a link to a picture of the left gauntlet from the #18 armor at Churburg.

If you look closely, you can see the outlines of the finger plates under the leather strip.

http://picasaweb.google.com/smokedim/Ga ... 5126095314

Mac

Mac

E Knight, You may rest assured that those rivets are securing plates, and are not just there by themselves. The gauntlets from Churburg which Sasuky posted the picture of, certainly have plates under the leather. They are described that way in the Churburg catalog. There is, of course, a possibility...

Mac

Sasuky is exactly right. The Ch18 gauntlets from Churburg are a good comparanda for the finger construction. The finger scales are riveted to the inside of a leather strip. By contrast, he distal finger plate is riveted to the outside, where it looks like a finger nail. The fingers of the glove are ...

Mac

Sean,

Put the rest of the holes in. If all the holes are already there, assembly will be much quicker, and the eye slit size will be right every time.

The only holes you can't put in ahead of time are the ones on the cap.

Mac

Mac

MPF,

I offered some advice on this topic back in this thread.

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... 17#1350617

I think it should help you some.

Mac

Mac

I still hold to never having seen anything like the Ch13. - every time someone tells me otherwise - what they produce (if anything- usually I get the "I can't find it now but I did have it") looks more like a covered breastplate or a corrozana (sp) etc... Would LOVE to see something that ...

Mac

Also there is another common picture around here, which I can't find at the moment, which shows soldiers breaking camp and all that is still up is the roof, center pole, and guy ropes. The walls have already been taken down. Steve Here it is in B and W m There is a nicer, color pic out there, but I...

Mac

Question(s): I am going to presume that the walls of period tents are permanantly attached. If I wanted to duplicate in a modern reconstruction with removeable walls, would the walls anchor inside the hoop or outside? Thanks, Sean Sean, I don't think there is any reason to assume that the walls mus...

Mac

Big difference, a canopy suspended from a roof will hang there for as long as the roof does. A canopy suspended from the top of a pole will stay there as long as the pole is standing -ie it requires some method of keeping the pole UP. Either with guy ropes or possibly a large base to hold the pole ...

Mac

I think that is is very possible, or perhaps even likely, that the King Rene tent in this image is a "yurt-like" structure. m The red seam lines all look as though they contain batons. So long as the canopy was firmly attached to the walls, it should stand. The guy ropes would keep the ten...

Mac

Sean Powell wrote:I'm not certain what to think but I AM in the market for a new tent and this is strongly driving me towards a hoop tent of some sort.

Can this system work on an oval?

Sean

works for me.....

http://billyandcharlie.com/tents/tent_marqueeclosed.JPG
http://billyandcharlie.com/tents/tent_marqueeopen.JPG

Mac

Russian tent