The Armour Archive

Mac

Patrick, There is good information in that book but you have extract it from the ore. Mr. Ffoulkes did not distinguish between matters of fact and matters of opinion. He had a deep dislike of ornamentation in armor, and will try to make you dislike it too. He also presents a couple of drawings which...

Mac

Galfred, I have read your post on plaque belts with keen interest! There are a number of points I would like to comment on. I hope to do so in the next few days, as I organize my thoughts. First, though, I would like to compliment you on the ingenuity of the "skeletal overlay" part of your...

Mac

sha-ul, In the version which I posted above, the breastplate ends at the horizontal decorative band, and there is cleavage embossed into the gorget. The gorget should be etched to look like fabric. I see two possible ways to represent the higher necked Elizabethan bodices (like this one m ) The firs...

Mac

Here is my vision of what an Elizabethan lady's armor might have looked like. This is the less well known "Armour for ye Field for my Lady Compton" (with apologies to Jacob Halder). The front plate of the gorget would be made of breastplate weight material. The necklace could be done as an...

Mac

Jason,

That's a pretty forthright way to do it! I think you win the prize for "most authentic technique". I bow to you sir!

Mac

Mac

sha-ul, No. They are such cheesy pliers that I was able to use a file. I made the surface for grabbing the rivet square or "diamond" shaped rather than round. This allows me to use it on rivets of different shank diameters with more or less equal facility. If they had been too hard to file...

Mac

Garreth, This is the tool I use for stepping rivets down for use in spring catches etc. It's a cheap locking pliers with modified jaws. I clamp the rivet in the jaws, and file the step in with a safe edged file. The resulting rivet stem is not truly round, but it's plenty round enough to be a rivet....

Mac

So, I finally got around to looking at that bag of photos. Although it turned out to be three bags of photos, there no others of the woman's thorax. I did however find another woman's armor I built in the late '80s (?) The cuirasse and arms are based on early 15th c. English brasses. The central cr...

Mac

I cant tell if those look like boobs or something like a placard that goes up to a point. But if you think they are boobs, then I think they are boobs. Thank you Pitbull Mr. Pitbull, Look higher up, above the plackard. Her right breast obscures the armhole on that side. Her left is mostly suggested...

Mac

Russ, According to wikipedia... "The Merck Index gives LD50s for mice: 0.166 mg/kg (intravenously); 0.328 mg/kg intraperitoneally (injected into the body cavity); approx. 1 mg/kg orally (ingested).[1] In rats, the oral LD50 is given as 5.97 mg/kg. Oral doses as low as 1.5 â€“ 6 mg aconitine wer...

Mac

Here is a picture of Joan of Arc from 1451. It probably doesn't tell us much about how she was really armed, but it tells us how an artist 20 years after the fact thinks she should have been armed. In spite of how she was well known to have worn men's cloths, the artist seems to have felt compelled ...

Mac

Ralph,

No! wait! If you roll the hem to the upper surface it will be a bastard to grind and polish. Roll it to the underside instead. This will preserve the authentic look of the upper surface, and make it easier to finish.

Mac

Mac

Aussie Dave,

That's the final width of the upper breastplate. Any additional width you will need for hems (rolls) will have to be added to that measurement.

Mac

Mac

Mac, If I'm reading your description right, the edge of the BPs arm insets should be about 1/2 to 3/4s of an inch off the chest. The center of the BP can be basically as close as comfortable though. This gives the pectoral room to move under the breastplate, while maximizing width. Would this be co...

Mac

Pitbull, Most of the weight should still be on the shoulders, although some will probably come to fall on the hips, especially when the wearer bends to the side. The trick is to not let any of the weight fall on the structures which have to move. It comes down to a question of how to keep the breast...

Mac

Ralph, I don't see much evidence for hems on kettle hat brims. I would just make sure that the edges are a bit rounded and smooth. If your customer hangs out with people who play with steel weapons, an un-hemmed edge shouldn't frighten them much.... Show us a picture of the new brim outline. Mac

Mac

Ralph,

I think you should get rid of the two squarish corners at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions on the brim. Just let the 12 o'clock point fade gently into the full width of the brim at 6 and 9.

Mac

Here is a quick sketch of what a "split" front/back view might look like for a type "3e".

I use this type of view a lot in my notebooks, but I'm not sure that everyone finds them easy to understand. What do y'all think?

Mac

Mac

Thanks again guys! VRIN, Id seems like the visors have to be treated with a typology of their own. So, you might have a "type 3e basinet with a type 2a visor", or whatever... Jason, I am torn over the question of front and rear views. On one hand, they could clarify some differences betwee...

Mac

Steel, The problem is not that the breast plate is too wide at the top. It is that it is sitting too close to your body at the top. In order to move your arms freely, there must be sufficient distance between your upper chest and the upper breastplate to allow your shoulder to travel forward unhinde...

Mac

Thanks for the continued response! White Mountain, I had never seen a side view of that thing before. I frankly don't trust it. If the skull is real, I don't think that this is its original configuration. In any case, I will shy away from including it in my typology. Ralph, Thanks! It's true; the lo...

Mac

Thanks for your responses so far guys. mackenzie, I don't have any plans as of yet to include date ranges. I see where it would be useful, but it would be an awful lot of trouble. white mountain, I think I know which helmet you mean, but I'm not sure. Can you post a pic? lorenzo2, The system gets a ...

Mac

Jeff, I think that a typology gives us a common ground in discussing these things. Terms like "back point" and "high point" seem to mean different things to different people. With a typology we can be reasonable sure that we are talking about the same thing. I do see what you mea...

Mac

Konstantin,

Do you have a link to any images of those Hibernian hats?

Thanks!
Mac

Mac

A couple of months ago I began working on a basinet typology in conjunction with Doug Strong's big project. What I am presenting here is still in a rough form. I am hoping that by offering it up for discussion I can see what changes need to be made. The system has two axes. The vertical axis (1-6) i...

Mac

It seems to me that there is a very real problem discussing basinets, because of a lack of consensus about terminology. I have been working on a basinet typology, which I will present more fully in another thread in design and construction. http://www.billyandcharlie.com/macs_typology.JPG To my eye,...

Mac

Destichado wrote:
So I'd like to open the forum for speculation as to the purpose of that little dingus on the end of the bar mace.

I suspect its only purpose is to look cool...in a 14th.c sort of way.

Mac

Mac

Graham, Check out this old thread. m It might give you some ideas. Make sure you open the pics of the grinder attachment I made. I use differently shaped and padded platens for most of the process. Sometimes I remove the platen and use a "slack" belt for the last pass with fine grits. Mac

Mac

Doug, There are a bunch of shovels in the Mary Rose finds. While that is at least 145 years too late, it sounds like a good place to start. Likewise, there are shovels from Novgorod, some of which are probably 14th c. Does anyone have the info from either of these to hand? I can get you the Mary Ros...

Mac

matthijs, They're usually described as "boot stirrups". While this seems more likely than sabatons (in light of the lack of articulation), it's not at all clear how they are supposed to work. The toes are a weird sort of thing, aren't they? If I remember correctly, they are held on with wi...

Mac

Rod,

Those things are pretty scary looking.

Good luck, be careful, play nice, God bless.

Mac

Mac

Don't let anyone tell you they will hold the sabatons on though! This is rubbish! If anything they squeeze them off... The sabbatons must be secure on their own. ...and I was just about to say "and, of course, the spur straps will help secure the sabaton to the foot, so there will be no need f...

Mac

Thank you Piers! Does anyone know anything about the context of these images? Are they the female "worthies" or what? I think it is interesting that the artist has rendered the idealized Gothic female figure with some sort of "coverless coat of plates" or "proto-anime"....

Mac

Sorry guys, I spoke too soon. I'm gonna' change my mind about that effigy. I looked at the picture again m The rivets are on the *lower* edges of the plates, and the upper plates overlap the lower ones. This means that the plates are riveted to the *inside* of a covering, and are not on the outside ...

Mac

The other effigy that Velen linked to m is wearing the sort of armor I usually think of as "brick work". It appears frequently in late 14th and early 15th c. art. It seams to be composed of rectangular plates about the size of playing cards, riveted to the outside of a foundation. You can ...

Re: Hi there

Mac's basinet typology