The Armour Archive

Mac

I had wondered inf the slots were to accommodate different arm lengths, but as you say they were to retract, that IS interesting. If you were to reproduce those for sca usage, what material would you advise? alloy& thickness. Thank you. The hand protection these things offer is way to skimpy fo...

Mac

Ralph, At first glance, I thought that those were there to suggest breasts to the observer, so that he would be sure to know that the rider was female. Their appearance on the other's back disproves that. I suppose it must just be that 15th c. "rondell madness". You know, the thing that ma...

Mac

Lowrance,

That's an interesting pic, but I'm pretty sure that its supposed to be a man. That is, unless you know otherwise from the context.

Mac

Mac

Let's forget the side saddle thing. It will only lead us astray. While it is undenieble "nicer" for ladies to side side saddle, there are plenty of period illustrations of women (and ladies as well) riding astride. I like the pic of Amazons that Lawrance posted above. m They are wearing lo...

Mac

Matt, It seems to me that there are two possible solutions. The first is to rivet shaped rectangular scales directly to a pair of side laces shoes. Backing the rivets to peen them up would be tedious but do-able. The second is to have the scales attached to a separate piece of leather which gets att...

Mac

Hendrik,

Andrew has just posted a bunch of brigandine pics on this thread,

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=94935

Also, he posted this link, which is worth pursuing,

http://troiscouronnes.unblog.fr/les-brigandines/

Mac

Mac

I am really surprised that this thread had gone on for four pages, and nobody has posted this image yet. http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/3884/janna1440ft1.jpg This is apparently what some folks in the second quarter of the 15th c. thought a woman in armor should look like. She looks pretty tough ...

Mac

I've just been back to that site, and have found the link to the English translation.

http://sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_1_eng.htm

It, as Karen says, a refutation of the UFO idea.

Mac

Mac

Karen Larsdatter wrote:Oh, I thought they were trying to debunk the thought that they were UFOs ("Art and UFOs? No thanks, it's just art") :)

My bad...my most grievous bad.

I'm sure you are right. I had picked out a couple of words and thought I understood what was going on.

Mac

Mac

Karen,

I'm pretty sure that's the pic I was thinking of.

It looks like that page is devoted to trying to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit and the Star of the Annunciation are really UFOs....

Mac

Mac

thanks Karen! This is a good one in terms of the helicopter thing m I still can't remember where I saw the one with the Christ Child. The thing I think I remember about it was that the artist had painted the areas around the holes of the "launcher" in a light color, as if it had bone beari...

Mac

I wish we had better information about the hand defenses.

There is something definitely wrong with the pair at Leads. The first two plates don't seem to have much to do with the four which follow them.

Mac

Mac

Let's not forget this one. He's on page 140 of Edge and Paddock.

Mac

Mac

Steerpike, The slots are there so that the hand defenses can be slid up out of the way when not needed. I have seen one in a private collection where the slot was not in the vambrace its self, but in separate strip applied to the inside, and riveted to the vambrace at each end. Be advised that the h...

Mac

crash42,

I am much more familiar with European mail than with that worn in the East, so I am reluctant to discuss stylistic variations used there. But, I'm pretty sure that if you start expanding your skirts from the waist, like I describe above, they will work better for you.

Mac

Mac

The hauberk I'm working on is composed of split rings, so it's strong and fully modifiable. Mac, expand the skirts in what way? Width? Thanks for the suggestions Absolutely! A skirt must be conical, like a ventail, but with a shallower angle. Like I suggested to iRelapse above, one extra ring every...

Mac

iRelapse, May I be bold enough to offer you some advise on your hauberk? I have some suggestions for improving the hang of the skirts. I see that you have tried to close the gaps in the slit by adding to the open edges at a rate of one ring, every other row. Yet, the slit still gaps at the top. The ...

Mac

Grahm, It all comes down to the question of what the torso silhouette should look like. If your talking about the chunky low waisted outline of the mid century, then a coat of plates is what you want. Something with horizontal bands on the flanks, like the ones from Kussnack (sp?) Such a thing could...

Mac

Here are some pictures showing typical skirt slits. they are typically quite short.

Mac

Here are a couple of pictures of foot soldiers wearing hauberks with no slits. In the first picture, the artist has taken pains to show the folds of extra material in the skirt.

Mac

Mac

I would like to make number of critically important, and potentially paradigm changing points. The first, is that skirt slits are a defensive weakness, and should not be high enough to expose the torso. I hold this truth to be self evident. The second, is that our ancestors were capable of making an...

Mac

I have to echo Mac, A Pinwheel/windmill sail moderl does not = a helecopter. It looks like one to us, it means nothing of the kind to a Medieval audience, and you would be hard pressed to say the idea existed prior to the da Vinci sketchbook. I just want to make sure we are on the same page; I thin...

Mac

Thank you Andrew! The strap and buckle on the kastenbrust is very interesting. I believe it must be about attaching the fauld. The Glasgow kastenbrust has staple inside the breast and a corresponding hole on the upper lame of the fauld. One of the effigies you posted yesterday had a rivet head in th...

Mac

Here he is on a skateboard m (from VallensbÃ¦k church, Denmark, mid-15h century) Also fun. I keep going back to this picture and giggling. Until 50 years ago, any one would have seen that thing as a bridge, but now, we can't help but see it as a skateboard. The caption should read "Dude!.. you...

Mac

Malachiuri, I think I know the picture you are looking for. Unfortunately I can't remember which book it is in. I shall keep looking. In the mean time, I am going to assume that you are interested in any representations of helicopter toys, and not just ones with divine association. Here are two pics...

Mac

Andrew, That's a lot of cool pics....and I do mean a lot. There's way too much here to comment on intelligently, and it takes too long to schlep through it all to see what people are saying. I think it would be better all around if you broke it into smaller posts by subject. Spreading these pics out...

Mac

Charles, The split should start below the crotch, so that you have mail covering the entirety of your abdomen and groin. The catch is, that you will have to expand the skirts. I'm not saying that this is the easy way, but it's the right way. It is a great shame that the mail we can get from India is...

Mac

Fraychef, Historically, decorative brass strips were applied with flush rivets. this is true from the late 14th c. to the end of the 15thc. It was not until the the heavily pierced work of the late Gothic, that dome headed rivets were used. The visual impact of flush riveted brass is very different ...

Mac

My old 1943 oxy-acetylene handbook tells how to weld it. It recommends using rods with a little more chromium than the base metal, and coating both sides of the work with a flux called "Oxweld Chromaloy". When you go to your welding supply shop, be prepared for frustration. I'm not sure an...

Mac

Is it "sticky" like copper? I tried that once and really didn't like it. Engraving 18k gold and sterling silver sure is nice though. It's like butter! -Donasian. I just tried a couple of cuts on steel, brass, copper and sterling. The brass is a little "crunchier" feeling than th...

Mac

Vrin, The gold color on the "armor with palmets" is not brass, but rather gold plating. The decoration under the gilding is etched directly into the steel. This is appropriate for 16th c. armors. I share your concern about the acids. I am currently looking into some period (early 15th thro...

Mac

Fraychef,

Why not engrave the brass, rather than etching it? The real stuff was engraved, and it's not that hard to do.

Mac

Mac

Ugo,

What's it going to look like when it is done? I'd like to see what's in your sketch book if you are willing to show it.

Is that a weld I see down the front? It takes cojones grandes to repousse across a weld! Kudos!

Mac

Mac

Norman, The way they are, the straps are a little too far forward. If we turn the helmet around they are way too far back. The human head is not symmetrical from front to back, and its attachment to the neck is even less so. If the straps were "dead center" you could wear it either way, bu...

Mac

A rough translation from Revival's Site. The modern spelling is credited to one Greg Mele. How a Man Shall be Armed at His Ease when He Shall Fight on Foot Hastings MS. [f.122b] "Also a pair of shoes of thick cordwene and they must be fitted with small whipcords with three knots upon a cord an...