The Armour Archive

Hopefully wade has more pics of the ones he has somewhere for me and will post em here but need whatever shots people have of these that have been taken from an armourers point of view. Most pics I could find are straight on and nearly useless.

can you post a pic of the type of breastplate you are seeking?

Which one do you want? The peascod or the one with the higher point? I have several of each style all of which are actually different in specific shape.

Wander over to my page:

http://www.allenantiques.com/Armour-Bre ... ction.html

and tell me which numbers (A-???) you want more pictures of.

I assume you will want goofy things like from the top.

I wandered over there. It looks like I have been lazy in my images of breastplates. Bad me. Too many just straight from the front like everyone else. Let's start with some that will be the most use to you for what you are doing and we can go from there.

Wade

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-107.html

That one. Anything you want to take for me would be great. Doing a full black and white but starting with a prototype on the breastplate for now. The backplate pics already helped a lot.

And a pic from the top would also be fantastic.

Thanks.

Some inside shots of the armpit gusset and it's range of motion would be great too.

Will do. I can pull that one down and get some more images.

Before I do, it is a pretty basic shape. Mostly just comes out to a slightly droopy rounded point. There isn't a lot of contour to the surface.

From memory the slots on the gussets are about 3/4" long, but I will have to check that.

Don't use this as your real source, but I was working from this breastplate loosely combined with a few others to do my kid's armour last year. There are some more angles of my interpretation here:

http://www.allenantiques.com/R-34.html

The backplates for these breastplates get a lot of shape too. They often have very prominent shoulder blades- sometimes even coming to a blunt point.

Wade

This is the progress on the quick and dirty mild steel mock-up.

Looks like the point needs to become a little rounder and the armpits are way too tall at the moment. Will end up with a bit more angle between the waist and chest line still.

Currently it's way too tall because I have to do that big honkin roll at the top.

Anyone see anything else way off before I start raising the raised areas?

It is hard to really tell without the intended wearer for perspective.
As you said, the sides are to tall.
It is possible that the center is a little to narrow at the top. That depends on the proportions of the intended wearer. These things tend to be pretty wide and short.
I like to have as much taper between the chest and waist as I can get - even when I have to mangle the wearer a little bit.
The overall shape is good. Just a little dishing to get rid of the flatness of sheet and let things curve around the body reasonably.
I will try to be good and get you a bottom shot too to show how the waist looks. They tend to be a little non-human shaped.
The sides of the breastplate are generally not parallel - the backplate slide into the breastplate and completes the arc. Often the backplate actually curves in at the ends. This makes everything go together much more nicely than if you try to make things fit perfectly.
Just to be annoying most of my real ones are pretty thick. This lets you get a nice bevel on the edge of the armholes. I know this is a prototype and I know your customer won't put up with it being done "right" but 12g. would be a nice place to start if you want a nice medium weight breastplate.

I do have one of these style that has a very pointed front point. They did do them.I just think that they are less common than the more rounded (actually formed with a curved crease, not a ball) shape. I usually see the points on all rough from the hammer or all polished and less on B&W.

For proportion these have nearly as high a waist as the 14th c. ones. At least at the sides. They can definitely dip down in the center more. Not like a peascod, but a definite dip.

Wade

OK Matt - here you go. I hope they help some.

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-156.html

The breastplate you wanted is currently set up with some other parts. I was lucky enough to find some similar black and white with raised bands in the right size and even with the 'swoops' in the edge bands that go pretty well with the breastplate.

You now have side, angle, and breastplate from the top shots.

I will look into getting images of other breastplates.

Wade

Thank-you Wade those are exactly what I needed.