The Armour Archive

besserai wrote:Is that why you were thinking 16ga?

Galvyn Lockhart wrote:It's also not a bad idea to keep some fraycheck handy, in case you do break the odd thread here or there. I think I actually re-enforced each hole I made on my last CoP w/ the stuff as a precaution.

edit to add: CoP in question is an outer layer of upholstery fabric lined w/ a med. weight canvas.

Cuneglas ap Niche wrote:Did you hand sew or use a sewing machine. I am planning on doing plastic plates.
If you did via a machine, how did the machine hold up?
Thanks

Zohar wrote:Looks great, and that really helps seeing the inside. It looks like you put a really gently curve in all the plates. It looks like I need to find a shallower dishing device. And i think it is time for some trig to figure this one out. Gotta love math and metal!

Ernst wrote:In "Armour from the Battle of Wisby", Thordeman states in Chapter 5 that the coat "...in those cases where it could be proved, was made of leather but may also have been made of, or covered with, cloth...). Leather remnants, usually under the heads of rivets, as well as the length of the rivet shaft protruding past the plate indicate leather. However, armor 2 (Type 1) has round washers beneath some rivets. "These washers were visible on the outside of the cover, to judge from the traces of coarse cloth--very likely from the cover or its lining--which clearly pass beneath the same." Also, "As has already been mentioned there is on the outside of these plates a coating of rust with a distinct fabric pattern. Here and there this coating runs below the rivet-heads, and consequently leaves traces of the cover to which the plates have been riveted...These traces of cloth do not, however, show conclusively that the covering consisted only of cloth, they may also conceivably be the remnants of a cloth lining of a covering of some other material. Actually, some remnants here and there, esecially distinct round a rivet on the left breastplate, show that such had been the case, and that the covering itself had consisted of leather."

Also, armor fragment 33, a back plate of a Type 1 armor, with the iron loop at the top for suspending the side plates from the back, has "traces of cloth on the outside."

In other words, Thordeman seems to indicate a cloth covered leather as a foundation. However, I have seen SCA plates on a fabric coat with leather washers beneath the rivet heads, which reportedly kept the rivets from pulling through.