The Armour Archive

Today I was lounging on the carpet in front of the TV and playing some video games with the youngest shield-biter. The stand holding my Valentine gothic harness spontaneously snapped in half throwing the top half of the armour right on top of me. Freaking ouch. I'm glad it was me instead of the kiddo. It looks like the two screws holding the adjustable bar pulled through the wood. It has probably been a long time coming, I haven't screwed with it an awhile.

Anyway, I never thought it sat right on that stand. I was thinking of bolting a mannequin solidly to the wooden base. Anyone have a suggestion for a particular mannequin? I guess I need something with removable hands since it has finger gauntlets. Do they make a mannequin that can wear gloves? Thoughts? Suggestions?

I want to make damn sure that never happens again. Thanks!

I hate to say it but your going to build your own.
90% of commercial ones are to light for the weight the rest will be the wrong size or cost a few house payments.

There are a few threads that will help.
The trick is to make a stong base and have enough weight to keep it from moving.

Think either in terms of a post, or of a 3-legged easel in 2x4. Set the crossbars in square notches. All a stand needs to do with any gauntlets is hold them up, so I don't know why you're thinking about hand-things. Unless you really want your gauntlets to be making significant gestures.

I have put armour on a normal Mannequin in the past, but I have built all of the stands for my armours recently. There have been several threads on this before.

Every time I make a new stand I seem to change things a little bit. One of the more recent stands can be seen here:

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

Scroll down to the bottom to see the stand without armour.

My more recent one was built in a similar way, but the shoulder was a single larger piece of plywood that slots on to the vertical pieces.

Really, they can be built in a lot of different ways. I personally prefer one with two feet that allows the armour to look like armour on a person instead of armour on a stand. I have done single post versions and others that are more like racks instead of dummies.

When I make them look like people, I have integral feet so that the armour stands like a person. Making the legs slant out and having the feet point away from each other a little bit both makes the form look more natural and makes the result more stable.

The real core of the design is that you need to hold the armour in the right place, not that you need something that looks like a person. So a wire frame will work fine. Straight sticks for legs with extensions that hold the leg armour in place work just fine. You need to support the shoulders, you need to keep the body armour in the right place, you need to hold the helmet up and the legs can't sit at funny angles. Most of the rest is up to the designer of the stand.

One of my stands for a half suit really "thinks outside the box". This one:

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-102.html

is really just an old wooden shoulder that was designed as a suit holder for a store, a vertical post to the floor, a wire that holds the helmet up and 2 pieces of cable that connect the gauntlets to the shoulders. The cable is shorter, so the arms are held in a cute bent shape.

Wade

We used to have one, back in our University of Maryland days ('69 - '72) known as Thorgood the Nude. He was somewhat fragile and difficult to dress. He did okay as a medieval clothes horse, but very simple leather armor was about it, due to a certain lack of flexibility. He was also badly balanced and fragile (like so many of our members) and spent some time falling down.

Really, you're better off building your own.

Look into sewing dummies. They don't have arms, but it is a full torso that is filled out, and a metal rod coming down that can be mounted into something. It will hold torso armour properly. No idea about cost.

Most store manequines are foam core, so won't stand up to armour weight.

A lot of the newer sewing dummies, at least the ones I see for sale at the fabric stores, are made from rather flimsy plastic parts. I think mine was something like $60 and I wouldn't put armor on it, it barely feels like it supports a ten pound mail shirt.

Ahh. I'm going off of the one my wife has from a decade ago. full torso. light but very sturdy.

Fabric sewing dummies come in many different styles. The cheaper home-use ones have plastic with some rac and pinnion gears to adjust for a range of sizes. You would think would be the best but leave areas where no pin will stick and frequently it's the seam line. The more profesional versions are foam over a metal rod to aproximate a size and then padding is added in specific spaces to match a customer. That also means profesionals have a size 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 & 16 in their shop and some times the odd sizes too. None of them however are designed to support the weight of armor and most don't go past mid-thigh with a central pole rather then 2 for legs.

I did build one out of plywood for my knight but it was rather tedious and time consuming. Joints are a PITA. If you have a roll-size plotter and pictures from front and side it is a good start. I used pictures from a human anatomy book, photocopied onto graph paper to get a scale and then rescaled in the computer to the right height. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough. As a benefit to a plywood version, you can drill holes and lace arming points directly to the manequin rather then using a foundation garment (which will not fit well and will stretch in odd locations)

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010549.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010551.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010555.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010557.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010558.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010560.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t239 ... 010561.jpg

Sean

Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I truly appreciate it.

I tried a very old and large sewing dummy that the wife had, it just wasn't cut out for 60+ pounds o' steel.

I had searched previous threads but I really couldn't find what I was looking for. I may go ahead and take the suggestion of building a wooden one, and enlisting my two brothers-in-law to do the labor for beer. I would probably need an iron hand too if I attempted it.

Or I might just sell it, then buy one that fits me better and comes with a stand. It was my oldest sons and he is in college now, I bought it from him to keep it from going to someone who did not truly appreciate it.

Thanks again!