The Armour Archive

Alright, we've got a new fighter, lady fighter. She's tiny, maybe 100-110lbs, 5'2" or so I think. Super thin. My instinct is to put her in steel armor, maybe aluminum to save on weight. I'd been thinking an aluminum coat of plates, with a good gambeson and plate for the limbs.
She, unfortunately, has a serious fantasy bend to her style. She drew a picture of what she wanted and well.... lets put it this way. If she wore it on TV, the owners of the rights to Xena would sue her for copyright infringement.
I thought I'd talked her out of it, but then she talked to a knight and his son, who convinced her that leather was totally a good idea. I'm very frustrated, since I know she's going to end up with a genericelt kit and probably a broken rib cage to boot. I'm not being a chauvinist here, this girl is tiny. I'm hoping she at least hardens most of it.

So part of this was to vent (obviously) the other part was to ask for examples to give her of why doing this would be a bad idea. Barring that, if I end up helping her make a leather kit, what method should I use to make the strongest stuff I can so she doesn't end up smeared on the bridge at Gulf or somewhere like that?


P.S. She wants to fight with a two handed weapon to start with. I don't think that idea will last though.

I guess overall is would depend on her tolerance for pain.

I used to fight a gal who was about 5'4" 110lbs (I'm 6'6" 280lbs, yes, I know, 'You Brute'). She was quick as a rabbit and tough as nails. Always a good fight.

On the other hand, if she isn't tough as nails, a knight used to tell me "Don't break the new . . ."

Not worried about me. Worried about Choppas and 2" spears at a war. Especially if we all neglect to blast her when she starts fighting. War calibration can be a surprise.

She will get some looks from certain people if she doesn't have period-ish armor but the most important part of this game is to have fun. If she knows what she wants and will be happy, then she should pursue that. She may well change her mind later on but as a beginner, she needs to feel like she's doing this for her own reasons.

Protection is important, of course. You can find some info on hardening leather on this site such as this post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73202&hilit=tiebond

I fight in a hardened leather coat of plates and I still get shots that hurt. Wearing a gambeson underneath helps but she may want zoombang or some other form of padding to help lessen the impact.

Tell her the truth. Tell her she'll look ridiculous and it won't be very safe. Plus she'll probably get leather chafe, which is about as fun as... leather chafe.

Tell her that a lot of people start the SCA wanting to live out their D&D fantasies and within 10 years wish they could eradicate every photo of them in that kit.

Tell her that it doesn't make sense to express one's self as belonging to a generic group. You're by definition not expressing yourself that way. If she's looking to express herself, it's far better to be noticed as the one person on a field of 2000 who is wearing a particular documented piece that others with similar interests may not even have known about.

Show her pictures of Tuchux and point out how few of them are distinguishable from the others. Then show her some 14th C Mafia events, and how easy it is to identify different fighters, despite the fact that they're all wearing practically the same thing.

Leather may be a viable option useing kilkennys hardening method.
Something like bokalos torso armour or lamellar should work well for most people in a budget or new to armour construction.
Torvaldr is another good source for leather armour.
Getting her in armour and a little experiance will help find where more protection is needed.

Leather is expensive as a material unless you do a lot of it yourself and can't gain access to metal.

I've been doing a lot of leather splinted stuff, but I already had leather tooling gear, but it certainly added to the cost to go with leather over other materials.

She buys all the leather. You teach her to water harden it.

But get her on the field in loaner stuff first, so she knows something more than she now does about what her armor needs to do.

We should also direct to pix of Robin, from Drachenwald, in her 3/4-scaleness.

We haven't seen fourteenth-century girls in Lentners yet, but I think I could wait for that with worms on my tongue!

Help her, bonus points if you can help her get it historically inspired.
Corrazinas, fitted coats of plates, mongolian armour either in leather or leather clad metal.
Leather clad splints with decorative rivets, hardened leather arms with expensive metal cops (advanced fluting or similar).
Help her protect herself with the armour she wants, look at solutions rather than problems justifying you to turn her down.

"Hey I don't want full gauntlets but I want a historical hilt."
"No problem, here's a fancy bar-basket padded with red velvet, Scottish straight-sword."

"I want to have finger gauntlets but I'm worried about my hands."
"could you consider finger mittens then? Perhaps finger bucklers?"

"I want to fight in a greathelm."
"Sure, just make sure the airholes are good and you have proper eyeslits so you don't impede your vision and it ventilates well."

"I want to look like Xena."
"Well, let's see what we can do."

How do we fix minimums in her leather armour in a way that looks in line? (gorget for exmple)
How do we protect chest/ribs/boobs from going squish?
What helmet works for her style? Find historical examples, perhaps something mongolian or polish?
If she wants to fight greatweapon and she doesn't need to authorise in sword n board first, let her, especially if she has previous experience with it.
What gauntlets would look good?

Don't try to bully her out of it, that's an awful thing to do.
Help her make the kit she wants and help her make it safe.

It is difficult when we have novices who are outside the "norm" of our loaner armor stash.
That being said, sometimes being hit with a stick can make people challenge their own first presumptions about what armor they would like.
I wear leather lam. Period? Not really, I know. More "historically unembarassing". And I wear hidden stuff under the torso, because I still have active nerve endings. May not be a bad compromise for your fledgling. There are lots of pictures of pretty kits done up in this style to see online for inspiration.

I was probably 110 (at 4' 11") when I first got into armor. My original kit involved a black plastic breast plate that I still wear and wax hardened leather arm and leg protection. I don't think she is likely to break with hardened leather limb protection, and if built right I don't think leather is much of a problem either. I think the leather lam armor might work. Or find some way to put in some hidden plates to help protect her ribs.

It sounds like she wants something with some shape. Would a shaped plastic cuirass (like a globose), with faulds, covered in light leather or fabric be to her taste? Or a hardened sole-bend-leather cuirass with faulds in a historic shape under a tailored surcoat?

Hidden armor offers all sorts of options for using lightweight, protective, modern materials without presenting an ahistoric look. (A couple of my local knights have low-profile cuirasses in black plastic hidden under their arming coats.)

I've offered most of these non leather solutions, she seems to have her heart set on the material. I've offered to help make anything up to my (paltry) skill level, which is mostly hidden armor or XIV gear. It's very frustrating to me, since when I try to show this I can pick out the tone in her voice that show's she's not listening at all. I'm tempted to just wash my hands of the whole affair.


I'm right at 6 foot, in green (obviously). This is just to give an idea on size disparity
http://imgur.com/a/PByWX

I'm fairly certain I'm not treating her like she's a delicate butterfly. I really just hate to have to think about even my regular strength shots injuring someone. I use polearms a lot.

the question is, would you treat a man the same size the same way?

Well, she won't get away from:

Gorget.
Helmet
Elbows.
Kidneys.
Knees.

Those are the minimums, and depending on realm, there may well be others.
How will these be solved? Hidden or open? Steel or hardened leather? (Some realms may or may not allow hardened leather for elbows and knees far as I've gathered).

Comfort protection:
Forearms and thighs.
She might want these, how do you help her solve it?

Have you explained to her that she can get barrel plastic, shape it to form and then cover it in leather?

But I really have to follow Fearghus on this, would you?

EDIT:
Get her a helmet that fits, padd it well, show her what a calibrated "Good" is in your area. This is REALLY not a nice thing to do in order to convince her that she may or may not need armour, but I can say that I've been worried about how strong a good is, until local marshal in training whacked me over the head with two goods when I wore his helmet, asking him to show me the power of good. I have since become less worried about my own armour standards and I'm building my first kit. I'm still not sure if he's managed to talk me into a plastic coat of plate or not (because I like the tiny extra bit of authenticity with metallical armours such as corrazinas and coats of plate.)

Fearghus Macildubh wrote:the question is, would you treat a man the same size the same way?

Henrik Granlid wrote: But I really have to follow Fearghus on this, would you?

I took my time and thought it through. I finally came to a conclusion. I absolutely would suggest that any fighter her size be more armored than what leather provides. Having said that, I think I'm more insistant with her because she is a woman. So not unbiased, but not outright sexist (or what ever you want to call it)

A very well done hardened leather kit with padding, I might be more ok with it, but having seen the kits worn by the people she is talking to about it, I don't feel that it will meet the level of protection I'd be comfortable with. I realize it's her choice, just feels like a poor idea. The people she's talked to are emphatically not students of period construction techniques.

http://imgur.com/a/KK44a

Added two sketches she'd sent me. The one in sharpie was done after talking with her for a while about what you want out of armor and what does not work.


I'd thought about doing the proof test. "Hey, here's a piece of steel with padding, a piece of aluminum with padding, a piece of leather with padding. Hold them over your shoulder and let me hit you with this"
Seems like a bad idea to me. Might ask someone less biased to do it. Do y'all agree?

Don't do it with pieces of armour like that, that'll seem as if you're trying to prove a point and would probably be the case subconciously.

Do it on a helmet, calibrate on somebody else ahead of time just to be safe.
Show her what a Good is in something you KNOW can take it for anybody out there.
Then she can make up her own mind.


As for the sharpie image.
That thing looks great!
If the leather is sufficiently thick and she is wearing some form of padded garment underneath it, there is absolutely no reason as to why she couldn't fight in it, none whatsoever. Bazubands are readily available for purchasing, I think I've even seen some with elbow reinforcement of hidden steel although I could just be daydreaming. The legs look very good and with a steel knecop of some sort, she could have the rest of it moulded, baked and wax-sealed to an exact fit. Again, remember the padding.

Furthermore, padding does not have to be extreme, she doens't need a cm thick gambesson underneath it, how thick is yours? You're actually wearing less protection than her sketch would allow her to do if she got the leather done well enough, even moreso if she decides to add in hidden metal or barrel plastics underneath the leather.

Her second sketch looks great and you can definately work from there. Does she have gauntlets by the by? If she wants to fight with greatweapons, she'll want a pair of her own, prefferably with an enclosed thumb.
Send a PM to Johan1212 and ask for a price on mild steel gauntlets with wisby cuff (to go with the leather look) and also ask him for a picture of that style of gauntlet, she might love it or she might hate it, but it's worth a PM. Otherwise you can look to many, many, many other great armourers out there such as Duke Icefalcon, Mad matt and many more.

EDIT: Some useful links, note that I cannot personally vouch for any of these armourers and you're going to have to do your own research, but the pictures are good for refference and maybe someone else can point you in the right direction (or just go "You should totally buy those from that guy!")

Arm protection
http://www.skaldic.com/arm-bazuband.htm

Her chest, waist and hips are some sort of "Coat of plate" construction it would look like, not unfeasible to do yourself or custom order.

Great DA Leather spaulders
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/ ... 4zbtgc.jpg
Harden, wax seal and a light linnen padding sewn in.

Rest of the DA page for more inspiration and ideas
http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/ ... iew_mode=2

Cops for knees:
Cooler
http://armstreet.com/store/armor/poleyn ... onal-armor

Plainer
http://armstreet.com/store/armor/mediev ... round-leaf



When it comes to helmet, she will be needing one, however, it is not entirely clear to me on what exactly she'd like.
I take it she doesn't want an aventail?
That leaves:

Early Greathelm
Greathelm
Bascinets (without aventail)
Kettle Helmet
Sallet w. Bevoir (needs to be integral far as I've understood, but don't quote me on that, you DO need both)
Armet
Close Helm
Burgonet

And those are basically her options when NOT using an aventail. There are Spanges and Oculars and Normand helmets, as well as various turkish or persian or polish or russian ones, but I do not know the names for these, and they either look close to bascinets when not aventailed (when SCA-safe imho), or are rare to find or hard to get.

The three first types of helmets are the most common SCA ones and are fairly cheap as well, the later ones are a bit more uncommon, or they tend to run up the numbers due to increased workload on the blacksmith.

I hope this helps somewhat, my words are neither law, nor absolute, but trying to help out as best as I can, one beginner to another (via a caring veteran who took the time to make a good thread.)

^This man is entirely too optimistic for this forum. I say we beat the hope out of him.

(Serious reply coming in a minute)

Henrik Granlid wrote:Don't do it with pieces of armour like that, that'll seem as if you're trying to prove a point and would probably be the case subconciously.

Well, yes, proving a point was actually the entire point. Even so, if I want to make the point, I won't be swinging the sword.

Furthermore, padding does not have to be extreme, she doens't need a cm thick gambesson underneath it, how thick is yours?

It's fairly thick, not sure quite how thick

You're actually wearing less protection than her sketch would allow her to do if she got the leather done well enough, even moreso if she decides to add in hidden metal or barrel plastics underneath the leather.

I'm going to disagree with you there. My kit's pretty much all steel. I don't have anything on the armpits, inside of the upper arm or the backs of my legs besides my gambeson, but the rest of it is well covered with steel. I asked about making splinted armor, she insists leather is enough.

Her second sketch looks great and you can definately work from there. Does she have gauntlets by the by? If she wants to fight with greatweapons, she'll want a pair of her own, prefferably with an enclosed thumb.
Send a PM to Johan1212 and ask for a price on mild steel gauntlets with wisby cuff (to go with the leather look) and also ask him for a picture of that style of gauntlet, she might love it or she might hate it, but it's worth a PM. Otherwise you can look to many, many, many other great armourers out there such as Duke Icefalcon, Mad matt and many more.

Her kit pretty much going to be all homemade. Not much of a budget to speak of (which makes me wonder where she's getting the leather from)
Overall, I'm more and more inclined to let her and the others she talked to about leather armor handle it. I'm not comfortable with the idea, so I don't think I will take part in it.

Was in the second album, rechecked and yes, you're better covered than it would appear in your second album where there are large gaps around your shoulder area =) I think it could be the lack of greaves (for shame on a Mafia kit! ) that caused my illusion.

I added an edit with a list of good things and inspiration.

Henrik Granlid wrote:Was in the second album, rechecked and yes, you're better covered than it would appear in your second album where there are large gaps around your shoulder area =) I think it could be the lack of greaves (for shame on a Mafia kit! ) that caused my illusion.

I added an edit with a list of good things and inspiration.

They're in the shop, redoing the buckles. I'm changing the spaulders for some deeper ones and adding splinted rearbraces, eventually.

My point about the making of a point would be that if you put her in leather gear, barrel gear and steel gear and whack her, after having tried to talk her out of the leather, it could well be seen by her as if you are trying to bully her out of the gear, I know I would think like that myself if it happened to me.

I am not saying that you don't worry.
I am not saying that you're not doing it because you truly want her to know what she's getting into.
I am, however, saying that right now, giving her a general feel of what a Good is by gunning for her preffered armourstyle is not the best way. Thusly I suggest the helmet, have someone strike a Good, she'll get a general idea of it.

She can then fight in a complete kit of loaner armour after that and decide for herself wether or not it's too much or if she likes the protection, and THEN she can see if she could compromise with hidden plates etc.

With regards to the torso, she told me that she does not want a coat of plates style construction, only leather.

With regards to the helmet, well do you know what I mean by the term "Genericelt"? The guys she wants to train with are genericelts, I'm afraid she'll end up looking like one too. If so, and the gods are extraordinarily kind, she'll end up with an accidntprone spangen, sans mail (I love his stuff, I own one, not slighting him at all here. They look much better with the mail and this is a best case scenario anyway). More likely, a crappy spun top overpadded so it will fit her (tiny) head.

She has about zero budget as far as I know, which is why I wanted to use aluminum or steel we have in the shop (which is already provided for new fighters)

The shoulders you showed are kinda giant, even sized down to her. I'd have made a simple shoulder cop, maybe an extra lame and set of long splinted rearbraces, which won't flop around and catch spears.

About the torso armor. I'm immensely biased towards historical designs, because in my experience, they work great. I really detest fantasy armor on the field. Usually my first thought is something along the lines of "I wonder if I can put my polehammer through that breastplate" So if she decides to go completely fantasy armor styled, I'd prefer not to be party to it.



I wish we could, but we have no loaner armor that doesn't engulf her. Even the set we have built for slimmer bodied women is entirely too tall for her.


Edit: Added
If I go with your helmet idea, I'll have a friend do it, not myself. I'll have him show "Light, Lower end good and upper end good, aka nearly excessive" It's an unpleasant experience, but some of the shots I've taken at war have been nasty.

Oh I definately agree on the historical bias, I drive my local group to tears with my rantings about historically based armours ^^
As far as the structure of a breastplate, you could look at a Lorica Segmentata-style or similar.

But yeah, if she doesn't want plastic, it'll be a hard sell. Best would be to build a very basic plastic thing and then put thick leather on top of it, if I go to crafting tomorrow, I'll take a picture of an oooold chestplate we have for lending to beginners, it's very fantasy leather with plastic underneath, see if she could go for that, no CoP segmented design.

And yes, I was unsure of the shoulders, but they still looked fairly solid and covered good ground in large pieces unlike one of the lames from a spaulder.

As to the durabillity of leather, I would like to point out that hardened leather neither flops, nor catches on spears more than any piece of steel or plastic that's strapped down. Hardened leather is not a soft material, and I'd wager that, unless using excessive force, you would not be able to go through a moulded, padded breastplate of the stuff, especially if somewhat layered.

And oh, the voes of loaner armour, which pieces engulf her and which pieces can be "Padded to fit"? Maybe the most difficult ones to fix can be made to work whilst easier to make pieces of armour could be replaced?

EDIT: Forgot.

I do not know of Genericelts.


Also, I would not go near a "random encounter with excessive force in a war"-calibration directly applied to a nublet. Will she go on a war within a year?

When I was starting out, I'd made a leather psuedo lorica. It was unhardened and I got rid of it super quickly.

About the spaulders flopping, that's more a function of design than material. I didn't like how large they were, Seems like a spear tip (or a halberd spike, if one were inclined to be a dick) could easily catch inside of it and throw the wearer around badly.

With our other loaner armor, it will not be possible to resize it. Another fighter is using it and it's of kydex construction. We'd have to cut it down completely and honestly, we're a lot more likely to get closer to baseline sized fighters than one here size, so I'd be against cutting it down even if it weren't in use.

Oh I was not talking of resizing, but rather making new simpler pieces for her to fight in, a cotton (denim perhaps?) covered coat of plate of barrel plastic, a gorget that'll fit, basic barrel plastic broad splints (canvas covered).

It's a few hours work, but if she helps out with it, you will have hobbit-sized loaner gear should somebody require it, maybe she'll change her mind about barrel plastic in the process?

I can also see why you got rid of an unhardened Lorica, but the thing is, hardened leather and unhardened leather act very, very differently, unhardened leather works mostly as a semi-stiff, very thick piece of bendystuff, deforming under preassure and not spreading the impact around, whereas hardened leather is (far as I've gathered), about as reliable as Kydex, maybe not 100% as strong as thick Kydex, but it's quite a ways away from unhardened leather at least.

It sounds like you have given good honest counsel and she still wants what she wants. Wash your hands of it and let her find out the hard way.

WendallVonDerEisenstein wrote:It sounds like you have given good honest counsel and she still wants what she wants. Wash your hands of it and let her find out the hard way.

Yeah, that's pretty much were I'm at. I suppose I'll use a sword, not my usual mace or polehammer against her. Broken ribs get me frownie faces from the marshals.

Should not a Good from any and all striking surfaces be the same? Or do you strike your goods harder with a polearm than a sword?

EDIT: Of course I'm not thinking straight. Completely missed that you wanted to calibrate down, which is easier with a one handed weapon I'd suppose.

Yes in theory, but in practice it's different. This is my experience.

I can throw fairly hard with a sword. Not super duke hard, but fairly hard.
I can throw much harder with a mace.
I can really, really throw hard with a pole hammer. Five to six feet of leverage means that carries a lot of hate.

The mace and polehammer weigh significantly more than the sword and are balanced different. My basic throw with a sword that would be good (if unblocked) has a lot less kintetic energy than the other two, because I try to get the velocities closer to the same (to lessen the chance of it being blocked). So the mace and polehammer hit harder in general. Still completely legal.

Also, with the mace and pole hammer, there is more chance of catastrophic mishap. If I'm swinging hard in an attempt to move her shield or power through a block and for some reason she moves her shield or completely misses a block, it's way more likely to be too hard of a shot. That is much more difficult to do with a sword.

Caius,

The following commentary, while critical, is offered in the spirit of constructive, courteous feedback.

If you continue mentoring this young woman (and you're allowed to walk away--if you want to be nice about it, then point her towards someone else first), you're both going to learn several lessons.

She'll learn:
*Sometimes you need to listen to your teacher.
*Historically-inspired armor looks and works better.
*Whether she has enough pain tolerance for our sport and what armor she needs to wear to feel protected enough.

You'll learn:
*How to redirect a student without driving them away.
*That when you hit this student, you will cause her pain but are unlikely to injure her. Even if you injure her, you won't kill her.
*Not everyone has to be a member of the 14th century mafia to look historic.
*How to harden leather.

Much of this would be fixed--as others have suggested--by letting her fight in someone's armour to see how much she enjoys our sport and how much work she's willing to put into participating in it. I know that's difficult since she's small, but finding a way to do this needs to be priority #1.

For info on the most recent methods to harden leather, use the search term and phrases like "bake/water/glue hardening leather." This stuff is very protective and works especially well for cuisses, greaves, vambraces, rerebraces, and minimally shaped torso armor like hidden kidney belts and linothoraxes. Expect consumables for doing these parts of a suit out of hardened leather to cost ~$250 and that it'll take a moderate amount of time to do well.

To gently redirect her appearance while maintaining the leather torso over a dress look from her drawings, try suggesting a tunic (maybe gamboissed) and that she ditch the corset for a historically-inspired hardened leather torso over the tunic. Finish the look off with hardened leather limb armor with metal cops on the joints. Her choice of torso armor and her choice of helmet will drive which historical period she looks like. The hardened leather limb armor can be made flesh tone to help hide it or decorated with simple tooling and paint to bling out her kit.

Suggestions of torso armour from different cultures that could be made from hardened leather for SCA purposes:
(1)Greek or Roman style musculata with pteruges at the waist and shoulders. (Look for examples by the Orkneys and others.)
(2)Greek style linothorax. (Look for examples by Dan Hodgchins (sp?) and Greg Leibeau (sp?))
(3)Steppe nomad inspired leather or mixed leather and metal lamellar. (Look at the recent stuff by Rod Walker and the older stuff by Animal and his dogs.)

For other good-looking leather armor, look for old posts by Uilleag/House of the Wolf.

Show her pictures of each of those kinds of torso armors and the helmets that would match. Use the search function to find the pictures.

Let her know that accident prone's helmets may be a few hundred dollars, but that early period helmets can easily end up around $1500. If she sticks with this, she will end up saving up for her dream helmet.

John

I know most of the things you mention John.

*Not everyone has to be a member of the 14th century mafia to look historic.

And clearly you missed the part where I said I'd offered to help with other kits besides XIV

I'm under no obligation to help her build a kit that I disagree with on a fundamental level. I'd be happy to invest time and probably a small amount of my own money on this, if she were willing to listen to my advice. She isn't, so I prefer to wash my hands of the thing. If she changes her mind, then we can talk.

Caius,

I did miss that you'd offered to help with non-14th century kits.

I agree that you are not obligated to help anyone.

As with anyone asking questions on the archive, I offered the same sort of advice I would offer my SCA-friends in person. Only difference is that I don't know your background, so I tried to hit all the basics.

John