The Armour Archive

Mac, the cobwebs you're knocking off have more skill than I do.

Great work, thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Hi Mac,
did you consider to put the lames completely on leather to get more flexibility?

I bet not, "all leather articulation" make fitting sloppy and cheap.

Christian Wiedner wrote:Hi Mac,
did you consider to put the lames completely on leather to get more flexibility?

Do you mean with the "tubes within tubes" construction, like on the statue?

Using all leathers would not have gained anything there. The problem is that each joint can only deflect a small amount before is jams up. There is only one way to get more motion out of them, and that is to make them looser. To do this you would have to make each successive tube a lot smaller that the one above it. The effect would be very different looking than the statue.

The other problem with the construction that is shown on the statue is that what motion you do get is distributed over the entire length of the upper arm. What we really need, ergonomically, is to concentrate the motion close to the shoulder joint.

Mac

Signo wrote:I bet not, "all leather articulation" make fitting sloppy and cheap.

I am of two minds about the question of using all leathers. It's clear that the construction I am now working on will work OK with spaulders, but I am not sure if it will do the same on pauldrons. It's the rotation I am concerned about. A spaulder is free to slide forward and back somewhat on the shoulder in response to rotation. A pauldron can not do that. I am considering putting the three lames on leathers alone to get a bit of rotation at that point. I will try assembling the joints temporarily with three leathers and see how much rotation happens there. If it turns out to be worth while, that's how I will do it. If it makes no real improvement, I will use two leathers and sliding rivets.

Mac

Thanks, I can still hope to not lose my bet then.

Personally, I think you made the right aesthetic choice. Having three large lames that are at least visually identical in size just seems.. clunky to me. Little to no variation in dimensions among those lames comes off as somewhat mechanical to me. I really like the revised version.

Mac;

Your "arm tube binding problem" is an excellent example of how contemporary art sometimes isn't reliable. What works on a carved statue doesn't necessarily work for actual armour. Artists have a tendency to take certain liberties, either because they are working from memory (they don't actually have any armour in their studio to use as source material), or they modify an armour design as artistic licence to make the piece more aesthetically appealing. Or they just plain didn't care. Without actually trying to construct it, it takes an experienced, discerning eye to tell if a particular piece of art would actually function properly as real armour.

Whenever possible, it's best to try to find extant pieces to support the art you're using as source material for your project. Of course, I'm preaching to the choir here...

On another note, Greenwich pauldrons work entirely on internal leathers. I learned this when I was working on the Clifford armour. It gives them great flexibility, but it does make them a little sloppy, and as a result, in my opinion, diminishes their protective quality. And then there's that whole "chain is only as strong as it's weakest link" thing. I guess that's why they developed grandguards...

I could definitely see artistic license making seemingly minor changes, such as removing or doubling an asymmetric rivet, that would completely alter the design.

Local art museum has a harness they switched the cuffs on. They have a projection for that protruding bone in the wrist, but it's on the inside on the way it's assembled.

Sure you really can not bend a tube in tube very well (in fact, yours did more then I would have expected), but if you look at it as a telescope to gain the needed movement?

The other day, I cut out the cannons and shaped them up.



The joint gets flush riveted, so the outside holes have to be countersunk a bit.



And voila.



Mac

And now the exciting part.

Will McLean (Galleron) was kind enough to come over yesterday and play body double for my Patron.



When it was all said and done, I could see that there were some fundamental problems with the pauldrons. The first is that I have put the upper arm too far back. In this pic, we can see how the edge of the pauldron's main plate presses against his arm. This has two undesirable effects. First, it shoves the entire assembly around so that it is closer at the neck in front. This is about the last thing we want. There is already precious little room for the pauldron to move in that direction before kit tries to choke the wearer. Second, it does not leave any room for the intrusion of underlapping lames. When the lower lames of the pauldron are compressed, they have to go somewhere, and there has to be room for that to happen. These faults are probably the greatest cause of the pauldrons not working correctly at the fitting with my Patron years ago.



The other issue is about how this opening in the pauldron sits with respect to the arm. We can see here that it is higher in back than in front. It should be more like level, or if anything, sloping the other way. The way it is biases the neutral position of the arm slightly back. This robs us us of motion, and tends to shove the entire pauldron back....pressing it even harder against the front of the shoulder where we saw that there was already not enough room.



The solution involves making the pauldrons over again. This is odious, but it will give me a chance to make a couple other changes as well. I am going to lengthen them a bit, both front and back.

The basic fault mine on three counts. The first is setting Massimo's shoulders too far back. The second is relying on a fundamentally flawed manikin. (this is Hubris) The third is not recognizing the problem earlier. There may be additional counts.....It all depends on how much I beat myself up over this.

Overall, though, I have a feeling of catharsis. I think I understand where the problem lie, and I think I know how to proceed. I started on the new template last night, and hope to have something cut out and shaped up in the next couple of days.

Mac

Old Armourer wrote: Your "arm tube binding problem" is an excellent example of how contemporary art sometimes isn't reliable. What works on a carved statue doesn't necessarily work for actual armour. Artists have a tendency to take certain liberties, either because they are working from memory (they don't actually have any armour in their studio to use as source material), or they modify an armour design as artistic licence to make the piece more aesthetically appealing. Or they just plain didn't care. Without actually trying to construct it, it takes an experienced, discerning eye to tell if a particular piece of art would actually function properly as real armour.

Christian Wiedner wrote:Sure you really can not bend a tube in tube very well (in fact, yours did more then I would have expected), but if you look at it as a telescope to gain the needed movement?

The other day, James A G wrote me with some ideas and sketches and shamed me into looking again at the "tubes within tubes". The thing he suggested was making the upper back edges of the tubes curl in a bit. These edges limit the motion of the lames by striking against the inside of the lame above and wedging the lame in front.



Well...I tried that and got a significant improvement in motion.



That motion comes at the cost of further bulk in the front of the shoulder, but I am about to fix the lack of room there by rebuilding the main plates. So.... the tubes within tubes may be back. We will see.



@Peter,

It's not that I don't agree with you. Everything you say is true. But, if I can get it to work like the statue it will be a coup de plate.

@ Christian,

Is this sort of what you were thinking?



That motion comes at the cost of further bulk in the front of the shoulder, but I am about to fix the lack of room there by rebuilding the main plates. So.... the tubes within tubes may be back. We will see.

Mac

Mac, What kind of leather do you use for the articulation? any advice on designing such articulation? Where do people normally get it wrong etc.?

Today I cut out a couple of new pauldron main plates and started shaping them up. I hope to have them ready for templating the first lame on the neck side by tomorrow.

The new template is quite a bit bigger than the old one. I may end up trimming a bit, but then again maybe not.



Mac

johnameyer wrote:Mac, What kind of leather do you use for the articulation? any advice on designing such articulation? Where do people normally get it wrong etc.?

John,

I use a heavy (8oz.?) chrome split, and break it aggressively over a hatchet stake before use. In a pinch, I have used two (4oz.?) layers of "nubuck" glued grain side to grain side with contact cement.

johnameyer wrote:any advice on designing such articulation? Where do people normally get it wrong etc.?

There are a couple of things that I have seen that lead to trouble....

----Using too stiff a leather. Almost all leather you are likely to try will be too stiff to use for internal leathers. The real stuff was buff leather. Buff is produced by denaturing the hides with marine oils over a period of months. When it is done, it is supple and not at all greasy. Beware of stuff sold as "oil tanned" leather. It is not the same thing. It's usually just some usual sort of tannage that has been dressed with too much grease.

While I am on the topic, I would like to point out that it is a fallacy to think that it is somehow more authentic to use vegetable tanned leather in lieu of buff. Substituting an available authentic material for an unavailable one does not garner "points" if the material does not have the right properties to do the job. Better to use a modern tannage that works than an historical one that doesn't.

----Placing the internal rivets too far from the edge of the plate. For internal leathers, putting the rivets close to the edge is essential. If the edge of the plate sticks out past the head of the rivet, the rivet is too far away.

----Making the lames two narrow. If the lames are too narrow the joint comes to be "all rivet and no leather". The lames I made the other day are really right on the edge. They are 1" wide.

These pics are of the assembly I just mentioned with 1" wide lames.


As any internally leathered joint is compressed, it displays one of two distinct modes.

The first is a sort of springy, bulging mode. The plates still lay relatively close to one another. This is what you probably want in an articulated collar.



The second is a full on overlap. The leather doubles back on its self, and the plates separate quite a bit.



Really narrow lames will only display the forst mode. Wider lames enter the second mode with a bit of force. The wider the lames, the greater the travel in mode one. Further, since the amount of potential travel that is used up in the thickness of the leather as it bends back on it's self is constant, within reasonable limits, wider lames will give more travel in proportion to width. If I had made these lames 1 1/4" wide and used the same leather and rivets, they would probably work better.
Mac

Mac, how do you avoid that the round head rivets cut through the leather? I suppose the leather should not pull on the heads to avoid this. How do you evaluate if the risk is there and how you counter it?
Thanks

Marco,

There are several different ways to address your question.

The first is about the shape of the rivet heads. Authentic armor used round headed rivets to attach internal leathers. Therefore that's what I use Even though it might not be the best shape in any particular application, it is a shape that is good enough for all applications.

The second is about not over-tightening the rivets. In my experience, most modern armorers peen their rivets too tightly into the leather. If the rivets are too tight, the leather can be damaged before the armor has even left the shop. The holes are slightly countersunk, so that the rivet can be secure without any material protruding. I cut the rivet shanks so that they barely come through the plates, and secure them with a few taps of a light hammer. If a rivet can not be punched out by one or two sharp blows of a light hammer, it was peened too tightly.

The third is that leather is a part of the armor that is expected to wear out and be replaced. Think of it like the tires on you car.

In general, the more the leather has to pull back against the rivet heads, the sooner it will fail. The assembly I showed earlier is a bit too "tight" for its own good.

Mac

Mac, I think your reassessment of the pauldron geometry will help with the possibility of making the bug-arms. The geometry of the pauldrons as on the statue are pretty wonky, and I don't think it's all due to a model with narrower shoulders than the borrowed armour. Whoever made the armour the statue is based on had his own way of doing things. It occurs to me, after some reflection, that there is a world of subtlety in the forms of the upper cannons, and it may not be due to decorative embossing alone. There may be some ways to get the job done that go beyond my slightly conic nested cones idea. If the back of my drawing was straight, for example, it would still work, and look a lot less tapered. The angle from back to front and the convex form at the overlap in the back is a lot more important. Dammit, I can't figure out how to shrink a PDF!

If you're using a PDF printer program like Primo, then in the setup page you can adjust the output quality which will alter the final file size.

I am anxious to see your sketches, James. I am still working on the main plates, and will not be ready to start the upper cannons for a couple of days.

Mac

I would never have recognized Will McLean out of his serjeant's getup (which is wonderful); I read his blog from time to time and had the pleasure of meeting him at MTT as part of the other guy's retinue- not Lord Grey...was it Peel?

The best laid templates of mice and men....

The lines indicate where I am about to trim these plates. Pauldrons are devilish things, and these pauldrons are weirder than most. I started with extra material in case something like this happened.



The shop rule is "if you cut it off the plate, you have to cut it off the template as well". I will trim the template as soon as I finish trimming the pauldron.



Here's how the front is shaping up. The statue does not show any rivets at all on the pauldrons, I am placing them where I think they should go and taking the liberty of giving them points to tie them in aesthetically with the rest of the armor.



The side view shows how I have leveled out the place where the lames will go, and moved their location a bit farther forward than in the first pauldrons.



Mac

I messed with the tapered cones idea, to refine the look some. Pardon some extraneous lines. Perhaps I have only proved that it won't look good with arms above a certain proportion, as they need to be a bit bigger than the width of the upper arm, though not, if you measure them, all that bad (about 3 1/2 to 4, proportionally). I decided to make the patterns reflect the inner diameters. I made the rear of the cannon sections a bit convex, because that's what I'm used to seeing, but I don't know how much difference it makes.

I got the first upper lames in today, and got a start on templating the second ones.



I am trying to decide what to do about the hem. The pics of the statue seem to show a hem that is tall and narrow in front and short and wide in back. On Mk1 I "compromised" and just made them a medium sized triangle of constant proportion.



Oh, and there's something else weird about the upper lames. Who can tell me what is it?

Mac

No signs of rivet heads to pin the lames for articulation.

The right hand side roll looks like it has a fairly uniform width but the left hand side one appears to get much thicker on the top?

Mac, thinking about what Gruber said about no rivet heads gave me an idea. What if the top lames were all floating on leathers, maybe 5 leathers for each pauldron. That might allow the pauldrons to move more like a spaulder and compensate for the limited movement of the upper cannon/pauldron interface?

Gruber wrote:No signs of rivet heads to pin the lames for articulation.

It's true, Gruber, but I don't think we can take that literally. This sculptor was not very interested in showing us rivets unless they held straps or hinges.



Mac

Jason Grimes wrote:Mac, thinking about what Gruber said about no rivet heads gave me an idea. What if the top lames were all floating on leathers, maybe 5 leathers for each pauldron. That might allow the pauldrons to move more like a spaulder and compensate for the limited movement of the upper cannon/pauldron interface?

Jason,

I had thought of putting it on leather, but in the end I decided to go with rivets. The overall shape of the upper lames rather more like a horseshoe than than a semicircle. It really will not allow for much rotation.

I am still considering whether the lower lames will be on three leathers or whether they will have rivets in back.

Mac

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:I messed with the tapered cones idea, to refine the look some. Pardon some extraneous lines. Perhaps I have only proved that it won't look good with arms above a certain proportion, as they need to be a bit bigger than the width of the upper arm, though not, if you measure them, all that bad (about 3 1/2 to 4, proportionally). I decided to make the patterns reflect the inner diameters. I made the rear of the cannon sections a bit convex, because that's what I'm used to seeing, but I don't know how much difference it makes.

James,

It looks like you have put all the "conicalness" in the front and left the back pretty cylindrical. That seems like a crafty idea. I'll play around with that and see where it leads.

Thanks!
Mac

As to weirdness, the pictures seem to have three lames from the front, but only two at the back.

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:As to weirdness, the pictures seem to have three lames from the front, but only two at the back.

That's it!

I have a couple of sketches of how this could work, but for the sake of simplicity I am assuming that the sculptor just lost track.

Mac

I heard that soaking sore joints in a pot of boiled ginger medallions works very well, at least it works for my mom's arthritis. Basically what you do is fill up a pot halfway to 3/4 of the way with diced ginger and leave it to boil for 5-7 minutes. The hotter the better, but don't scald yourself!

There's also 'woodlock oil', it's amber colored, and usually comes in a glass vial with chinese print on it. It's a fairly powerful sore muscle rub that can be found around china towns, and I'm sure it's also online. Antibiotics are pretty rough since it's like dropping a bomb on your immune system, but I'm sure your doctor knew what she was doing, and it's better safe than sorry.

The armour is really shaping up!

Mac wrote:

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:As to weirdness, the pictures seem to have three lames from the front, but only two at the back.

That's it!
I have a couple of sketches of how this could work, but for the sake of simplicity I am assuming that the sculptor just lost track.
Mac

Really? How would they lose track? Wouldn't the lines carry around?
Isn't that the third lames partly covered by the elbow?

--j