The Armour Archive

Here's what it looks like so far - the picture doesn't show the large rust stops from the piece of train track I'm using as an anvil...

[img]http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1619039&a=12361423&p=45842500[/img]

A far more interesting view of the inside, w/ the tools I'm using to work on the thing at the moment - ballpien hammer that's too small, magic marker for layout, disposable utility knife used to make tiny slits in the fabric, and nails. Evil, evil nails

[img]http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1619039&a=12361423&p=45842517[/img]

Closeup of the plates: [img]http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1619039&a=12361423&p=45842511[/img]

Weird thing here - I've only seen brigandines where the lower plate covers up all the rivets. Of course, the only brigandines I've seen the inside of are the ones with rows of four rivets. I've never seen inside views of the kind with three rivets grouped in a triangle - so there's some guesswork on my part here. It's working, apparently.

The next two pictures are showing the plates flexing when I move the garment.

[img]http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1619039&a=12361423&p=45842506[/img]


[img]http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1619039&a=12361423&p=45842503[/img]

That's about it. It took a day to punch all the holes in the plates, and I'm shaping them before I rivet them through the canvas... I'll probably have some pictures of that up this weekend. I'm using two layers of canvas for this, BTW.

Wow. I bet it'll be the envy of all when you're done!

Kudos, so far!

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Henri le Brassey
(mka: Timothy Finkas)

Hold on just a minute here. You're CUTTING holes for the rivits? BAD BAD idea. This'll make your brig fall apart much faster unless you're sewing the edges of said holes.

You're using nails. A nail will seperate the threads in your fabric and just push on through. Much more durable then cutting holes.

OTOH it looks really really cool.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory

I'm with Matt. You could just push those nails on through. Otherwise it's just going to tear. It looks good.

I believe that you could safely call that a Jack. Correct? I envy you for being willing to pien that many rivets. I tell you for sure though, it is going to look dang good when you get done.

Edric

Nice work. This brigandine is turning out beautiful... just keep going.

I'll second that hole problem. Cutting holes causes the thread to unravel...

Also, I'm wondering how much movement you're getting from this garment, due to the spacing between the rivets. My current (but not for much longer) fighting brigandine has the rivets spaced too closely together, and the fabric is ripping apart. It has lasted a year, but it won't be much longer.

And lastly, you don't need as big of a piened head on these rivets as I see in your photos. You can cut them a lot shorter, which will save some weight, but it will leave a smoother surface against your body. It will also help whatever fabric you choose to wear underneath this brigandine.

Oh, and perhaps you might want to round the corners on your plates a little more. it's hard to tell from these photos, but it looks like you left them pretty sharp. These corners could be driven into you, but more likely they will just chew up whatever garment you wear between you and your brig.

I'm glad to see a project like this, with so many plates and rivets, hasn't stopped you from even starting.

It looks like you have the edges of the fabric pinned together. Are you planing on running this through a sewing machine? You may have a hard time manipulating the fabric and plates through a machine if you wait until after all the plates are in place.

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Guy

A couple of thoughts. (I only scanned some of the early responses about the nails pulling through so I appologize if this was already suggested).

I would consider putting a washer behind the nail heads to increase the surface area that the nail head pulls against. I agree as well that the fabric should not be cut, but should have a "drift" of sorts forced into the fabric weave open gap between in the weave without breaking any threads.

Second, you can get premade rivets from Centaur Forge. The advantage of these over nails are that they are "dead soft" and pein exceedingly easy.

Swordsmith
www.oakandacorn.com

I'm not cutting large slits through the fabric, I'm marking where exactly the six holes should go on the back, and cutting through the back layer of fabric. The area of weakened canvas where it's easier for the rivet to penetrate isn't really visible except from the back, I'm still pushing the nail through at least one layer of fabric. There's no way I'm getting actual rivets through the fabric this way.

I'm not going to run the edges through a sewing machine. Since this is made out of two layers of fabric, I used the pins to keep the two pieces from separating until I had a reasonable amount of plates holding the thing together. They haven't been getting in the way of my work so far, that's why most of them are still there.

And a jack, AFAIK, doesn't involve rivets - a jack is square, round or octagonal plates laced together through two layers of fabric. It kind of sounds like lammelar, except there's only a central hole on each plate.