Mac's blog

[Mac]

This shows the general idea. The way I make enclosed thumbs is to start with a "can". It will have two welded seams.



The template includes a bit of extra material (the shaded areas) to make the welding easier. They will get trimmed away once the shaping is done. There is also handling "tang" extending beyond the articulating edge. This is a new feature for me. In the past, I have just held on to the underlap with visegrips and cursed a lot. I think this will be better.



My schedule is a bit full today, but I hope to get back to in the late afternoon or early evening.

Mac

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

There is also handling "tang" extending beyond the articulating edge. This is a new feature for me. In the past, I have just held on to the underlap with visegrips and cursed a lot. I think this will be better.

That has been my experience. Quite liberating, once I got past my penurious impulse against waste. Hey, this is the 21st century! Materials are cheap!

[Mac]

I'll be out of town for the next week, visiting my folks in Florida.

Those thumbs will, no doubt, wait for me.

Mac

[Mac]

I'm back in the shop now and am returning to the thumb tips.

I usually start rolling these before I dish the centers, but I forgot, and did it the other way around today.



When you get right down to it, it's probably not really worth the effort to dish them at all. Most of that compound curvature just goes away when you fold them up for welding anyway. I come to this conclusion nearly every time I make a pair of these, but somehow never seem to remember that for the next pair.



I use strips of 1050 for filler rod. These thumbs are .035" material, so the welding will be a bit tricky. Welding is on of the few things I do in the shop without earplugs. This lets me adjust the regulator pressures by sound, as well as letting me hear how the actual welding is going.



By the time I was done with all four welds, there was not much "rod" left.



I used a coarse belt on the grinder to get rid of most of the excess weld material, but there are limits. You can see here that I can't really get rid of the lines where the weld meets the parent material. I've outlined them in black in the second pic. If these lines are not ground away, they may turn into cracks during the subsequent shaping.



I used a Dremel cutoff wheel to lightly gouge them out. It's better to have a slightly thin spot than a discontinuity. I also cleaned up any over-penetration from the inside of the weld with some well worn cutoff wheels. On larger projects, I would have flowed the weld on the inside with the torch, but that's really not an option here.



The first hot shaping step is to collapse the points onto a horn.



This is what it looks like with one point collapsed and the other still raw. The importance of this step is to make the point round enough that it will not be so inclined to take a fold in the subsequent forging.



Most of the rest of the shaping will take place on the "thumb stake".



The piece on the foreground has had some roughing out on the thumb stake, and the one in the background is as it came from the point collapsing operation.



Here are both thumb tips after a couple of passes on the thumb stake. I'll pick them back up after lunch.



Mac

[Woodswork Armory]

Seeing the details on how you shape the thumb pieces will help me tremendously for some combat related stuff, I got hit in the thumbs once and was cursing for a solid 5 minutes wishing I had some closed thumbs, i'll need to make some soon!

[Mac]

Having finished the hammer work, I found and circled the centerpunch marks, and sketched in the underlap.



After a bit of fussing and fidgeting, I got the thumb tips in place.




The range of motion seems good.





Tomorrow, I'll turn my attention to the hinges.

Mac

[Mac]

I have a bit of a problem. I don't really like the way the thumbs are coming along. That came to a head the other morning when Chris G. called on the phone to discuss them. His analogy was that if the rest of the gauntlet was a rhino, then the thumbs were a hippo. He's right. Sometimes it takes someone else's opinion to help ya' see what you're trying to ignore. Thank you Chris!

There are a couple of problems...

--The first is that Gothic gauntlet fingers and thumbs are usually quite slim. The plates are typically narrower than the digits and the overall effect is slim... almost skeletal. This is at odds with our need for articulated digits, which must be noticeably wider than the anatomy they cover so as to be deep enough for the pivots. I've been fighting this as much as possible by "drawing with a fine pencil" and making everything as slim as I can.

--The second problem is that the thumb knuckle adds to the bulky appearance of the thumb. On the plus side, the thumb knuckle makes it easy to get enough articulation. It also lets the thumb tip and thumb cannon be the same width. If I get rid of the knuckle plate, I have two possibilities, and neither of them is very good. The first would be to make the thumb tip overlap the thumb cannon. This is the opposite of the way a normal Gothic thumb might overlap, but the thumb cannon would look relatively slim. The second is the make the cannon overlap the thumb tip. This has the right overlap direction for a typical thumb, but I would have to make the cannon be bigger at teh distal end than at the proximal end. That will not look very elegant.

--The third problem is that the thumb tips I made are too round looking. That is a good ergonomic shape, but it's not very slim looking. I can fix this by making new tips that are "pointier".

--The forth problem is that I've got the whole thumb assemblies a bit too short. When they are laid in place, there is a shortfall of about 5/16" (6mm).

This last issue means that I can't just ignore the aesthetic issues and carry on. Something needs replacement, and my first stab at improvement will be to make a longer thumb tip.

In the pic below, I have the main thumb plate in the right location, and have removed the bolts from the tip articulation to see how how much length I will need to gain.



Here is the template for the old thumb tips, next to the new one. I have moved the pivots back 5/16". I have also narrowed the "waist" of the starting can. This will help to produce a pointier thumb.



The new thumb tips are under way now, and I will post pics of them when they are further along. I hope that they will address the aesthetic issues well enough that I can use them with the rest of the parts I have.

Oh.. and thanks again, Chris, for telling me that I was screwing up. "Friends don't let friends make ugly armor"

Mac

[Mac]

Here is a pic showing the new thumb tip on the left and the old one on the right. The new one is a bit longer than the old one, as well as being somewhat slimmer at the end.

I like the new thumb a lot better than the old one, but I'm not sure if I like it enough.....

What do y'all think?



Mac

[Galileo]

A touch more work on that thumb tip and you could have a thumbnail on there. The one on the right looks like it just needs outlined

I like the one on the left though.

[Christian Wiedner]

I never liked enclosed thumbs. They might offer protection but they are to clumsy.
The left is better but for the gothic style it is still not a rhino and a hippo but a gazelle and a hippo
In your case it may be not that extreme as the bifurcated fingers are not that filigree either...

[Mac]

The left is better but for the gothic style it is still not a rhino and a hippo but a gazelle and a hippo
In your case it may be not that extreme as the bifurcated fingers are not that filigree either...

I'm trying to make the best of an un-gazelle-like situation, and I feel like I'm a bit stuck for better ideas.

If we begin with the idea that the gauntlets must have articulated fingers and enclosed thumbs, what changes would you make?

Mac

[Marshal]

but a gazelle and a hippo

A...gazebo?

[Woodswork Armory]

Mac, the left thumb looks much better, nice and skinny!

[Woodswork Armory]

The left is better but for the gothic style it is still not a rhino and a hippo but a gazelle and a hippo
In your case it may be not that extreme as the bifurcated fingers are not that filigree either...

I'm trying to make the best of an un-gazelle-like situation, and I feel like I'm a bit stuck for better ideas.

If we begin with the idea that the gauntlets must have articulated fingers and enclosed thumbs, what changes would you make?

Mac

If I were in your position I would try a different thumb baseplate. something about the ones you made make them look "big" and doesn't remind me of gothic thumbs that much, i'm trying to think of a better way to describe it

[Christian Wiedner]

I dont know...hide the thumbcap inside the glove?
Maybe some offsetting or openings for the thumbcap in combination with the articulation only via leather as the knuckle of the thumb is already to big

[Cet]

I like the new thumb better. I think to achieve a more elegant shape overall you would need to expose more of the first cannon/2nd phalanges plate which would of course mean re-designing the hinged first phalanges plate....

[Mac]

...... as the knuckle of the thumb is already to big

..... I think to achieve a more elegant shape overall you would need to expose more of the first cannon/2nd phalanges plate

Here is the new-new thumb. I have scuttled the knuckle plate and extended the cannon.



Which one looks better? If it's the new-new (lower) one, is it better enough?

Mac

[Cet]

The upper thumb with the extended cannon looks better proportioned to me but that articulation seems out of place eon a German gauntlet. I'm left ambivalent. Can you muck up the upper thumb onto the body of the gauntlet?

[Indianer]

As it is, it is intended to be worn over a gauntlet, right?

>> Forgo the thumb of the gauntlet?

[Galileo]

Hey Mac! on your top thumb (without the knuckle plate) - is it possible to *fake* a knuckle plate with the cannon? That would allow it to be trimmer and eliminate one articulation rivet from the standard knuckle plate (bottom one).

No idea if it's even possible. Just thinking of a way to get the gothic look and feel, but with your enclosed thumb and keep it skinny.

[Rene K.]

Hi mac,

I agree with christian about closed fingertips, but if it is needed your result of the new 4 piece thumb comes out very good.
I also like the idea of the 3 pieces thumb with a rised out knucklespike in the middle part.
There are some genuine pieces of articulated fingers and thumbs, mostly used for 16.th tournament armour.
Some 14.th exampes aso have riveted fingersegments.
This examples come out relatively elegant, what i think also is a result of the using of very thin material and gloves.

What thickness of material do you use for this project ?
I think a more lense shaped thumbplate would give all a more gothic look

[Rene K.]

For shure, this here are later examples, but i noticed that the thumbelements are made very flat and not that much around the Finger.







I thought a bit about the thumb, and a other good solution could be the idea to make the thumb out of 3 pieces and set the thumbtip over the middle canon, like the fingertips on this one from munich:

[Mac]

There are some genuine pieces of articulated fingers and thumbs, mostly used for 16.th tournament armour.
Some 14.th exampes aso have riveted fingersegments.

I've started gathering up images of articulated fingers and thumbs on a Pinterest page here

Likewise, enclosed thumbs are here

This examples come out relatively elegant, what i think also is a result of the using of very thin material and gloves.

What thickness of material do you use for this project ?

I'm using .035" (.9mm) for most parts, and .042" (1.1mm) for the knuckles.

I think a more lense shaped thumbplate would give all a more gothic look

That's the direction I am headed with the thumbs I started last night. I'm thinking that a long slim enclosed tip, with no embossed nail might give the best impression.

I had not seen this example before. Thanks!

Mac

[Mac]

For shure, this here are later examples, but i noticed that the thumbelements are made very flat and not that much around the Finger.

It's true. Many of the authentic articulated thumbs are very shallow. The problem is that it's difficult to get enough motion for an enclosed tip if the pivot rivets are that far from being coaxial. It's OK for a conventional thumb, because the glove will allow the wearer's thumb tip to flex even if the armor does not.

Wow! I don't think I have ever seen that bifurcated mitten before Where is it located? A Google image search took me to a Russian language site that was undergoing some work and did not have the image available.

Mac

[Sean Powell]

Here is a pic showing the new thumb tip on the left and the old one on the right. The new one is a bit longer than the old one, as well as being somewhat slimmer at the end.

I like the new thumb a lot better than the old one, but I'm not sure if I like it enough.....

What do y'all think?
Mac

I know my response to this is late but I can't help but feel that the elongated thumb is like putting a tall hat on a short man. Yes it "Works" in that the top of his had is now as tall as everyone else but the proportions are off. There is a ratio of finger joint phlange length that we are accustomed to seeing and while I don't have numbers on the thumb I think it's a good 'rule of thumb' to follow.

https://www.goldennumber.net/human-hand-foot/

As plates progress towards the tip they should be less robust than the previous.

Note how in this image that the more proximal finger cannon is longer than the middle finger cannon and the proximal knuckle plate is more robust than the middle knuckle cop. Fingers don't just taper but all of the pieces of the finger shrink in proportion.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/92/5b/e8/925b ... ea8400.jpg

I think that the thumb will ideally have a taper to it when seen from above. That may mean making the proximal thumb phlange longer and if you can't narrow the mid-thumb articulation then perhaps widening the base will be advantageous.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/08/d2/a9/08d2 ... cb12ef.jpg

Sean

[Mac]

My latest attempt at thumb tips will be shaped up over this new stake. It's ground down out of 1" (25mm) stock.



The idea is to have a thing that looks less like a human thumb tip, and more like a Gothic gauntlet thumb tip. In the top view, we can see how the stake relates to a typical Gothick thumb tip template.



Here is one of the newly roughed out tips compares to its predecessors. I have not yet trimmed off the handling allowances.



This view shows what I am trying to achieve. The upper surface looks like a normal thumb plate, and the lower surface is there to do its job... no thumb nail, no attempt at making it look human. Any resemblance to a cartoon whale are purely accidental



I'll try to get these integrated with the knuckle plates this afternoon.

Mac

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Do not trust the fingers on the Munich gauntlet. Vic'y as they come. Also, the thumb on the example you had not seen before looks like a restoration too, if a nice one. Almost all 'gothic' gauntlets have restored fingers and thumbs (usually the base plate, too), or associated, often 16th century pieces modified to make them look a bit more 'gothic'. This is true of most 16th century gauntlets that I have seen or worked on, even in very prestigious collections. I think it might be that hinges were valuable hardware, and were scrounged from most gauntlets. Centuries later, the dealers came along and slapped things back together howsomever.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Oh, and you have (IIRC) handled one of the only pairs in existence to retain its fingers (if not its thumbs), A 58 KMW.

[Mac]

I got the two new thumb tips on this evening.





Perhaps tomorrow I'll finally make those hinges....

Mac

[Chris Gilman]

BINGO!
Exactly what I was thinking.

[Sean M]

Almost all 'gothic' gauntlets have restored fingers and thumbs (usually the base plate, too), or associated, often 16th century pieces modified to make them look a bit more 'gothic'. This is true of most 16th century gauntlets that I have seen or worked on, even in very prestigious collections. I think it might be that hinges were valuable hardware, and were scrounged from most gauntlets. Centuries later, the dealers came along and slapped things back together howsomever.

My impression is that the finger leathers were of something which does not survive 300 years of storage, so fingers of many plates fell off or were cut off. Very few of the gloves of plate in Schloss Amras still have fingers, and some of the ones which do look dicey. Storing leather that gets exposed to sweat seems to be a challenge, belts and wallets last decades but most of us here have owned some old SCA armour or a fencing gorget which was cracked or mouldy after 10 years in storage when we got it back out to try fighting again.

[Rene K.]

The strange thing is, that many of later period gauntlets have theyre genuine glove and fingers. And the leather is often in a good condition.
Another problem at leather parts is not ony the sweat, but also the rust of the nails in it and the rusty inside of the plates on it.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

I would not say 'many', but certainly more than one might expect. I really want to see some heavy laboratory analysis of the working life leathers that have survived, to find out if the 'common knowledge' we have about them is correct. I think there is a lot to learn. The surviving bits in Schloss Churburg might have some good 15th century data.

Mac, that thumbtip is certainly an improvement! I did not consider it my place to comment, but I'm glad Chris did.

[Sean M]

The strange thing is, that many of later period gauntlets have theyre genuine glove and fingers. And the leather is often in a good condition.
Another problem at leather parts is not ony the sweat, but also the rust of the nails in it and the rusty inside of the plates on it.

Rene, when you say "later period" do you mean after 1600? in my experience (especially Schloss Amras) 16th century gloves of plate are usually missing their fingers and have no gloves of leather inside. 16th century mittens of plate are more often intact because all the plates are riveted to one another.

I can't think of any with leather gloves still in them except for the one at Churburg and the Black Prince's and maybe one or two others.

[Sean M]

Relevant: I have a thread on the leather parts of gauntlets. I quickly concluded that it would take too much work researching, then too much money in product development, to make something correct, and had hildebrandt follow his usual practice of starting with modern deerskin gloves and adjusting the fingers (I had him add a bath in red dye, because Datini's customers liked vermillion leather in their iron gauntlets).