Char-aineh

[lothar of the hill people]

Currently I'm working on a Char-Aineh for SCA combat use. The body is made out of 16-18 gauge stainless and is of six plates, shaped to the torso. Hinges attach the kidney and rib plates to the main front and back plates. The use of six rather than five plates may make it inauthentic, but I usually use my armor for a while, get bored with it and sell it as I want to make something new. (It will have to be adjustable around the middle) Norm's site has been extremely helpful, but I had some other questions. I want some rigidity at the top of the shoulder strap, and I'd like to attach a cop to cover the point of the shoulder. Is this plain wrong for this style of armor? Also for SCA fighting, I want the points of my hips and groin to have rigid protection (after getting a pike thrust to the cup last year that stopped me mid-charge) So, spade plates have been added to the harness, depending from the front three plates. This may be more Chinese in construction than Indo-Persian and I'm hoping it isn't a silly thing to do. The effect is balanced and fairly pleasing aesthetically. Kinda wondering if anyone knew if my combat modifications of this type of armor had period parallels. Umm, I guess this may be directed toward Norman, but others may have really good input.

[white mountain armoury]

im definatly not the authority on this style of armour but ill toss out an oppinion.
lots of what we wear needs to be modified to meet our needs and our societys rules, i think the mods you want to make to your armour can/will look fine as long as you manage to keep the flavor of the original armour.

[Norman]

Lothar,
(just gotta say -- I loved those skits !!)

It's hard to comment without looking at what you've done.
Can you post a photo of you armoured?

For Modifications, consider the Chihal Ta Hazar Masha -- I didn't draw the ones that include Chahar Ai Ne plates but I did draw one that was done with disks similar to Turkish Disk armour.
This way you have a thick leather breast-n-back with skirts and upper-arm defenses.
Also, I think the Chihal-Ta is stylistically very much related to what I called "Mongolian Brigandine" -- so I'd feel justified in your place in adding disk spaulders like I illustrated there.


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Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
silkroad@spam.nycmail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)

[sarnac]

Attaching a skirt of Lamellar may look more period than solid plates. Also lamellar for the shoulders may look better than solid or european style articulated spaulders.
My first armor was Char-ai-neh and I had an overlapping skirt of leather lamellar that hung down in front then had two seperate pieces that wrapped around to cover the hips and butt. It belted on first, over the gambeson then the body armor.

[lothar of the hill people]

(The skits were a bunch of fun, too bad I didn't tape them. Especially so, as I had friends who were studying anthropology) Wish I could get a picture on, but I don't currently have access to a digital camera. Best description would be plates that mirror the front plate, but reduced in size to about 5 inches long. They retain the width o f the plates they are suspended from. The front plate resembles a tapered tombstone. The bottom edge is flared out. My business partner may have access to a digital camera, I will see. Thanks for the good suggestions, and I may try some lamellar extensions on the next one. Has anyone tried the Chinese Star Scale pattern on the patterns section? Our house lord is dying to get a set of Chinese armor, and as senior house armorer...