The Armour Archive

Hello all, I have a kit of armor that's more period-inspired than period, and I'm looking to improve it with arming clothes. I'd like to get this right the first time, with all your help. Right now I fight in "Under Armor" sports "Heat Gear" when it's hot, and in rough cotton when it's not.

PRIORITIES:
Manoeverability
Comfort
Easy to don and remove
Period look that matches the armor
Cool in summer
Long-lasting
Doesn't get too smelly

NON-PRIORITIES:
Cost
Protection
Non-visible authenticity (ie: stitching, filling, etc)
Commercial availability (I'm hiring a seamstress)

IDEAS SO FAR:
I have a linnen & faustian pourpoint I haven't used yet
I haven't settled on materials yet, but I think I'd like to do tough linnen inner and outer layers so far
I may stitch leather patches on wear points
I may used closed cell foam under leather to pad key areas
I'd like to put maille "voiders" in where clothes show through the gaps unless it substantially hampers fighting
The pattern from http://www.gambesons.com looks about right for the kit and pretty good

Any feedback or guidance on patterns, materials, or other thoughts useful to make the uber-clothes?

Thanks!

Photos of current kit (also, I may add a maille skirt)

Sixteenth-century (pick a decade) doublet cut, to go with that burgonet. If there are slashes ("cuttes"), keep these minimized and away from articulating plates and lames -- they can snag.

I agree, your plate harness could stand some more distinctly sixteenth-century details. The sharply defined laminated tassets of a 16th-c. breast and back would do a lot for hip coverage.

Konstantin the Red wrote:Sixteenth-century (pick a decade) doublet cut, to go with that burgonet. If there are slashes ("cuttes"), keep these minimized and away from articulating plates and lames -- they can snag.

Hmm, I know what an actual doublet is cut like and they seem really restrictive, especially in the armpits and across the chest. Is there a pattern you know of that's modified to allow more free motion, or would I just get one size too big?

Also, I'm still interested in hearing everyone's feedback.

Thanks again!

I would say any generic gambeson would work.

Your rig is not exactly period specific so choosing a period specific gambeson is not really needed.

I would look at a gambeson that has open armpits, stops just below the waist and you can point your legs to.

Thanks for the input II. That's pretty liberating (though maybe it shouldn't be)!

I've been doing a little poking around and the Charles de Blois (SP?) pattern seems to fit the bill but with an enclosed armpit as well. I do like the look of arming doublets however. Is there an arming doublet out there with mobility that matches the earlier designs?

Avery wrote:Thanks for the input II. That's pretty liberating (though maybe it shouldn't be)!

I've been doing a little poking around and the Charles de Blois (SP?) pattern seems to fit the bill but with an enclosed armpit as well. I do like the look of arming doublets however. Is there an arming doublet out there with mobility that matches the earlier designs?

You can make an unpadded arming doublet using the de blois pattern. I made one that works great. Two layers of linen with a canvas shell on the outside.

Only catch with a Charles de Blois is that its time is fourteenth-century, well before any burgonet.

In trying to unite a fighting harness in place and time, I personally cue off the helmet, mostly. Your breastplate looks rather more 19th-c. cuirassier than anything else, and I'd stay pretty puzzled for a long time to assign a time and a place to your backplate -- maybe it's an anime. So, yeah, it does look like a large project, doesn't it?

Unless you get hit in the armpits all the time, there's nothing particularly troublesome with pointing sleeves to doublet body at the top of the sleeve cap and leaving the armpits open. And arm freedom is mainly a matter of cut even with the armpits closed up -- a matter of having enough fabric available that you're not bound up.

The CdB is pretty extraordinary in the arm freedom department, though.

Are those greaves splinted? It's a bit hard to tell in your pics.

Seems to me a peascod breastplate with a backplate, plus some real 1570-1600 pauldrons in full detail -- lames down the arm to the rerebrace, medial lames also, would begin the uniting of your harness. I'm going to end up saying that most of your armor below the neck should be changed or reworked. Elbow and knee cops of the latest-sixteenth were small, with small to medium fans to them, formed in close to the shapes of the musculature beneath.

This no doubt seems like a lot of bother and a great deal of expense to go to. However, it does give you a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure in wearing your harness when you know it really is a unified suit and not an improvisation.

I think I remember seeing a link from another post that explained how to make a CdB coat as well as how the design actually worked on ones body. While you've said your doing 16th C, if you research garb/arming clothes of the era you may find an answer or something to start from with a few modifications.

Don

Yeah, right now my kit is pretty ecclectic. All of my armour (helm aside) is made out of very thin titanium alloys, and there's a lot that you can do with mild steel that I haven't been able to do in titanium... even with the help of Sir Mrks. Also, my top priority sits firmly on protection, my second priority sits with unencumbered figthing, my third priority sits with helping the state of titanium armoring, my fourth is maintaining a period look, and my sixth is resources. As you've all noticed, my kit isn't firmly anything period, so I'm willing to settle for an arming garment that is 150 years earlier than the helm just so I can stop wearing Under Armor (TM).

Begin Armour Aside
Thanks for the feedback Konstantin, I really appreaciate it. In fact, I was going to start a thread just about armour suggestions sometime soon. Let me take a stab at responding.

Konstantin the Red wrote:In trying to unite a fighting harness in place and time, I personally cue off the helmet, mostly.

Yeah, the helm seems to be easiest. This one may be temporary, however, so I'm hoping to work a little more off the kit as possible.

Konstantin the Red wrote:Your breastplate looks rather more 19th-c. cuirassier than anything else, and I'd stay pretty puzzled for a long time to assign a time and a place to your backplate -- maybe it's an anime.

I was trying to go for a sports-modified 16th C gothic front. The top piece is split into three articulating pieces instead of one (to allow cross-chest motion) and the lower three articulations have a much less steep front to accomodate the material and allow stomach crunch types of motion. The backplate is simply the only way we've figured out to build a backplate (again, due to the material).

Konstantin the Red wrote:Are those greaves splinted? It's a bit hard to tell in your pics.

Sort of, due to the material we're unable to make the greave in a single piece, so it's actually three curved pieces riveted together into one solid greave, if that makes sense.

Konstantin the Red wrote:some real 1570-1600 pauldrons in full detail -- lames down the arm to the rerebrace, medial lames also, would begin the uniting of your harness.

I'm actually hoping to rework my entire arm harness over the next few years if I can find a pattern that covers most of the flesh, fits the overall look, offers unhampered motion in all directions, and can be made to work with the material. Right now, I'm very unhappy with the motion of the arms and it hampers my fighting.

Konstantin the Red wrote:Elbow and knee cops of the latest-sixteenth were small, with small to medium fans to them, formed in close to the shapes of the musculature beneath.

I would love to bring the legs in more, but since I fight in the SCA that is a real challenge. When I drop to my knees to do silly knee figthing, the width of my calves and thighs right above and below my knees expands substantially (around 2 inches across). Since nobody in plate armor would ever fight like that in real life, they're leg armor was slim (as it should be). Since I have to be able to fight well in that position without having my cuisses cut into my flesh, I cannot. That said, I'd like to replace my cuisses at some point because an error caused their shape to be funny, and I may then try to find a way to make a fully enclosed cuisse.

Konstantin the Red wrote:This no doubt seems like a lot of bother and a great deal of expense to go to. However, it does give you a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure in wearing your harness when you know it really is a unified suit and not an improvisation.

I'd really love to, and I hope someday I can. In the meantime, I still have to make a new gorget or aventail, codpiece, tassets/skirt or something, sabatons, rears for the greaves, weapons and shields. [/quote]

Avery wrote:

Konstantin the Red wrote:This no doubt seems like a lot of bother and a great deal of expense to go to. However, it does give you a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure in wearing your harness when you know it really is a unified suit and not an improvisation.

I'd really love to, and I hope someday I can. In the meantime, I still have to make a new gorget or aventail, codpiece, tassets/skirt or something, sabatons, rears for the greaves, weapons and shields.

[/quote]

I think that your to do list is a good place to start with the kit unification. Pick a time and place for these items and then you will be closer to the unified kit. I know that I wished that I had had a clearer idea of my kit goals years ago. It woiuld have made the list of items I now need to remake or replace much shorter. If you have a well defined time, place, etc. and work towards that then in the end you will waste less time and money. If you wait to do this all at once it will probably never happen.
Slow progress is still progress.

Tom