The Armour Archive

will these be SCA "legal" if I sew 1/4" felt between the gadling leather and glove leather?...still trying...

That's basically what mine are. All the marshals that have ever inspected me have been fine- I had no problems even at Gulf, which is notorious for armour inspection issues. Of course, non-fighters or less authenticity minded fighters have told me they're not safe/legal/competative, but nobody with the power to stop me, has.

Kingdom rules can be more restrictive than SCA rules but not less. Finger gauntlets, to be SCA legal, must either be padded to the rules or ground out against your weapon. For your individual kingdom you should really look at your kingdom rules to determine if you will have a problem. You are online here so you should be able to look up your Kingdom's marshallate page for a copy of your individual kingdom's rules and the SCA rules are online at www.sca.org

Cameron

Edited to add - Ealdomere armour standards are society minimums so the relevant text is:

2. A gauntlet of rigid material, either lined with ¼ inch (6mm) of closed-cell foam or equivalent or designed to transfer potentially injurious impact to the surfaces being grasped.

So if your marshalls consider 1/4 inch of felt to be equivalent to 1/4 inch of closed-cell foam then it would be legal, otherwise it wouldn't. I would ask the KEM if he/she would consider it to be equivalent and then you would have an answer that only your royalty would be able to argue with.

One word... Ouch!

Kerry,

I know you are trying to be helpful but... "whonew" is an incredibly polite and sincere fellow trying to supply a number of different markets.
I have no connection to whonew aside from friendship and common interest in metalwork. I comment here because a number of people have assumed all armourers are familiar with the SCA. Whonew sells kit to SCAdians, HEMA practitioners, re-enactors and stage/ stunt fight folks. Everyone wants something different. He makes solid, safe gauntlets that survive hard use. A lot of SCAdians want him to make gauntlets for them and he is trying to help them. He really seems to enjoy making these for pittance too, IMHO.

He isn't a SCAdian and might not have seen SCA fighting aside from the locals here in Toronto. No single group is representative of SCA practice.

When I was active as an earl marshall, I couldn't get marshals in one area to consistently apply well published regs. I would be surprised if that had changed locally or kingdom-wide let alone Society-wide.

He has already seen the various websites of SCA combat regulations. Please tell whonew if these would pass in your area or not. Why you think they may not pass would probably be helpful too.

Most people I know prefer the gauntlets to ground out (which is a shame cause they look bulky).

In Atenveldt, 1/4'' of felt would not be seen as the equivalent of 1/4'' of Closed Cell foam.

Duke Phelan wrote:In Atenveldt, 1/4'' of felt would not be seen as the equivalent of 1/4'' of Closed Cell foam.

Your name seems to suggest that you help maintain this policy.

Is the anti-felt sentiment true of helms as well?

schreiber wrote:

Duke Phelan wrote:In Atenveldt, 1/4'' of felt would not be seen as the equivalent of 1/4'' of Closed Cell foam.

Your name seems to suggest that you help maintain this policy.

Is the anti-felt sentiment true of helms as well?

Are you under the impression that a quarter inch of felt has an equivalent energy absorbing capacity to a quarter inch of closed cell foam ?

I don't think it's remotely fair to label it "anti-felt sentiment".

I do think it's clearly argumentative to do so.

my personal finger gauntlets are padded very simularly to those in the thread, I've tried foam in them and now have wool felt, the wool IS far more protective than the foam ever though about being, and its more comfortable too.

brian

schreiber wrote:

Duke Phelan wrote:In Atenveldt, 1/4'' of felt would not be seen as the equivalent of 1/4'' of Closed Cell foam.

Your name seems to suggest that you help maintain this policy.

Is the anti-felt sentiment true of helms as well?

I definitely wouldn't call it an "anti-felt sentiment".

But most definitely inch for inch, pound for pound, closed cell foam is far more protective than felt.

It is not a "period materials" argument, it is just simply fact.

1/4'' of felt does not offer the same amount of protection as 1/4'' of closed cell foam, therefore, it can not be considered a directly equivalent alternative.

Duke Phelan wrote:But most definitely inch for inch, pound for pound, closed cell foam is far more protective than felt.

Thats to broad of a statement, there are numerious different "felts" out there, some low on the portectiv scale some high and of different matrial composition. Like wise there are litterly thousands of different grades of closed cell foam, once again some low and some high on the scale.

Brian

knitebee wrote:

Duke Phelan wrote:But most definitely inch for inch, pound for pound, closed cell foam is far more protective than felt.

Thats to broad of a statement, there are numerious different "felts" out there, some low on the portectiv scale some high and of different matrial composition. Like wise there are litterly thousands of different grades of closed cell foam, once again some low and some high on the scale.

Brian

Well yes, it is a broad statement. Unless you want someone to write paragraphs with lot so caveats. As a general rule, most felt that is readily available to SCA types in local stores is not going to be nearly as protective as most readily available closed cell foam that SCA types generally use. Could there be some felt that is just as good? Probably. Have I seen it ever when buying felt? No. And we used to buy a lot of felt trying to come up with equivalent protection without having to go to foam.

The other problem with some felt, is that if it gets wet from sweat or water bottle spillage, it gets heavy and often also stops working as well as padding. Some felt when wet will also compress and change shape, sometimes permanently. We found this out the hard way trying to use it as padding in a variety of applications.

I'm not anti felt either, but I do agree with Phelen's general statement. As is is generally accurate.

There's a problem using subjective observation and anecdotal reports to try and determine equivalency. It's colored by far too many things, like preference for "historic accuracy", or a peculiarly conservative style that protects the fingers such that it's not comparable to a style that gets hit with greater frequency.

It's just not an objective means for making the determination.

There's quite a bit of hard data out there about the performance of materials these days.

I'm sure several of the engineering types could give us some figures about relative performance in energy absorption for various materials.

Kel Rekuta and anyone else who was offended,

My sincere apologies to you and the person who asked the question. No malice was intended by my answer. I simply told the gentleman where he could find the rule and I looked at where he was located and assumed he was asking for his local rules. One of the major downfalls of the internet is that there is no facial expressions or body language involved to take cues from. I try to assume that people have good intentions rather than bad and I generally take things offline rather than do it in public if my response is less than cordial. Had there been an indication that the gentle was attempting to sale to the SCA market rather than being a participant I would have phrased my answer differently. Again, my apologies for having offended.

Cameron

PS - I would not speak for anyone else when it comes to judging equivalent materials. When there is no clear standard and I want to use something I ask the KEM. If I were making production gauntlets I would leave the padding to the customer since there is virtually no way to come up with a lasting solution that will apply to every kingdom. I can say this with certainty since I have lived in 3 different kingdoms and they all had different interpretations of the rules. Often the interpretation of a rule changes when the person holding the KEM office changes.

Duplicate post deleted.

Kerry, I was not offended, just explaining my point of view. I agree that conflicting or unclear standards are bad. We have some well intended but poorly worded rules in the East that lead to a lot of different interpretations (though the armour related ones went away when we went to society minimums). See threads on thrusts to the side of the head for example or face thrusting. Sometimes what is written down does not accurately reflect actual practice in the lists, that is bad and should be fixed.

Richard Blackmoore wrote:

Kilkenny wrote:There's a problem using subjective observation and anecdotal reports to try and determine equivalency. It's colored by far too many things, like preference for "historic accuracy", or a peculiarly conservative style that protects the fingers such that it's not comparable to a style that gets hit with greater frequency.

It's just not an objective means for making the determination.

There's quite a bit of hard data out there about the performance of materials these days.

I'm sure several of the engineering types could give us some figures about relative performance in energy absorption for various materials.

Your Grace Gavin,

I agree with everything that you wrote. We should be open to trying new things and examining them with an open mind from a scientific point of view. Hence my interest in things such as the EK experimental flail project. I've always liked flails and always been told we can't have one because the are not safe. While I agree many flail designs are not safe, they've come up with one that appears to be, by tweaking the design factors involved and trying different materials.

So I'm not against trying to find a useful felt that will work as padding. Just making a general observation that it has not worked well as padding compared to close cell foam, in terms of protection offered.

I'd love to see felt that will work. I just never found it. And I did try within my limited time, budget and locally available felt (and felt from Pennsic & Gulf Wars merchants).

You mentioned the conservative style/frequency of getting hit issue. I don't think that applies here.

A design either offers X level of protection or it does not. Comparing mitten gauntlets to scale finger gauntlets for example has to be done on the basis of how much protection one offers vs. the other. While I agree that if the Society and Kingdoms all allowed scale protection for the fingers, using a conservative fighting style can greatly reduce the chance of injury, that isn't the same as being just as safe as mitten gauntlets. A person chosing to go with the conservative fighting style and scale finger protection is simply minimizing the greater risk associated with the less protective gauntlet, the risk from the lessor level of protection afforded still exists. You have to look at it this way or we are talking apples and oranges.

I personally like finger gauntlets, but won't use most of them in SCA combat except under a basket hilt or careful demo conditions, even if they are legal. With most designs it is simply too easy to break fingers or get substantial bone and tissue bruising, for my comfort level in hard hitting kingdoms like the East or Atlantia. Even if I'd only break a finger once or twice a decade, my personal choice is to wear mittens or use a basket hilt.

Now I don't have a problem with other people using finger gauntlets if they choose to for certain applications, though I will counsel them that I think it extremely unwise in melee or if they use a style in singles where the hand is likely to be hit a lot. I've just seen too many injuries even through full mittens with padding. Scale finger lames simply don't protect much. Oh they might protect you for years and you might not get hit and hurt, but in my personal opinion it simply isn't worth the risk.

I have a friend (Tristan Winter) with a pair of finger gauntlets. They are nice, I borrowed them for some semi choreographed 'live steel' combat last year. They are a step up from just scale finger protection but still basically just have thin, leather strip attached plates on the fingers. If I got hit in those hard, I would risk substantial injury. Even with the optional little finger bucklers that do help a bit for some blows, to spread the force.

He was asking me two weeks ago about adding some kind of padding to make them safer. My answer was that it can help, but in my opinion they simply put fighters, especially less skilled/experienced ones, at too much risk of injury for me to recommend them.

I hate to legislate safety. But I do understand why the powers that be are trying to protect our fingers. It is what separates us from most of the animal kingdom. Opposable thumbs that work, are kind of important