The Armour Archive

basicly my question is this whe lacing lamellar do you lace it tight,or loose?
I have done my lacing tight with both leather and metal but I think that the tight lacing with the metal scale makes the edges inside the holes act like thousands of pairs of scissors.
My past experience with scissors is the losser they are the worse they cut.
how ever with the armour I find the tight lacing gives the armor a structural rigidity.
any way I welcome your thoughts

I I remember correctly I think tight for the bands/rows and loose (a pencil width) for the band/row to band/row connection works well and allows for flexibility........been a number of years since I put one together.

-Barnet

first you want to get yourself a de-burring tool for the holes, it will round off the edges and add a lot of life to your lacing.

and yes tight lacing is not the best for long lacing life with steel plates and loose lacing will give you more flexibility.

you can also tie a knot in between your plates to stop the scissor effect.

what do you suggest for a deburring tool?

I used a drill with a stone head. Worked fine. I also tend to lace like Ouzel, or else I do it up as a solidly-laced cuirass much like a breastplate.

I've always done them tight with the exception of the last harness I made, which I'm seriously thinking about selling: I just don't like how it handles compared to the tighter-laced stuff.

I was using a ball stone grinder bit on my dremmel for a while to debur holes in some splints not shure how rought the holes are in the plates but that might be a place to start.

I go as tight as I can, it always ends up loose after a short time.



I typed this 4 different ways -- they all sound dirty.

Take my wife please!
;D

You can get a chamfre tool as well for de-burring. I've picked up three while at work. I also second the opinion that even if you lace it up tight, the laces will stretch and loosen over time.

this type of hand de-burring tool works very well

http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMPXNO=12469695&PMT4NO=56798050

there are powered ones but I find they take just as much work.

D. Sebastian wrote:I go as tight as I can, it always ends up loose after a short time.

I agree with D!
Prince EikBrandr

I lace mine pretty tight.

YOu can lace side to side tight for some rigidity and top to botton a bit looser for flexibility.

I tried to lace mine loose when I first made it. It didn't distribute the impact as well. In fact when I got hit it hurt like hell. I relaced it as tight as I could get it and haven't gotten a bruse through it since. Eventuall the chording does stretch a little and make movement easier, but even when it's laced tight it still moves better than a solid brest plate.

Just to clarify the historical method is
*> laced tight horizontaly (so it is essentialy a single band with just a tiny bit of give)
*> laced loosely verticaly (so that the bands can fold into each other)

This is how the complete armours in Tibetan temples work and this is how the armour is described as working by Europeans in Mongol courts.

Note - many modernly sold lamellar plates lack the holes to to properly lace verticaly -- you want room for the plates to generously overlap and yet have a loose lace.
A good rule of thumb is to have the holes for lacing upwards at the top and the hole for lacing downwards at about the middle of the plate.
http://www.redkaganate.org/martial/armo ... amlr.shtml
http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/page6.html

Hiya Stahl!
I put together a Thorvaldr leather lam kit with "leather bootlace".
I laced it really tight.
Then I wore it about three times, and went back and relaced the hell out of it. That seemed to work fine, it's back to semi-floppy yet sorta protective.

D- for you, buddy, sure. Just let me get it past the fiance.
If you don't hear back from me, it didn't work.