The Armour Archive

Okay. Armor construction proceeds as I thought it would. That is to say, it's going slowly, but with thought and care, rather than haphazard assembly.

I have plans for a coat of plates (yup, Wisby style), and a gambeson is in the woiks. My lady is also a senior heavy marshall, so she's being a wee bit of a stickler about my armor. (Apparently, she doesn't want me to get *too* hurt...)

The question I have for y'all is about padding, especially knees and elbows.
Padding your helms also comes into this, but if the cotton batting pattern I've heard about comes through, that's a no-brainer.

Who uses what? How does it work? Any specific brands or types of gear to reccomend, or avoid? Soccer gear versus baseball? Hockey? Or any other sports gear that might go into the mix? (This is my first kit, so I'm not going whole hog on cost here...not yet, anyway.)

Any input would be appreciated, and I wanna thank y'all in advance for your responses.

I've fallen in love with the underarmor low profile gel pads for my knees and elbows.. low profile and work like a dream. Bought mine for $29 from Dicks Sporting goods...

I'm fond of volleyball pads for the knees, but I haven't tried any of this new low-profile stuff yet

The nice thing about volleyball pads is that they have more around the sides than typical knee pads.

The extra side padding is cool.

I used to wear plastic legs, with plastic knees. I personaly found that when wearing legs under pants, for an unarmored look the plastic tore up my pants less. Under those I wore 'workman' style knee pads with the hard cap. I liked the extra cap, though that may have been all in my head. They went further down the shin than some other pads, without going up higher on my thigh, and I liked that too.

I did not like the elastic parts of any pad. It always stretched out and went to crap first, and well before any other wear ever started to show up.

For my elbows, I pointed the pads right into the cop. That seemed to... not reduce the wear that the elastic took, but made it less significant. It also made sure that the pad stayed where I wanted it.

Partly, it depends on your kit. Early period would mean you might want sport knees or elbows, which means no extra padding required. Your coat of plates implies 13th/14th century CE though, which means probably you want metal elbow/knee cops, and maybe even full metal arm and leg armor - which means you do want some padding around those joints.

For myself, I have a child's street hockey elbow under my elbows; probably too much, really, but I was rather worried about keeping my arms intact when I started fighting, and haven't swapped it out yet (this summer). Nike foam knee pads, the sort with a thick pad out front; makes all the difference if you're legged. The one time I forgot to put on the knee pads, I definitely felt the difference!

I've read that some people are using neoprene elbow/knee pads for padding the inside of metal cops. Stonekeep Armory mentions these as an example:
http://www.painreliever.com/captainspor ... elbow.html

I haven't tried that myself, but it sounds like it should work, especially if you have a good padded gambeson over that. I'm considering giving something like that a shot this summer - neoprene under padded gambeson/cuisses, with metal cop on top.

Kilkenny wrote:I'm fond of volleyball pads for the knees, but I haven't tried any of this new low-profile stuff yet

The nice thing about volleyball pads is that they have more around the sides than typical knee pads.

Trust me on this your grace. the under armour has plenty of wrap around for the side of the knees and the wicking effect is awesome. You'll never go back to plain ole volleyball pads again.

Angusm0628 wrote:I've fallen in love with the underarmor low profile gel pads for my knees and elbows.. low profile and work like a dream. Bought mine for $29 from Dicks Sporting goods...

Got a model name for these? I'm looking at their site, but it's got so many links and headers, I'm a bit overwhelmed. I like the low-pro suggestion, though.

No I don't have a model # for them. Got them off the rack at the local store. Sorry..

Something like this, for the underarmor?
http://tinyurl.com/d3wjls

Owyn wrote:Something like this, for the underarmor?
http://tinyurl.com/d3wjls

I'm guessing it is this one. Price matches. http://www.underarmour.com/shop/us/en/s ... 000132-001

Your a bike guy look at dirt bike pads. I use Fox elbow pads they are comfortable and built to take impact.

for kidney protection; use a weight belt or lacrosse kidney pads, depending on the size of the "miller muscle" they may reach right around to the center.

Check the price difference of moto elbow pads v/ kids hockey shin pads, would the difference be worth the slight mods?

For helm padding, using foam martial arts headgear is god as you can clean and disinfect it once in awhile.

If you want to use any kind of "sports" gear, tell the sales person its not going to be used for its intended sport. There was a thread about travelling with armour and someone ponited out that scadians are just about everywhere

I like vollyball pads.
They usualy do not make a difference unless you have to do a lot of knee walking but if you need to get to your knees quick they help a lot.
the gel pads sound like somthing I need to investigate they volyball pads have a bulky look to them.

Anyone ever glue (contact cement) pads directly to the back of the metal armour?

If so, wrap the foam with a period looking material first, using spray adhesive to adhere it. Leave about 1/2" of fabric wrapped on the back side so as not to come undone. Then use contact cement to glue to metal.

This looks so much better than blue or black foam!