The Armour Archive

I'm finished off my splinted vambraces and have a question about strap attachment, and which is the better way to go.

This is for my kit which is 1340-1355 era.

The straps to close the vambraces I can do three ways of strapping and want opinions:

1) Around the entire arm front and back (riveted at each of the 4 plates)
2) Cut a hole before the first rivet and put the strap under the outer leather, using the rivet to hold the strap inside the outer leather (above the plate)
3) Cut a hold after the first rivet and put the strap end through the hole so it is not bare and flapping after it is riveted

Thoughts and opinions?

I was planning on #1 originally, but someone suggested #2 as looking neat and not often done. It would raise the leather slightly where the strap is, but I don't think that would be an issue.

For 2) you mean the strap's end, right? I don't know what 3) is.

I finished it off with version #2.

Take a look.

I then proceeded to take a poly mallet to it to test it and ended up damaging it slightly where the leather goes over one of the plates (The little mark to the right of the scimitar). Oh well, it is made for combat.

Over a gambison I was going at it pretty good with the mallet and had no issues. Just need to finish pointing it to the elbow cop so it doesn't slide down.

Whee! fully completed both now, and pointed to the elbow cops.

Since it is lined in suede, it is not slipping off my gambison so far, so I don't need to point it to that yet unless it starts slipping in combat.

That's the approach that we see in a number of examples in steel. There's not a large record for how they handled leather. Many of the surviving buckles were attached to the straps using buckle plates, that wrapped around the buckle, and had a rivet through them and the leather. That might be a next step to take for your next piece. I'm not saying that's universally how they did all buckles, as we have a ton of buckles with no evidence of a buckle plate. I suspect those may have been mechanically much like how you attached the buckle, but were far more often stitched rather than riveted together.

I only rivet together since it is faster and easier Stitching takes much more time, even using a stitching awl (my close friend now)

I may experiment with the metal fitting in future. I don't have much thin scrap metal around right now.

Fight test completed for the vambraces. (yeah, it took me a month to get out to a fighter practice. December was kinda nuts for me (4 christmases, uhg)

They came through just fine. no major hits to the area, but I could fight with them, and they did not slip at all (they are not pointed to the gambison at all, just to the elbow cop. The suede lining on them and the elbow prevents them from slipping).

Looks good. I found that the cut outs on splinted armour really makes a big difference.

I wish we had more info on period attachment though. Having things pointed and such makes a big difference but I'd like to get as period on it as I can.

RPM