ARS Chats (Dr. Williams, Capwell and Mr. Terjanian Excerpts)
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 10:10 am
I figured I would post some excerpts from the previous chats to let folks know the type/quality of information presented in our periodical chats with museum and industry professionals and academics:
Excerpts from 7 page chat with Dr. Alan Williams on February 13, 2005:
Excerpts from 18 page chat with Dr. Tobias Capwell on March 13, 2005:
[quote]Doug Strong (ARS): When we look at English Brasses of around the second quarter of the 15th century. (i.e. John Segrave at Dorchester Abbey) We can see the cuffs appear to be made with many lames articulating the cuffs with the metacarpal plate. Do you know of sculpted effigies that depict this? It would certainly make them easier to understand in 3 dimensions.
Tobias Capwell: Yes, those are strange. I have come across one effigy that appears to show the same thing, so that implies that it was a real construction. Unfortunately, the effigy is of a judge (in armour), and he is wearing his judicial robes over the armour, so the armour is covered mostly, and the hands are also broken off, and the whole thing is very worn, so it is hard to be sure what was once there. But yes, I think it is something that was done; how commonly who knows.
Michael Arndt (ARS): says to admin (private): I was looking at your online picture gallery and was wondering if you could gives us some details on the construction and attachment of the grill on No: E.1939.65.l?
Field armour, German, circa 1535.
Tobias Capwell: Yes, that is a neat helmet. Very big fellow. The top ends of the grill bars pass though slots in the helmet brim, and are secured by hooks mounted there (the ends of the bars are pierced. The horizontal bars are pierced to take the lengthwise bars, which are interlaced though, if you see what I mean. It is a very beautiful construction, and very clever.
Doug Strong (ARS): How do you interpret the inscription “Avantâ€Â
Excerpts from 7 page chat with Dr. Alan Williams on February 13, 2005:
Fabrice Cognot (ARS): Are there differences in quality between steels used for making weapons and steel made for making armour?
Alan Williams: Much larger pieces of steel are needed for plates of armour, so the demands on metallurgists are greater. Quite small pieces of steel will do for a sword. The cheapest swords have very narrow bands of steel welded to iron cores. Steel being expensive, the less scrupulous smiths made it go as far as possible. The cutting edge of the sword from the "Mary Rose" was only 2mm deep - which would not have lasted many sharpenings.
Doug Strong (ARS): In your research into the Greenwich armours you showed more consistent use of hardening and tempering procedures when compared to the rest of Europe at the same time. (In three distinct phases if memory serves) To what do you attribute this?
Alan Williams: Innsbruck was also pretty consistent, apart from an interlude in Prague. Systematic trial and error must have been employed to develop a consistent set of recipes for heat-treatment. These recipes would NOT have been written down. 16th century ones which were published are deliberately misleading. Timing was crucial, and might have been done by reciting prayers. Temperature measurement would have been very difficult, but equally crucial. I hypothesize that sheets of cast iron were heated from below, so that the armour parts were heated indirectly, and uniformly. Strips of, e.g. red lead, copper sulfate, would change color at certain temperatures - copper sulfate at 250C, red lead at 350C - between these two color changes, your armour is at 300C (approx).
Excerpts from 18 page chat with Dr. Tobias Capwell on March 13, 2005:
[quote]Doug Strong (ARS): When we look at English Brasses of around the second quarter of the 15th century. (i.e. John Segrave at Dorchester Abbey) We can see the cuffs appear to be made with many lames articulating the cuffs with the metacarpal plate. Do you know of sculpted effigies that depict this? It would certainly make them easier to understand in 3 dimensions.
Tobias Capwell: Yes, those are strange. I have come across one effigy that appears to show the same thing, so that implies that it was a real construction. Unfortunately, the effigy is of a judge (in armour), and he is wearing his judicial robes over the armour, so the armour is covered mostly, and the hands are also broken off, and the whole thing is very worn, so it is hard to be sure what was once there. But yes, I think it is something that was done; how commonly who knows.
Michael Arndt (ARS): says to admin (private): I was looking at your online picture gallery and was wondering if you could gives us some details on the construction and attachment of the grill on No: E.1939.65.l?
Field armour, German, circa 1535.
Tobias Capwell: Yes, that is a neat helmet. Very big fellow. The top ends of the grill bars pass though slots in the helmet brim, and are secured by hooks mounted there (the ends of the bars are pierced. The horizontal bars are pierced to take the lengthwise bars, which are interlaced though, if you see what I mean. It is a very beautiful construction, and very clever.
Doug Strong (ARS): How do you interpret the inscription “Avantâ€Â