Advice needed for attaching armour

[valen]

Hey guys.

I've recently picked up a suit of plate that I love to pieces. Everything works well, except the arm pieces. There is a nice wide pauldron that I've laced to my arming doublet (wool on the outside, 4 layers of linen on the inside).

Below that is a piece that protects bicep, elbow and forearm (if it has a name, I'd love to know!). It looks very like; http://www.armorymarek.com/public/defau ... ns/p28.jpg

However, when I tie this to my jacket, as the holes at the top seem to indicate, it pulls the whole doublet sleeve down three or four inches, so after a few swings of my arm, the 'elbow' is closer to my wrist. I'd a friend look at it, and between us, we realised that the doublet has peaked shoulders which completely give way under 2kg of steel. I suspect this style of arm was intended to be worn under something a lot stiffer, like a more padded gambeson or pourpoint.

I can take photos etc. if they'd help, but if anyone had any recommendations in the meantime, that'd be great. I was wondering if a leather harness could be worn over the doublet instead, but that seems...defeating the point.

[mattmaus]

I'm not the expert.

Textiles hate me.

It sounds by your description of the peak of the shoulder that maybe you don't want a stiffer garment, but one that's tailored differently. Something that didn't have the slack at the shoulder to pull down.

Do you have points at the elbow as well as the shoulder? Maybe adding some there would help.

I never owned a good arming garment. The only way I could ever get my elbows to stay put was to let them ride on the wrist. Obviously, that's uncomfortable, and restrictive.

However, a padded cuff at the wrist (like a tennis players sweat band, but bulkier) separate from the armor seemed to work ok. So the cuff rides on the wrist, the armor rides on the cuff and slips down much less. Not period, not elagant, not the best fix, but it's quick and easy.

[Baron Alcyoneus]

Are the shoulders on your doublet those big poofy ones?


If so, here are several ideas.

Some period descriptions of similar doublets say that they should be padded with 3-4 fingers thick worth of padding, which would give them more body, and less likely to slip and stretch like that.

If that section of the arm was lined with a heavier canvas, that conformed more to the shape of the body, the points could attach to that above and below the poofy part. This leaves the outer portion for style and padding, while the work is done by the canvas.

[valen]

The doublet looks more like; http://www.matuls.pl/sklep_zdjecia/329.jpg - no giant puffy shoulders, but they are dropped shoulders. I think the problem is that the lining isn't tight, and the wool outer is stretchy.

I think I'll need to get a photo to get the point across

John

[Dierick]

'build a house on sand...'

Plate will never be comfortable or work properly without the correct foundation garment.

[Sean Powell]

It's very important for the foundation garmet to be close fitting through the chest. That make the armpit construction critical as there is no extra slack from the body to allow arm motion. When someone grabs your left shoulder and pulls you should feel pressure from your right nipple, across the ribs under your right arm and up to your right shoulder blade. With the same friend still pulling on your left shoulder and your leg armor pulling the gambeson down you should be able to move your right arm in a full range of motion.

This is a very tough challenge to fit in a single garment and historically there is evidence for a vest just to carry the leg armor and a separate garment to point the rearbraces to.

My best recomendation (if you really love plate armor) is to find someone who understands fabric and start pinching out material from your gambeson along the spine and central front until you get the arm tension distributed correctly. Then have your gambeson modified accordingly. Have them bury a lot of seam allowance in the seam so if the fabric shrinks or you build up chest muscle it can be re-tailored to fit again.

Luck!
Sean

[Koops]

I point my arms with laces hanging from the outer part of the shoulder on my gambeson. My sleeves are tied to the shoulder of the gambeson also so there was plenty of room to pop a couple of holes and hang some ties. The laces keep the arm from sliding down and the straps keep the armor in place.

I am certain this is not historically correct, but the arms do not slide down and they sit comfortably, so it might have been plausible.

Unless you have very stiff material for your arms and they are very well secured to the shoulder, they are going to shift.

[Konstantin the Red]

Consider making your brassart -- that's one word for the entire arm-harness exclusive of gauntlet and possibly pauldron -- suspend from the edge of your gorget. I agree your arming-doublet isn't up to the task, by reason of its stretchiness. Either a direct close buckling or by a bit of strap between gorget and rerebrace, which you may want to stabilize in the back-and-forth direction, say by running said suspending strap under a belt loop or through a tunnel loop. Some have done the same trick using laces instead, also stabilized by being run through tunnels or belt loops.

Can we have a few pics of your "suit of plate" or detailed description of its upper end where your problem is, Valen? After all, plate circa 1425 is different in many ways from plate circa 1575. How practical anything above may be is going to depend on the design features of your arms. Including whether it is the riveted-together Italian, or shell, arm vs. the 3-piece German one. Those two arms differ radically.

[valen]

Konstantin, here is an image I took when it was half-finished;
http://www.livinghistory.ie/~valen/013.JPG

It's a 1440's suit, mostly. At least that was my direction to my armourer, who is...eccentric with his idea of very fixed time periods.

I think I've given up on my light doublet. At training today, moving fast with a glaive kept knocking my pauldrons off-center - the right ended up 2 inches lower than my left by the end of the session.

Any recommendations on a better base for this style of armour ? I was looking through http://www.matuls.pl/index.php?IDP=1&Ln ... 5&Strona=2 and thought of a Pourpoint - are they very passé for 1440s ? I had kinda intended wearing this armour at the odd 1470s gig we do - is that way too late ? I think I'll end up going for something like the "arming doublet, type 1" on the previous page.

At some later stage today, you can see me lumbering around, trying to get used to moving in the armour here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0wIlkNYh8Y

John

[Dierick]

Maybe this will help a bit.


Any weight put on my sleeve is directed completely to the top of my shoulder, and from there down around the underarm and ribs of the opposite side of the body. There is no slip. The fabric will rip before there is any slipping of the armour down the arm. The pattern is based on the Charles de Blois grand assiette but is not stuffed and quilted like the original, rather, constructed of multiple layers of linen. It would work for the time period you are working with, but I dont know about the regional accuracy.

[Konstantin the Red]

Matuls' Gambesons types 5 and 6 look more 15th-century to me. They're saying fit them closely to your frame.

Okay, so unless you've included a safety gorget -- or a safety gorget in the guise of a mail standard -- the gorget attachment may be a nonstarter.