Mac's blog

[Mac]

I don't have a lot to show for today. The cold I've had since Thursday is still dragging on and I feel a bit shabby.

The thumbs have hinges now, and that all seems to be working OK.



I spent about 15 minutes this evening trying to figure out where in that Domain of Dirt that is my shop might the square buckle blanks be hiding. They were in a zip-lock bag stuffed into a Chinese take out container, nested in some other take out containers in the heap of stuff left over from the St Florian project. I had started there, but missed them the first time.

Anyway.... This is what I have in mind for the gauntlet cuff buckles. It's taken from the one on the left A58 gauntlet in Vienna. The right one looks like it belongs on a mid 15th C Italian piece, so I went with this one. It may or may not be original, but at least it looks like it belongs on a German armor.



I like the way I treated the transition from concave to convex in this sketch better than what I did on the thumb hinges.... so I guess I'll fix them tomorrow.

Mac

[Mac]

Oh, and you have (IIRC) handled one of the only pairs in existence to retain its fingers (if not its thumbs), A 58 KMW.

Most of their fingers. The right index finger is a replacement. Tom B. pointed that out, and once you see it, you wonder how you missed it.

This whole business of gauntlet fingers falling off and being replaced is very vexing. Some of the replacements are pretty obvious, but many are not. We end up seeing more restorations than authentic ones, and it warps out perceptions of what's right and what's wrong. It's like besegews....or sabatons.


Mac

[Mac]

I know my response to this is late but I can't help but feel that the elongated thumb is like putting a tall hat on a short man. Yes it "Works" in that the top of his had is now as tall as everyone else but the proportions are off. There is a ratio of finger joint phlange length that we are accustomed to seeing and while I don't have numbers on the thumb I think it's a good 'rule of thumb' to follow.

Sometimes, the "tall hat" is the only thing that works I'm thinking of getting one of those steam punk hats for myself.

Mac

[Mac]

Mac, that thumbtip is certainly an improvement! I did not consider it my place to comment, but I'm glad Chris did.

I am glad to hear any reasonable criticism of my work. OK.... I may not be glad at the moment I read it, but if I'm screwing up, I hope someone will tell me.

Egos are ephemeral, but armor may live on long after its maker is dust. It's important to make it as well as possible, whatever it takes.

Mac

[Kristoffer]

I kinda like a slightly drawn out, pointy tip on gothic gauntlets when an enclosed tip is required. It is not authentic, but neither are the enclosed tips but I believe they add to the appearance of the gothic style when given a bit of a point.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Most of their fingers. The right index finger is a replacement. Tom B. pointed that out, and once you see it, you wonder how you missed it.

Yes, I had noted that; it was the buggered knuckle that made me look closer, then there was the matter of the bit with the 'nail' incised and filed in, that was much coarser than the others. But I forgot.

42334834621_dcbe089950_os.jpg (98.06 KiB) Viewed 1153 times

[Mac]

Yesterday, I started the buckles for the cuff straps. These came out of a couple of laser-cut blanks. The blanks are for double buckles, but it's a small think to just cut off what's not needed. In the mean time, that extra loop provided a convenient place to hang on to the work.



My intention here was to show all the files that I used in shaping up the buckles, but it wasn't until I was reviewing the image that I realized I had forgotten to include the 3-square file in the group.



After squinting at my pics of the A58 gauntlets, I finally decided that the buckle probably had a roller. I had been back and forth on this a couple of times, and my sketch does not include it.



Mac

[Mac]

The buckles and temporary cuff straps.



Mac

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

I don't think we can say that enclosed thumbs were not part of the 'gothic' style, when it comes to tournament equipment. I have received so much information in the last couple of years (and my recent trip to Vienna consolidated this) that shows me that many of the things we think of as being 16th century or late 15th have to be pushed back as much as a decade for their first appearance in high end garnitures (which themselves seem to appear earlier than Ortwin and Gamber thought). It is a huge pity that more elements of these garnitures did not survive. Pierre Terjanian told me that Maximilian I had Lorenz Helmschmid come to the Low Countries for a year, under contract to produce at least four armours (garnitures? I need to ask him about that next time I see him), and some horse armour, too. I think we can safely extrapolate that he produced the equivalent of at least a hundred full armours in his working life. We have only the dregs left. The 'gothic' style period was one of wild experimentation, for clients such as Maximilian I and Archduke Sigmund of Tyrol who had an almost mad desire for new types of equipment, and variety purely for its own sake. The most we can say is that none of us on this board has seen such a thumb... yet. But I am expecting to, eventually.

[Rene K.]

just another thumb i found while searching my archive...

[Mac]

just another thumb i found while searching my archive...

Thank you! Where is this gauntlet located? I feel as though I should recognize it from the the decoration, but I just can't place it.

Mac

[Christian Wiedner]

Having a look at this old friend, I guess your first attemp of thumbs was not that far off.

I have cropped out all the best views of the gauntlets from my pics.

A couple of things become apparent. The first is that the fingers are really dominated visually by the knuckle plates. Not only are there two knuckles per finger, but they are quite large. In addition, the sculptor has shown the knuckles and finger plates as being rather deep. This is at odds with what we see in the surviving gothic gauntlets, where the emphasis is on slender looking fingers. If I make the fingers as deep as they are on the statue, they would be pretty suitable for use in one of the modern armored combat forms, but at the cost of flexibility and comfort. Over all, I am going to try to split the difference between these two ideas, but lean more toward our sculpture.






For comparison, see Goll's numbers 1049, 1071, 1323, 1325, 1326, and 4904. I will come back and link in some pics of those later.

Mac

[Kristoffer]

This is made later but I find it an interesting piece regarding gothic gauntlets.

https://pin.it/yxuvzuctridch7

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Thank you! Where is this gauntlet located? I feel as though I should recognize it from the the decoration, but I just can't place it.

Veste Coburg.

[Mac]

Having a look at this old friend, I guess your first attemp of thumbs was not that far off.

Sometimes I just can't win....

The sculptor has made both of those thumb tips rather short and blunt looking, but the right one is especially so.

Mac

[Mac]

Thank you! Where is this gauntlet located? I feel as though I should recognize it from the the decoration, but I just can't place it.

Veste Coburg.

Thank you!

Do you have any other pics of it. My quick Google search did not yield anything.

Mac

[Rene K.]

I know the thing about thinking for the best way and style. The more armour you make the more research comes on you

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Well, that was a tussle. I had a heck of a time tracking this down. Too many unfiled photos.

5758678382_393c98418b_os.jpg (90.01 KiB) Viewed 960 times

[Tom B.]

Coburg I knew I had seen it in person!!!
I was just there last month
Here are my photos:

Click on images to open full sized photos

[Mark D. Chapman]

This view shows what I am trying to achieve. The upper surface looks like a normal thumb plate, and the lower surface is there to do its job... no thumb nail, no attempt at making it look human. Any resemblance to a cartoon whale are purely accidental



I'll try to get these integrated with the knuckle plates this afternoon.

Mac

Mac,
I like the direction you have been going in cleaning up the look on the thumbs, however this last picture shows what is bothering me the most. There is so much extra depth in the downward sweep of the protection part of the tip that it prevents the tip from following the actual angle of your thumbs last digit. This makes for a distorted look even if the top down profile looks much better. Couldn't this be reduced a bit to better follow the actual digit?

Mark

[Mac]

Mac,
I like the direction you have been going in cleaning up the look on the thumbs, however this last picture shows what is bothering me the most. There is so much extra depth in the downward sweep of the protection part of the tip that it prevents the tip from following the actual angle of your thumbs last digit. This makes for a distorted look even if the top down profile looks much better. Couldn't this be reduced a bit to better follow the actual digit?

Mark

I assume it's the depth and bulbous look of the pad or palmar surface that's bothering you.

When I first started making enclosed thumbs, back in the mid 80s, I thought the real ones looked too bulbous....





...and I sought to slim them up a bit, so they looked more like my thumb.

The thing I found is that there's more to it than one might think. There are three aspects to this.

First, when we look at our thumbs, they might seem to be a lot "sharper" looking than the surviving enclosed armor tips. But a lot of that changes when we grip something. Gripping tends to shove the flesh of the thumb pad forward.



The second thing is that the armor will require a leather tab (and its rivet) inside to sew the glove to.



The third thing is that the glove itself will take up some volume.



This all combines to make the authentic shape be a lot better than we might think. When I tried to make slimmer looking thumbs, I found that they were just too tight. At the end of the day, we find (again) that these old guys had it figured out already.

Mac

[Mark D. Chapman]

Thanks for te followup Mac. Looking at the historic pictures I see what you mean. I had not seen any period enclosed thumb tips before seeing those pictures.

Looking at the first guilded one it looks to me as if the thumb tip was meant to project slightly in front of the closed fingers and the bottom contour then follows the curve of the lame.

The two embossed ones look more like what I was expecting and seem to have less accentuated depth than yours.

Thanks,
Mark

[Mac]

So... the Palazzo Ducale Bascinet is done, and I will be returning to the gauntlets in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, I'm working a bit on my various telescopes and thinking about what armor project might be next.

I have no real plan as yet, but I have a sort of nagging desire to build something that everybody gets wrong.... like the Churburg 13 breast, or perhaps a kastenbrust that actually looks like the ones in the pics.

Has anyone got an idea about a thing they'd like to see?

Mac

[Woodswork Armory]

You know me Mac, I would love to see anything Maximilian related! I was going to post an image of a really cool breastplate I found but I can't seem to find it.. the breastplate has a bunch of raised spots similar to a gauntlet with a raised knuckle piece. That would be cool

[Aussie Yeoman]

It would have to be a kastenbrust.

- They're far too underrepresented on the various fields these days;
- I think they're poorly understood;
- The art at the time does not do it justice, so people don't have a good idea how cool it can be; and,
- Dare to be different.

But I'm sure that anything you make will be splendid.

[Kristoffer]

I personally wants to see you build Philip II bifurcated gauntlets.

But a bicoque could perhaps be fun?

[Gustovic]

Of course I'll suggest the CH13 breastplate, since one day I'll make one and it would be wonderful to know what people get wrong about it.

Bust a kastenbrust sounds exciting too!

[Mac]

You know me Mac, I would love to see anything Maximilian related! I was going to post an image of a really cool breastplate I found but I can't seem to find it.. the breastplate has a bunch of raised spots similar to a gauntlet with a raised knuckle piece. That would be cool

I don't really find myself drawn toward a Maximilian project. Too much of the success rests on those incised lines, and I haven't got a reliable method for doing them. On the real thing, the guy who puts in those lines can make wavy flutes look straight and crisp. I find that my lines end up making good flutes look bad.

Mac

[Kerry Pratt]

I second the motion for the Churburg 13.

[Mac]

It would have to be a kastenbrust.

- They're far too underrepresented on the various fields these days;
- I think they're poorly understood;
- The art at the time does not do it justice, so people don't have a good idea how cool it can be; and,
- Dare to be different.

Some sort of kastenbrust would be fun. There aren't many modern ones out there, and they don't seem to get the shape and proportion right.

If I made a stand alone breast, I might be able to find a buyer for it, but anything more elaborate would need to have a committed client.

Mac

[Mac]

I personally wants to see you build Philip II bifurcated gauntlets.

But a bicoque could perhaps be fun?

Philip's gauntlets really need all the etching and gilding to look right, and that makes it a rather involved project.

A bicoque might indeed be fun. I've always had a thing for the one in Berlin, although it might be better described as an armet.

Have you got one in mind?

Mac

[Tom B.]

I personally wants to see you build Philip II bifurcated gauntlets.

But a bicoque could perhaps be fun?

Philip's gauntlets really need all the etching and gilding to look right, and that makes it a rather involved project.

A bicoque might indeed be fun. I've always had a thing for the one in Berlin, although it might be better described as an armet.

Have you got one in mind?

Mac

[Mac]

I second the motion for the Churburg 13.

Of course I'll suggest the CH13 breastplate, since one day I'll make one and it would be wonderful to know what people get wrong about it.

Hmmmm.... two votes for the Ch13 breast.

This is certainly a thing I'd like to do. There are a shit-ton of bad ones out there, and very few respectable examples. Even the ones that look OK have some little point that's off. I'm not sure I have ever seen one that used the correct method of joining the central plates.

I almost started one of these a few months ago, but the thing that held me back was the shear quantity of engraving involved. I'm really more interested in shape and function than in decoration, but all that brass is a defining characteristic of the piece. I could knock out a "stripper" in very little time, and it would be the same thing functionally, but I don't think people would "get it" with out all the engraved brass.

It's been something like 35 years since the last time I attempted anything based on this armor. One might make the argument that it was about time to do another.

Mac

[Mac]

Bust a kastenbrust sounds exciting too!

A second vote for a kastenbrust!

Which one do you favor?

Mac

[Chris Gilman]

You know me Mac, I would love to see anything Maximilian related! I was going to post an image of a really cool breastplate I found but I can't seem to find it.. the breastplate has a bunch of raised spots similar to a gauntlet with a raised knuckle piece. That would be cool

Mac's Max