I`m looking to make a gambeson, and quilted armour. I`m fixing to use a pretty heavy canvas for the outer and inner shell, but I`m not sure what will be good to use for padding inside it. I was thinking about layers of felt. If I did it that way, I could add more layers to the areas I want more padding, and trim the thickness where I want mobility(I think). Does anyone have any adcice/suggestions/critisisms to give? This is a first time project for me, so I`m pretty much in the dark here. Also, these will be SCA fighting garments. Oh, I forgot to mention, the quilted vest will have plast-ick plates sewn up inside for rigidity. I`m looking at wearing a gambeson, mail hauberk, then the quilted vest on the outside.
Thanks in advance!
John
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"and the springfieldians heroicly slaughtered there enemys while they prayed for mercy!"
Gambeson materials
Historically a number of materials were used, and you can use whichever is cheapest and most avalable to you:
Cotton - get loose cotton by the bale, or cotton upholstr piping from a fabric store.
Tow -Usually sold as linen lint or linen waste
Sendal - Silk gauze, very expensive, but possibly replacable with a mesh/gauze type fabric from a discount fabric table or store. Roll this into long pieces and pull through your chanels.
Other possiblties - kapok from old flotation devices, or lint from dryer screens available for free from local laundrymats. (These were not used historically, but they are cheap sources.
Cotton - get loose cotton by the bale, or cotton upholstr piping from a fabric store.
Tow -Usually sold as linen lint or linen waste
Sendal - Silk gauze, very expensive, but possibly replacable with a mesh/gauze type fabric from a discount fabric table or store. Roll this into long pieces and pull through your chanels.
Other possiblties - kapok from old flotation devices, or lint from dryer screens available for free from local laundrymats. (These were not used historically, but they are cheap sources.
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Steve S.
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I would advise against any kind of synthetic stuffing, such as fiberfill (polyester). It's too insulative and doesn't wick water (sweat) well.
You can get cotton batting at the better fabric stores. But it's expensive.
You can get real tow from and rough cotton from Twinrocker:
http://www.dcwi.com/~twinrock/sfiber.htm
Steve
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Forth Armoury
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You can get cotton batting at the better fabric stores. But it's expensive.
You can get real tow from and rough cotton from Twinrocker:
http://www.dcwi.com/~twinrock/sfiber.htm
Steve
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Forth Armoury
The Riveted Maille Website!
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Lawrence the Least
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Actually, cotton batting should be relatively cheap at this time of year-I got 1" thick batting about 45" wide for 99 cents a yard at this time last year. Something about quilts being less popular during the summer months, and batting taking up a lot of shelf space. If you buy the stuff that's commercially packaged, it'll be a lot more expensive than the big rolls at the back of the store, of course.
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toweyb
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There are two schools of thought on padding. One is to use layers of cloth and batting and stitch them together. This is much quicker, but limits your padding to the thickness you can stitch through.
The other is to sew the cloth cover into channels and stuff them with fiber or cloth. This is harder, and takes longer, but gives you that ever-popular Michelin Man look. It can be cheaper, too, if your stuffing is recycled. BUT, whatever you use, particularly if it's loose fiber, beware of settling.
I used rags, which is period. Specifically, I used old towels cut into strips and rolled, then pulled through long channels. (The terry cloth gave good loft for the weight, but the result was still pretty massive. A large pile of towels disappeared into the gambeson and cuisses.)
It was hard to pull the long strips for the torso and sleeves. The friction was high, the surface area was huge, and the tip that you had to hold on to was tiny. I had to use strong clamps and even pliers.
But for all the fight that the rags gave me going in, the steady pull of gravity was able to slide them back down again. In the few days that the coat hung on the back of my sewing chair waiting for its buttons, the padding slumped down as much as 4" from either side of the shoulder seam. There was no padding left on the shoulders where it was most needed!
I had to remove the arms and rip the shoulder seams, pull the padding back up, stitch it in place, and then re-assemble everything. What a pain! Be warned.
By the way, speaking of shoulder seams:
You don't say if you will have any hard armor on your arms, but if you plan to attach your armor to the gambeson with arming points, make sure those shoulder seams are strong enough to carry the weight of the couters and vambraces and such. Blows to your arm or even your shield will translate into tugs on that shoulder seam, and can tear the arm right off your gambeson.
[This message has been edited by toweyb (edited 06-04-2001).]
The other is to sew the cloth cover into channels and stuff them with fiber or cloth. This is harder, and takes longer, but gives you that ever-popular Michelin Man look. It can be cheaper, too, if your stuffing is recycled. BUT, whatever you use, particularly if it's loose fiber, beware of settling.
I used rags, which is period. Specifically, I used old towels cut into strips and rolled, then pulled through long channels. (The terry cloth gave good loft for the weight, but the result was still pretty massive. A large pile of towels disappeared into the gambeson and cuisses.)
It was hard to pull the long strips for the torso and sleeves. The friction was high, the surface area was huge, and the tip that you had to hold on to was tiny. I had to use strong clamps and even pliers.
But for all the fight that the rags gave me going in, the steady pull of gravity was able to slide them back down again. In the few days that the coat hung on the back of my sewing chair waiting for its buttons, the padding slumped down as much as 4" from either side of the shoulder seam. There was no padding left on the shoulders where it was most needed!
I had to remove the arms and rip the shoulder seams, pull the padding back up, stitch it in place, and then re-assemble everything. What a pain! Be warned.
By the way, speaking of shoulder seams:
You don't say if you will have any hard armor on your arms, but if you plan to attach your armor to the gambeson with arming points, make sure those shoulder seams are strong enough to carry the weight of the couters and vambraces and such. Blows to your arm or even your shield will translate into tugs on that shoulder seam, and can tear the arm right off your gambeson.
[This message has been edited by toweyb (edited 06-04-2001).]
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muttman
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This has all been vey helpfull, and I`m looking into some of these things to use as fill, But I noticed no-one commented on the felt. It seems to me that it would work, but I am realy hoping someone with experience using it, good and/or bad sees this and responds. I am still looking into cotton, and moving blanket stuff too. So far, all I`ve found at the fabric store is this synthetic yuck that will no doubt suffocate me quickly
Thanks!
John
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"and the springfieldians heroicly slaughtered there enemys while they prayed for mercy!"
Thanks!
John
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"and the springfieldians heroicly slaughtered there enemys while they prayed for mercy!"
I fight SCA style in a padded kit made by the sew channels and stuff it approach. Lot's of hours watching the discovery channels for the stuffin bit.
I've never had better protection and comfort in a kit.
I used all natural materials with 100% silk upholstery material as a liner (had the silk cloth lying around with no planned use, I don't advise paying silk prices for armour.) and stuffed it with cotton flannel.
It's held up well for a year and a half of practices and wars and has not compressed much. I did stuff some 20+ yards of flannel cut into strips into it however. I got the flannel for $.65 a yard down in the garment district and used black incase a hole were to develop.
That's just what I did anyway.
-Raz
I've never had better protection and comfort in a kit.
I used all natural materials with 100% silk upholstery material as a liner (had the silk cloth lying around with no planned use, I don't advise paying silk prices for armour.) and stuffed it with cotton flannel.
It's held up well for a year and a half of practices and wars and has not compressed much. I did stuff some 20+ yards of flannel cut into strips into it however. I got the flannel for $.65 a yard down in the garment district and used black incase a hole were to develop.
That's just what I did anyway.
-Raz
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Lord Jack
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Muttman, I dont know if they used felt in period. The people I remember making lots of felt are the steppes tribes (something about draging a huge burrito shaped thing behind pack animals to make the felts for the Yurts). Now, felt isnt held together all that well. A woven fabric would be better but that may just be 20th century economics tainting our opinions. I think Norman, from Silk Road Armory, would have the goods on whether or not felt was used in period. I think I can say with confidence though that had they used it it would be of wool (sheep or goat). The felt you see in the fabric stores is chemically felted synthetic material. IOW, it will have the same nasty nonbreathiness of polyfil and weigh more. A good subsitute, which I'm buying, is wool batting from Mad Matts mom ( ernie.stitchman@sympatico.ca ).
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Jonathon More
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seems to me the felt would be restrictive a bit and hot hot hot besides. as for felt being period, put a couple layers of wool in a gambeson, sweat in it as you fight a couple of times and walla, felt. ok, so its not quite as simple as that, but the end result is the same. wool+wet+pressure makes felt. personally, i use cheap cotton towels in my gambesons. soaks up swea, washes well, and towels are really cheap at the dollar store. I dont use a lining in my gambesons, since the towels are comfortable themselves and any lining would get in the way of sweat absorbtion. my current gambeson i've been using for three years now with minimal maintenance.
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Mad Matt
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Well I was just about to mention the wool stuff and realized Lord Jack put it in. BTW my Mom said she recieved your cheque and will have the batting ready to mail out in a day or two.
Now if you're thinking of using the sewn channels idea then my Mom also sells wool roving which is basically a big long cylinder of wool perfect for stuffing channels with. I think the channels method would be a little cooler then the batting method since there's gaps between the stuffing where the channels are sewn which should allow for a little more airflow.
You can felt bats (big puffy sheets of wool or cotton etc.) easily I don't remember which it is but you can felt it by basically putting it into either your clothes washer or dryer. If this is what you want to do I'll ask my mom for instructions.
Anyway my thoughts on using wool are this. Wool was readily available pretty much everywhere. So it's definitly a period and mostly regional accurate material. The stuff my mom sells is commercially combed (her friend has a big machine that does it) but other then that there's absolutly nothing added to it and no bleaches or anything like that either. So definitly a historically accurate material.
One of these days I'll get my wife to get around to making me an arming doublet using roving and then they'll probably be available from my armory. Hand sewn might even be a possibility for you picky types. But I'll definitly be posting about how well the roving and stuffed channels thing functions.
Another alternative that hasn't been mentioned is horse hair. I've never heard of it being used in a gambeson but it was used in the linings of helmets. Of course I haven't really tried to see if it was used in gambesons so it's a definite possibility. If you're picky then do the research and see if you find anything for it. But it's definitly a material that was used historically for padding.
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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory
Now if you're thinking of using the sewn channels idea then my Mom also sells wool roving which is basically a big long cylinder of wool perfect for stuffing channels with. I think the channels method would be a little cooler then the batting method since there's gaps between the stuffing where the channels are sewn which should allow for a little more airflow.
You can felt bats (big puffy sheets of wool or cotton etc.) easily I don't remember which it is but you can felt it by basically putting it into either your clothes washer or dryer. If this is what you want to do I'll ask my mom for instructions.
Anyway my thoughts on using wool are this. Wool was readily available pretty much everywhere. So it's definitly a period and mostly regional accurate material. The stuff my mom sells is commercially combed (her friend has a big machine that does it) but other then that there's absolutly nothing added to it and no bleaches or anything like that either. So definitly a historically accurate material.
One of these days I'll get my wife to get around to making me an arming doublet using roving and then they'll probably be available from my armory. Hand sewn might even be a possibility for you picky types. But I'll definitly be posting about how well the roving and stuffed channels thing functions.
Another alternative that hasn't been mentioned is horse hair. I've never heard of it being used in a gambeson but it was used in the linings of helmets. Of course I haven't really tried to see if it was used in gambesons so it's a definite possibility. If you're picky then do the research and see if you find anything for it. But it's definitly a material that was used historically for padding.
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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory
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The Nuetered Knight
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LOL!!! This is kinda OT, but, steve... why do they sell hemp on that page and do you buy it 
i thought it is illegal
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John Casius Hawke
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i thought it is illegal------------------
John Casius Hawke
Underwear Inspector #28
"And the majestic alaskan salmon triumphantly swam up the river... only to be eaten by a hungry grizzly bear."
John's Page
UWOPaladin@aol.com
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Mad Matt
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Actually Hemp is not Marijuana. It's very closely related but is different. One of the major differences is the almost complete lack of THC (the active ingredient in weed).
The fibers from the hemp plant are very stong and usefull in making things like rope and fabric.
In Canada it's now legal to grow hemp but it's regulated since it looks basically the same as weed does.
I think that in the US it's illegal to grow it but it is legal to have hemp products. Ie. hemp fibres for use in weaving etc. But I'm not positive on that one.
Also hemp seeds and oils are popular for use in salad dressings etc. and soaps and things.
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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory
The fibers from the hemp plant are very stong and usefull in making things like rope and fabric.
In Canada it's now legal to grow hemp but it's regulated since it looks basically the same as weed does.
I think that in the US it's illegal to grow it but it is legal to have hemp products. Ie. hemp fibres for use in weaving etc. But I'm not positive on that one.
Also hemp seeds and oils are popular for use in salad dressings etc. and soaps and things.
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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory