The Armour Archive

Sean M

https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/round-shield-with-linen-on-back-scaled.jpg?w=800 This week I applied the third coat of size to the back of the shield, the first coat of weak size to the front, and the linen to the back. I ripped a square of thin linen 50 by 50 cm, heated up ...

Sean M

https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/brimmed-round-shield-size-2-scaled.jpg?w=800 Applied a second coat of 15 g hide glue and 125 mL water (1:8) to the front of the shield. Cut out a batch of small practice panels 10 × 15 cm from leftover basswood shield planks to use for small p...

Sean M

Change of plans affected what I could do today and when. Soaked 30 grams of hide glue grains in 480 mL of water for 15 minutes, heated to 70 degrees C in a double boiler, added a bit more granules for strength, and brushed on the hide glue in 6 inch by 6 inch squares, brushing one way with the wet b...

Sean M

The 'Helm of St. Wencaslaus' in Prague currently has its surface covered with grey-black oxide https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/on-the-origins-of-the-st-wenceslas-helmet/ One recent hypothesis is that it was given the silver decoration in the late 10th century, and that it once had a mail drape which wa...

Sean M

Elisabeth Singer, "Die Setztartschen des Wiener Bürgerlichen Zeughauses: Geschichte, Bedeutung, Konservierung." In Robert Waissenburger (ed.), Studien 79/80 aus dem Historischen Museum der Stadt Wien. Wiener Schriften Heft 44 (Jugend & Volk: Wien and München, 1980) p. 84 (my translation) (The fiftee...

Sean M

Icefalcon or Darkwood might be able to tell you who their competitors for SCA kit are, but the SCA is such a small part of the market for armour these days. Its too bad that the HEMA people who think steel has cooties recruited faster than the HEMA people who think steel helmets are a good idea agai...

Sean M

https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/domed-shield-front.jpg?w=800 The major carving is done except along the glue lines. I want to keep the seams strong while I do the heavy hammering and I want to be able to lay the shield flat with either side up. The fine carving and sanding w...

Sean M

Part 1 (sources before the Fourth Crusade) has now been printed in Medieval Clothing & Textiles 18 pages 1-40. I thank the Archive and contributors on page 2. I can provide a PDF copy to people who are interested in a few weeks.

Sean M

https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/round-shield-back.jpg?w=800 https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/bfd72ba812198069-scaled.jpg?w=800 Traced the outline of the shield, crosscut and chiseled to remove wood from the sides of the boards, chiseled to create a rim...

Sean M

Ordered some of the Indian bosses. There is a local Blacksmithing Association and I might be able to convince someone there to make batches of bosses if I continue with this. Found and bought some Titebond II which is a water-resistant wood glue with a good reputation. Home Hardware carries it in my...

Sean M

I think Davis Reproductions and Jeff Wasson are the only two replica armourers in North America who are fully open for business; there are people like Jeffrey Hildebrandt, Jeff Hedgecock, F. L'Archeveque and Mac who are semi-retired. The lower-end armourers tend to be in remote areas and find custom...

Sean M

Fernando Quesada Sanz the archaeologist of Iron Age Iberia takes for granted that many ancient Iberian swords, cleavers, daggers, and sheaths had blued or blackened finishes so that silver-wire inlays stood out against the dark iron. Some seem to survive with an oxide finish. All these processes lik...

Sean M

Some chores. Bought a squared 4 sides plank of tilia Americana 'whitewood' with true dimensions 5.5" by 0.75" by 8 feet from Home Depot. Checked around and found a source for rawhide chew toys for scrap rawhide. Soaked and stretched two of the small toys to get rawhide for toggles. At 59 cents each ...

Sean M

I agree with Mac and Wade that the job of an armourer or tailor is to make you look better than you look naked. And some guys who like fighting sports may have a hard time wrapping their heads around trying to look assertively sexy, just like they have a hard time wrapping their heads around needing...

Sean M

Unlike the black jacket in the Bocaccio manuscript, I can't make a case based on artistic conventions that the strip on the inner thigh is supposed to be leather, just the practical argument that laces through leather work better than laces through plate and that some surviving greaves are laced clo...

Sean M

I spent a while looking at late 14th/early 15th century Catholic art in general and this MS in particular and I don't see much chance that the artist meant us to imagine the black garment as a mail shirt. The only vertical lines I see are what might be a center-back seam. You can click on the image ...

Sean M

I think the black garment underneath the nape protector of lames and the segmented breastplate is supposed to be a quilted coat. It has circumferential quilting lines below the waist, and wearing a breastplate over a pair of plates would be odd. Art in the 1400-1425 era shows a lot of these doublet ...

Sean M

The small Ramelson gouge does not seem as sharp as before, maybe having a leather strop with buffing compound to polish the inside would help. Still interested in comments if the compounds for power buffers would work OK. It seems like the big 'thigh bone shaped' dog chews are our of fashion (some d...

Sean M

A St. George from the Church of St Peter and Maria, Cologne seems to have cuisses with mail backs. Some of the leather is exposed at the inner thigh, so they could be confused with laced leather cuisses. https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/5128-st-george-cuisse.jpeg?w=800 https:/...

Sean M

We have all struggled with how the Churburg S-13 breastplate survives but there are only a few sculptures that show anything like it. Datini sold breastplates with big and small wings (ale, alette) which are probably the same idea. I found another image which shows the same idea but with more back p...

Sean M

Thanks! I am trying to fill in the last details of my book on arming clothes while I decide how to publish it.

Sean M

Tonight I had a few minutes in the carport and worked on the ash scabbard core. With the wooden mallet the work goes faster! I managed to drop the small U.J. Ramelson C gouge and dent the edge. This Paul Sellers video on sharpening large gouges seems pretty good https://youtube.com/watch?v=m-Dy7R8xQ...

Sean M

The weather is warming up and its time to finish the woodworking. Before I visit the closest leather dealer I have been thinking about how to fasten the two straps to the back of the shield like a separ or dhal. On the small round shield I think I will try the toggle method from Marburg care of Rola...

Sean M

The greaves in the Kelvingrove ref_arm_2291 and ref_arm_2296 are the earliest greaves I know which have staples at the back to hold the straps of the poleyns in place. I am not sure when they first appear in art.

Sean M

I was thinking more "what if they were used to 'the voider just hangs there and you have to tuck it under the greave or the lower canon but mostly it works'? And then after a lot of fiddling with sliding rivets they decided they needed to build plate voiders more like an articulated knee or elbow th...

Sean M

Now..... This should not be difficult, but it turns out that it is. Let's step back a bit and think about voiders. The ones we are all familiar with are what I like to thing of as the "newfangled style". It seems to have been developed toward the end of the fifteenth century. In this style, there i...

Sean M

Thank you for the suggestion, I hadn’t considered an option that would include covering everything up. Though two layers of padded clothing seems VERY hot. It depends on how you do it. What you have pictured seems equally more or heat trapping to me. Others are much more qualified to speak to perio...

Sean M

The garments of the kneeling barbarians on the obelisk of Theodosius do look like the shepherd's cloaks in the web article by Ioannis Dandoulakis. I had a look at the dictionary of Byzantine Greek and they have: κέντουκλον (lat. centunclum) Filz(decke) "Felt, felt cloak" And list examples from Emper...

Sean M

https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/P1000473_A_184_surface_lowres.jpg?w=800 A note on Armour of the English Knight volume 3 page 8 lists armours from 1490 onwards which Capwell thinks were left basically unpolished such as the Milanese armour in Schloss Ambras (Kunsthistorisches...

Sean M

Does this diagram of the cutting plan make sense? It avoids details like the exact shape and size of the sleeves and armholes to communicate the essence that you fold the cloth lengthwise, mark off a triangle to become the sleeve, and use the rest for the body. https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-conten...

Sean M

There is a deed-of-arms type event in the KC area (Tournament of the Swan / Cigne?) which should have plenty of armour wearers and probably one or two makers.

Sean M

This is a placeholder for the project to make a robe of two garnements (a cote and a hood) and matching hose this winter while its too dark and wet to do woodworking outside. They are inspired by the clothes of working men in the Tacuinum Sanitatis of Vienna c 1370-1400, and the breadths and yardage...

Sean M

https://www.bookandsword.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Jacques_de_Cessole_Jean_de_.Jacobus_de_btv1b8448967x_66.jpg?w=800 Another early depiction of a graper and arrest of the cuirass, from France circa 1405-1410. This is a French version of Jacobus de Cessolis' parable about morality and chessmen....

Sean M

I have a list of dealers here but nothing leapt out as having a source from the later middle ages which I could check it against https://www.bookandsword.com/resources/dealers-in-replicas/ Commissioning custom bosses would turn a possible 'make something with my hands and sell it' project into a 're...

Sean M

I am intimidated by the Byzantine sources because the 8th to 12th centuries were the time of the Arab Agricultural Revolution , when crops such as cotton, sorghum, and sugar cane (not to mention the silkworm) became common across West Asia, North Africa, and Al-Andalus. People in the hot dry east of...

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Traditional Armor Finishing Processes

Re: Building a historical pavise

Re: Anyone Make SCA Fencing Morions or Cabasets?

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Written Sources for Gambesons/Aketons/Pourpoints 1100-1350

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Anyone Make SCA Fencing Morions or Cabasets?

Re: Traditional Armor Finishing Processes

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: What are your thoughts on this (Aesthetics of Arms and Armor)

Re: Photos of Dijon Altarpiece - 1391-1399

Re: Breastplates with Wings

Re: Breastplates with Wings

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Photos of Dijon Altarpiece - 1391-1399

Breastplates with Wings

Re: AotEK 2 on Croissants

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Woodworking Project Diary

Re: Pins and staples on greaves

Re: The "Nurenberg butt armor"

Re: The "Nurenberg butt armor"

Re: Is my armor cohesive?

Re: Felt Armour

Re: Traditional Armor Finishing Processes

Re: A Worker's Cote and Hood

Re: What should I do next with these spaulders?

A Worker's Cote and Hood

Re: Lance rests

Re: Late Medieval Shield Bosses

Re: Written Sources for Gambesons/Aketons/Pourpoints 1100-1350