The Armour Archive

I've started on a new project. I hopefully plan on making a suit of Shan Wen Kia as an alternate armor for SCA combat. I'm basing it off Sun Lu Shan's research with a few tweaks of my own that I told him about a couple months ago.

I'm starting with shoulders first due to their lesser size compared to what it'd take for some of the panels for my considerable girth. I figure this will give me the chance to work out kinks and improve methods along the way.

I'm using hand tools to make the scales, laying them out and using a chisel for some small cuts and snips for the larger and my harbor freight shear to cut a strip from of them for easier handling.

Metal is 22-24 gauge mild and some scrap 'doorkick plate' brass I had laying around. Backing is double layered painter drop cloth canvas. I'm using aluminum 'roofing' tacks.

Awesome stuff. Really want to see more of this as you get it completed. There's a tremendous dearth of Chinese persona within the SCA, I feel, and it's great to see some more representation.

-Ed
(still working on prototypes for his Han Chinese hard and soft kit)

Way cool. Keep the pic's coming.

I have yet to see this pattern used in actual armor for the Chinese outside of artistic renderings or silken quilting.

Is there an example of an existing piece or actual documentation saying this type of armor was in fact used?


Li Guang Ming

To the best of my knowledge there's never been a find. All we have is referenced from statue and paintings. That may place it into the fantasy aspect but its fun to try to reconstruct it anyway.

My personal belief is that if anything, it was patterned leather panels, and all one piece. My take is that it's a misreading of shan wen ("mountain design") for the shape of individual scales rather than the fact that the design LOOKS like mountains.

But that's just me...

All of my documentation points to a quilted silk and pressed paper design. Nothing states it was a hard armor.

liguangming wrote:All of my documentation points to a quilted silk and pressed paper design. Nothing states it was a hard armor.

I can accept that.

It would go a long way to suggesting why not a single extant shred of the thing can be found.

Stoopid web filter.... I can't see any pictures... and I've always been a big fan of Thomas' work...

Effingham wrote:

liguangming wrote:All of my documentation points to a quilted silk and pressed paper design. Nothing states it was a hard armor.

I can accept that.

It would go a long way to suggesting why not a single extant shred of the thing can be found.

In the least, it'll look totally badass once it's done. Heh.

-Ed

And here I was thinking about how it would be so cool to see a suit of this and was going to post a query as to if anyone had made some.

in other words:

Super Cool!!! & More Photos!!

-Ivan

The real fun is going to start when I try my hand at making the shoulder demons from 16ga mild.

Looks like this will be a race to the finish here. I had some scales laser cut about 4 years ago and I am finally getting around to doing a full torso out of them.

I look forward to comparing notes and construction methods.

-- BTW, I already did the hand-cut scales and decided the experience was more than enough - so I out-sourced!

Thomas Willoughby wrote:I've started on a new project. I hopefully plan on making a suit of Shan Wen Kia as an alternate armor for SCA combat. I'm basing it off Sun Lu Shan's research with a few tweaks of my own that I told him about a couple months ago.

I'm starting with shoulders first due to their lesser size compared to what it'd take for some of the panels for my considerable girth. I figure this will give me the chance to work out kinks and improve methods along the way.

I'm using hand tools to make the scales, laying them out and using a chisel for some small cuts and snips for the larger and my harbor freight shear to cut a strip from of them for easier handling.

Metal is 22-24 gauge mild and some scrap 'doorkick plate' brass I had laying around. Backing is double layered painter drop cloth canvas. I'm using aluminum 'roofing' tacks.

I remade my 2 chisels and managed to speed up the process a bit.

I'll finish the row on this one and swap over and start the other shoulder tomorrow.

looks great! just out of curiosity can we get something in there for scale?

All I had handy at the moment dont know if it'll help. I'll get a ruler in the next one I update.

thats fine cheers!

its going to look pretty spiffy when its done!

have you started on the other elements of the kit?

I have a helmet that I'm letting get a bit of rust patina that needs a grill and faceplate done.

And a bit more progress slow as it has been with real life getting in the way.



Yes one is larger by one column of scales, wasn't paying attention. But I can remove those and reuse them when I go to sew the trim on.

my roomate was doing that same pattern but he used leather.

I think the general issue is that Chinese armor were typically controlled by a central government, especially higher quality once, and thus when one style fall out of use, they typically just destroy / melt the armors they hold on to. Armour isn't a particularly popular burial item in China. and there were very very few periods where a feudal warrior class existed.

Thus, we pretty much find very few surviving actual armor of just about any type that was mentioned in Chinese history and pretty much rely on artistic or document sources for everything , with the only real exception being the Qing dynasty brigadines since that was the final imperial dynasty (and even here most of the surviving copies are just ceremonial onces with no real plates on the inside. since by then firearm had already made most armors obsolete.

Since there are enough authentic depiction of such armors I'd guess they really existed. and it made logical armor sense too if you consider the development of lamellar in Chinese history anyway. (the primary weakness of Lamellar being the space where plates join, the exposed cords that could potentially be cut)

I am very curious to see what a remake copy could do.

A guy in my shire was working on a suit of that before Pennsic.
He was using like 6-8 oz leather (maybe a suede) for the backing, and black leather 10 oz or so for the scales.

He's been having a lot of problems with his armor. From cutting the scales, to attaching them, to getting them to lay flat. (I figure his scales are similar in shape to yours, but some aspect of their size is making the tips keep coming out from under their neighbors). Also, he's making his as one entire piece (covers shoulders to legs), and started working at the legs, so we were expecting issues when he finally got the scales to his waist. He also took about a month to do part of one thigh.

If you don't mind, I'd like to point him in your direction for "How to do it." He's longer in the SCA than I, but he's not nearly good enough to fight with the minimal armour he's currently wearing.

Slightly more progress. I attempted to dish and raise my shoulders from 16ga mild. My little propane torch just isn't hot enough, I'm going to have to swap to MAPP or get a better torch if I keep trying raising.

It's lumpy and fugly and my painting skills have dropped to zero.. but it'll do for now.

Do the historical examples have faces painted on the shoulders? Or at least the shoulders shaped to form a face (whether they've got paint or not)?

That's awesome though.

Here's a statue from I believe the Sung? era that shows the shoulder demons. As I said before we dont have an actual suit to look at so I'm just winging it. I painted it mainly for rust protection and got a lil crazy after looking at some carnival masks.

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/a ... axeman.jpg

the mask thing is more common to front guards like an additional chest / waist protector, though it does exist on should once too.

I think most were painted to some degree. Here is a surviving painting from the Song dynasty



Also, this is from the Song dynasty military manual "WuJing Zhong Yiao" (the compilation of military matters) depicting the standard heavy armor of the Song. see it's chest guard section is clearly a shan wei pattern.



This full version drawing of the Shan Wei Kei (although I think it's more modern drawing based on those statues) clearly shows the monster face shoulder guard .