Leather vambraces found in Estonia AND Lithuania!

[Effingham]

Thanks, James. That was cool.

[Andeerz]

Bumping this thread up. Looks like Chris Dobson made a copy from the original for the museum that owns it. It is a sandwich of leather with strips of metal inside where it looks blank on the outside to form a full circle of metal.

http://www.masterarmourer.com/vambrace.html

*dies*

I want this so bad. But is it really forming a full circle of metal, or are there just intermittent thin strips that simply serve to reinforce the vambrace? The latter is what it seems like to me.

And it's terribly interesting to see that the wedge taken out of the leather near the elbow was intended as a sewing-up-point to get the leather to fit the elbow better... I guess it would make it much easier to shape everything... And I wonder what thickness of leather he chose to use?

And I wonder if this guy would take commissions... Thanks for the link!!!

[James B.]

I beleive they would overlap in places like a cop if they have that many strips.

[Kilkenny]

Bumping this thread up. Looks like Chris Dobson made a copy from the original for the museum that owns it. It is a sandwich of leather with strips of metal inside where it looks blank on the outside to form a full circle of metal.

http://www.masterarmourer.com/vambrace.html

James, where are you getting the "full circle of metal" from? I'm curious about the "domed washers" myself

Dobson does amazing work and is almost certainly the tip of the spear when it comes to any sort of cuir boulli recreation. I'm a huge admirer of his work.

[Andeerz]

I should probably go ahead and ask Chris Dobson himself, but the reason I think they are strips is because, if you look at the picture in the very fist post, the bottom right vambrace shows what looks like an indentation along the length where a splint was riveted that looks like whatever splint was there was rather thin.

Ok... I'm going to email him now!

[James B.]

Bumping this thread up. Looks like Chris Dobson made a copy from the original for the museum that owns it. It is a sandwich of leather with strips of metal inside where it looks blank on the outside to form a full circle of metal.

http://www.masterarmourer.com/vambrace.html

James, where are you getting the "full circle of metal" from? I'm curious about the "domed washers" myself

Dobson does amazing work and is almost certainly the tip of the spear when it comes to any sort of cuir boulli recreation. I'm a huge admirer of his work.

Well originally we thought there arms had a row of just rivets then a row with a metal strip. Now with what Dodson has said we know there are interior rows where we thought there was no metal. Even if they do not overlap there will be little paging between the rows of metal when you look at the rivet placement.

[Kilkenny]

Bumping this thread up. Looks like Chris Dobson made a copy from the original for the museum that owns it. It is a sandwich of leather with strips of metal inside where it looks blank on the outside to form a full circle of metal.

http://www.masterarmourer.com/vambrace.html

James, where are you getting the "full circle of metal" from? I'm curious about the "domed washers" myself

Dobson does amazing work and is almost certainly the tip of the spear when it comes to any sort of cuir boulli recreation. I'm a huge admirer of his work.

Well originally we thought there arms had a row of just rivets then a row with a metal strip. Now with what Dodson has said we know there are interior rows where we thought there was no metal. Even if they do not overlap there will be little paging between the rows of metal when you look at the rivet placement.

I'm sorry, James, but where is Dobson saying that? I'm not getting it from the link you posted - is there something more beyond that page? when I click on the pictures I get sent to Adobe.com....

[James B.]

I am extrapolating the evidence we can see and what he said. He sandwiched steel strips, he did half the amount of rivet rows than the original and the original has visible remains of splints on the outside.

[Kilkenny]

I am extrapolating the evidence we can see and what he said. He sandwiched steel strips, he did half the amount of rivet rows than the original and the original has visible remains of splints on the outside.

Where are you getting that he did half as many rows of rivets? I look at the picture he shows of the original and it shows four rows of rivets. His finished product, in very close to the same angle of presentation, also shows four rows of rivets.

Trying to understand what you're seeing differently than I am

[James B.]

Go back to page one and look at the other image, there are far more rows shown there.

[Tracy Justus]

The vambraces on p1 of this thread are in Tartu, Estonia. The one Dobson copied is in Leiden in the Netherlands. Are you sure they are they same armor? Dobson is known for accurate reproductions, why would he omit lines of rivets found in the Tartu originals?

Tracy

[James B.]

Doh! Tracy your right; I forgot there are two separate finds like this; he is looking at one find and I am looking at the other.

[Kilkenny]

Thanks Tracy Mystery solved.

James, I understand how that can happen.

You know this is my special area of interest when it comes to armour, so I just want to understand as best I may what is going on.

[Andeerz]

Oh! Heh... heh heh... I feel dumb!

That said...

The ones from Tartu don't look like they were made from more than one layer of leather. Though it seems like every other aspect of these Tartu vambraces are pretty much just like the ones from Lithuania that Chris Dobson reconstructed. Neat.

[J.G.Elmslie]

aside from the obvious interesting details of the archaeology and design that I'll love to peek at in more detail, I'm afraid I cant help but be a sarcastic b*stard, and say:

"those must've been bloody big bracers, to be found in both countries".

[Eric Slyter]

So it's been a while on this... Has there been any new information or consensus about the armour in the first pic in this thread? I'm specifically interested in the presence of plates on the outside versus/or in addition to plates on the inside.

Thanks!

[Andeerz]

I know I am necro-ing this thread, but I was looking at it again and realized I can answer the last question here and possibly clear up some confusion.

I can say that based on the Leiden vambrace (which isn't the same as the Tartu ones that are the vambraces in the first pic of the thread) that has a similar split at the elbow (with remains of linen thread in it!!!), the split was likely sewn shut to make the vambrace have a bazuband-like shape, covering the elbow. This would have been necessary or at least helpful during the forming process to get such a severe curvature (in my opinion after having attempted working with half-tanned leather of this thickness). People in this thread already supposed as much, but I figured I'd mention this again just in case.

As for the configuration of the splints, in this particular find, there appear only to have been splints on the outside. This is evident by the remains of iron strips on the outside located near some of the rivets that secured them, as well as marks on the leather that show where the metal was. There are rows of rivets that did not appear to secure any splints. The number of rivets in these rows were more than the number of rivets seen in rows that secured splints.

The Tartu vambraces differ from the Leiden vambrace in three major ways. One is that all rows of rivets appeared to secure splints. The second way is that the Leiden vambrace was made with two layers of leather and not one. And the third way is that the splints in the Leiden vambrace appeared to be sandwiched in between these layers.

I know this information has likely been covered elsewhere, but I hate seeing threads with unanswered questions at the end.