The Armour Archive

Konstantin and Mac,

I know now how to put a pic to the AA site.
So here I send the pics of my bascinet in progress.
It's still far from finished.




Ron

Bingo! Huzzah, huzzah. Will look in my mail a bit later.

And that's going to be a very nice bascinet -- is it two pieces, welded?

Hi Konstantin,
No it's three pieces. In fact I tried to follow the instructions of Brian R. Price in his outstanding
book:" Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction".
So two halves for the skull and one for the neck piece. A combination of doming in the sandbag
and raising it by heating the creases and hammering it to one mass. Basically I have to work cold,
I have not the space nore the right spot, so to say, for a real forge. So I can not raise the whole helm in one piece.
I start like Brian with a precise drawing, front, side and top.
After that, and based on the drawings I make a model in 3D from strong multiplex wood.
You can ascertain based on the wooden model how much material and approx. what shape you need for every piece.
Working the metal plate and pressing it to the wooden model you can feel whether it does fit or it does not and where
and how much you have to correct. Also cutting the plate precisely fitting the other is easier.
Welding autogene is beautyful. Hardly any deformation of the plate. When you dose it right, that is.
Major advantage of autogene welding working in mild steel and the same welding-bars: you can go on smithing like nothing
changed. The weld stays workable.

Ron

Mac wrote: Ron,

I'm not sure that anyone really knows what is going on there. I certainly don't understand it. If I had to guess, I would say it is more likely to be metal than leather. It is contemporary with applied decorative metallic borders. It is typical of English effigies around 1400 and a bit later, but to the best of my knowledge, nothing like it has survived.



Mac

Anyone else notice the orientation of the rings?

Heh. Could mean anything, Jeff -- especially in a coif. Most of us just look at that, shrug, and orient the linkrows horizontally anyway.

The English for that welding method seems to be "autogenous" -- "autogène" gives you dictionary hits en français for the same method. And, as you said, Ron, using welding rod that is the same, or nearly the same, steel for making a nice ductile weld you can still work with a hammer.

Ron Zwart wrote:I have an other question re the camail of the bascinet.
Was the inside of a camail always completely lined or padded? Till how far down?
If so, what was the material used: linen, silk, leather?
I saw a German bascinet where the leather strip connecting the vervelles and
the lining were one and the same piece of leather going down till just above the shoulders.

Ron

Konstantin, Mac,

Can you give me your opinion about this matter?

Ron,

Looking good. Please look at these threads:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=74822&hilit=liner
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=128497&hilit=liner

Cheers,

Jan

Jan,

Thanks for sending these links. Very revealing indeed. I think I
have an idea now what to do next.

Ron

Ron,

So in answer to that question I think you can take yes. That third ling on the second post Mac put up is just crazy, king still standing there without a head....

You just cannot get the right look unpadded. That said make sure it is not super puffy or you might find the thing is too big and makes mvement and heay an issue.

RPM

Randall,

I have the picture what to do somehow. The padding/lining should be attached to the padding wihin the helmet itself.
Randall,

Thanks for the affirmation.
The padding within the helmet can be fluffy, the padding/lining within the camail should not. It should be smooth not heavy and thick no more
than 3/8 max.: f.i.: a layer consisting of linen outside and some maybe 3 layer of cotton in between. The lining ot the camail
only sewn to the camail itself around the face and along the bottom border.
May be I did not interpret everything right. If so, please correct me.

Thanks,

Ron