The Armour Archive

I've always been a little unhappy with the movement I could achieve in an (SCA) arm harness, especially when I introduce any metal components into it.

I decided to assemble this set to each other and to the arming garment with points. Voila! Except for noticing the weight increase a little, I get NO restriction of movement this way. I expected it to work, but this is like wearing a sweatshirt that skips blows.

Master Cad has a picture of an arm kit using this method you can view (look for the 14th C set for Sir Alfred (cheval), titled "jayarms.jpg"). To explain what I did that the picture doesn't show, the points are only on one side (the "top")of the arm, near both the upper and lower edges of the coultier fairly close to the point of the elbow, and lace the arming coat, vambrace/rerebrace, and coultier points together with a single lace at each location. There is a soft leather snugging strap in the center of the coultier to keep it from bagging away from the joint. The vambraces have two straps, the rerebrace one. Mine were assembled using the "soupcan" coultiers that Krag made for me and my SCA cuirbollei vambraces and rerebraces. Laminated spaulders point to my coat of plates, with a single lower strap around the bicep/rerebrace.

I'll now be working on splinted horsehide vambraces and rerebraces to finish my original plan. I can still substitute the cuir bollei pieces at will. A mini-garniture!



[This message has been edited by Gaston (edited 03-05-2001).]

im glad it worked out for you! I tell many of my customers and local fighters that points are not only correct but also function the best, most ignore me and come up with strange and less effective ways to attatch their gear.

Now you need to find someone to make you a "purpoint" (as B. Price calls it). That seems to be the best way to set the leg harness.

------------------
All the best,
Rhys
"Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul"
Sifu Jun Fan Lee

Gaston-

I'm glad to hear that it worked. Why do we so often discount the vast experience of armorers in period?

Oh, and what time and place are are you recreating?

I'm still a little shaky on some of the specialized vocabulary here. I hope you won't mind if I ask for an expanded explanation.

> assemble this set to each other and to the arming garment with points.

"Points" here means laces or ribbons, right? What are they made of, and how wide are they? Like leather boot laces? Like cotton straps?

> Master Cad has a picture of an arm kit using this method you can view

I'm sorry. I don't have Master Cad's URL. Could you tell me where to find him?

> near both the upper and lower edges of the coultier

Uh-oh. "Coultier" is a new vocabulary word. It's not in my handy glossary of armoring terms, and a search on Google seems to indicate that it is part of a plow. What's a coultier? Some sort of cop?

> lace the arming coat, vambrace/rerebrace, and coultier points together with a single lace at each location.

Does the lace originate at arming coat, like a pair of tie-tapes sewn onto the sleeve? Then, does it pass out through the layers and tie in a bow or sword knot on the surface?

I'm building a 14th C kit. Splinted leather over mail, with articulated joints. Would the laces thread right through the mail and up through the armor?

> assemble this set to each other...

Before you put the armor on, is the arm all in one piece? Or do the points also serve to connect the vambrace to the elbow assembly? It sounds like the latter. I hope that question makes sense. Most people have a whole arm assembly that they slide on like an extra sleeve. But, if everything is laced to the arming coat, maybe there's no need for the arm to hang together.

> There is a soft leather snugging strap in the center of the coultier to keep it from bagging away from the joint.

If this is a kind of elbow cop, do you find that the strap binds? Would you do the same for your knees?

Thanks, and I hope this hasn't been too much of a bother.

-BT

Greetings,
I too agree that a great number of people in the SCA tend to discount the knowledge of we can gain from the period examples.

You can see this arm at: http://www.isd.net/cdavis/images/jayarm.jpg
and my web site is http://www.isd.net/cdavis

Please note that I did not point this to the garment underneath. The vanbrace and rebrace are only laced to the cop itself. The rebrace is pointed at the top to the garment, and it straps across the elbow to keep it in place.

I personally use this arrangement on my own harness and love it. Occasionally it will gap, but keeping the strap at the elbow keeps the cop over the place it intends to protect.

-Cad
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Oh, sorry I forgot the other question. I put on my arm laced together, not seperatly. I just strap it into place.

[This message has been edited by Chuck Davis (edited 03-05-2001).]

Originally posted by Chuck Davis:

>Occasionally it will gap, but keeping the strap at the elbow keeps the cop over the place it intends to protect.

-Cad
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I used to do that but the buckle was irritating the inside of my elbow a bit. I also had to leave it a bit loose, so my arm harness was slipping down until it ran into my hand. I found that also pointing it to my sleeves just below the couter on the vambrace along the outside of my forarm has solved most of the problem and also the gap problem. I removed the straps inside the elbows and it is fine. I leave the whole thing all attached and it goes on just like a coat. I still have to strap closed the vambraces though.

-Julie

Master Cad:
Thanks for the reply. Hope you didn't mind me using your excellent work as an example BTW, I got to see the arms when Jay came down last year, amazing work. Not just the pretty I expected, but wonderfully functional.

ToweyB:
-I'm hoping to reproduce a kit for a retainer of the Lusignan dynasty from 1362 Cyprus. Very much French, with perhaps a bit more cuirbollei than the continental harnesses due to the Latin influence (and, I like cuirbollei).
-Points refer to the holes, laces refer to....laces. I used leather laces as an experiment, in time they'll be replaced with more proper linen laces with metal chapes (lace ends, somewhat like those on a bola tie).
-Coultiers are "elbow cops". I think the term has Middle French origins, and as such is spelled in a variety of similar ways. I believe that the term "poleyn" for knee cops has a similar origin.

-I lace the armour to the coat. I have the same slipping-toward-the-wrist FrauHirsch mentioned, that stops it. You may want to point them 1 or 2 inches higher than you'd first think, it's really nice to have them completely off your wrists for a change.
-The strap is truly a snugging, not cinching, strap out of soft glovey leather. I bend my arm tightly before deciding on how tightly to buckle it. It's just there to keep the coultier from getting too far from my arm, centrifugal force pushes your arm defense toward your wrist, and when it catches there the elbow of the harness tends to drift away from the elbow as it collapses on itself.
-No bother at all, please let me know if I haven't been clear on anything. It's really sweet when it works right.

I'll have to try pointing to my new arming shirt. Thanks for the 'user' insight Gaston and Frau Hirsch
-Cad