Dusting off the cobwebs

[Mac]

I have had a belt/lendenier on my project list for the exact reasons and purposes it is now on your agenda.
I have a couple of prototype shapes cut from canvas to sew up and try out and some good heavy hemp canvas for the final project.
I suspect that I will not be able to get back to it until early May.

I was able to get something that fit OK in an afternoon's work. I don't know if a very deep belt like the one you link to is easier of harder to pattern. I think I would try making it up in three or four panels to give it more shape though. The more it looked like a doublet skirt, the better.

For the final version, I'm going to use two layers of this stuff. It's monster strong. I plan to do a little experiment with sewing rings into the eyelets. That's probably overkill, but it might not be much harder than sewing eyelets without rings.

Mac

Edit... I had a link to the wrong fabric... I've changed it.

[Mac]

I have a few images

Check out this search of the RA Online Collection


My photo of one on display in Leeds. (Click on images to load higher resolution versions)

Thanks, Tom!

Does anyone know how to rig a spur like the one above? There are more strap fittings than I know what to do with.

Mac

Although I'm embarrassed to even admit that I own this book, the the illustration in Liliane and Fred Funken's Arms and Uniforms, the Age of Chivalry Part 3, p37 shows that sort of spur on the outside of the greave.



If that were really "a thing" it might be convenient for this armor. Does anyone have information that supports this interpretation. The authors do not cite their source for the idea.

Mac

[wcallen]

I have a few images

Check out this search of the RA Online Collection


My photo of one on display in Leeds. (Click on images to load higher resolution versions)


Another of my photos of an example from the RA's collection this one was previously displayed at the Frazier in Louisville. (Click on images to load higher resolution versions)

I wish this had come up last week. I own one of those straight arm spurs.

http://www.allenantiques.com/S-19.html

I would have dragged it along had I known.

I have some others that might be interesting too.

http://www.allenantiques.com/S-34.html
http://www.allenantiques.com/S-56.html
http://www.allenantiques.com/S-7.html

Just a few days to late for Baltimore. Rats.

Wade

[Sean M]

Mac, if you are going to be sewing more eyelets ... are you doing the nice simple kind in the MoL? When you made the doublet for the helmet you seemed to be doing something more complicated. When I do medieval sewing, I always try to tell myself not to over-complicate things ... some modern tailoring techniques are 'fussier' than what seems to survive on 14th century clothing.

I appreciate that they may have used different techniques in this context, or changed between the trecento and the quattrocento, but I spent an hour staring at one of the liners for a jousting helm in the KHM, and the stitching is a mess because nobody will see it.

[Tom B.]

Some images from the Thun Skizzenbuch

(click on image to load larger versions)

[Tom B.]

I am also collecting some images in this Google Photos album, I will keep adding more as I find them.
So far I have some nice examples from the KHM.

Spurs for Mac

[wcallen]

Some of those pictures depict spurs riding pretty low on the foot. Way down almost on the heel.

I was thinking about the shape of the straight ones like from the RA and that I posted first in my note. The shape of the "U" is very round. Not shaped to the more pointed shape of the ankle area and just below at all. Maybe they really are worn lower than I tend to think of spurs sitting. Maybe they line up where the low part of the sweeping loop would have sat (or even lower) on one of the elegant earlier ones.

That would get them out of the most bunchy parts of the interaction between greave and shoe/solleret. I expect that there are still issues... but the flat ones are pretty flat helping to minimize that.

I should have brought spurs to Baltimore......

Wade

[Ckanite]

Tom, that first picture, look carefully at his mouth. It that the original Joker? 2 Real points though. 1) In that first picture, were horses really that armoured, like ever? 2) It seems that the normal way to wear the spurs was under the greeves and sabatons but I see a few that were worn over. Why the difference?

[Tom B.]

Tom, that first picture, look carefully at his mouth. It that the original Joker? 2 Real points though. 1) In that first picture, were horses really that armoured, like ever? 2) It seems that the normal way to wear the spurs was under the greeves and sabatons but I see a few that were worn over. Why the difference?

#1 We have a few images like the ones I posted there. Also a few (at least 3) extant pieces. If your are interested in discussing this more lets spin off another thread.

[Tom B.]

Some of those pictures depict spurs riding pretty low on the foot. Way down almost on the heel.

I was thinking about the shape of the straight ones like from the RA and that I posted first in my note. The shape of the "U" is very round. Not shaped to the more pointed shape of the ankle area and just below at all. Maybe they really are worn lower than I tend to think of spurs sitting. Maybe they line up where the low part of the sweeping loop would have sat (or even lower) on one of the elegant earlier ones.

That would get them out of the most bunchy parts of the interaction between greave and shoe/solleret. I expect that there are still issues... but the flat ones are pretty flat helping to minimize that.

I should have brought spurs to Baltimore......

Wade

Yes it does look like that type is work very low on the round part of the heel, some even look like they are right down so the bottom edge is level with the sole.


On some of these rowel seems to be below the sole of the foot I wonder about walking in these.
Since Mac's patron will be mostly on foot in this harness maybe ones with an upward angle would be better than the straight ones.

[Mac]

Thank you, Tom!

It doesn't look like any of those examples are for exactly the situation I have with the St Florian armor, but I will gather them up into my pinterest page and keep thinking.

I wish I understood more about what's happening here....



I wonder if it's one of these spurs with the sort of heel cup. (this one is missing its strap loops)



All in all, I feel like I don't understand as much about spurs as I should.

Mac

[Mac]

Some of those pictures depict spurs riding pretty low on the foot. Way down almost on the heel.

I've been noticing/worrying about that as well.

I was thinking about the shape of the straight ones like from the RA and that I posted first in my note. The shape of the "U" is very round. Not shaped to the more pointed shape of the ankle area and just below at all. Maybe they really are worn lower than I tend to think of spurs sitting. Maybe they line up where the low part of the sweeping loop would have sat (or even lower) on one of the elegant earlier ones.

Is the one that you own with the straight arms round? When you have a chance, try it on and see if it works better lower down on the heel.

That would get them out of the most bunchy parts of the interaction between greave and shoe/solleret. I expect that there are still issues... but the flat ones are pretty flat helping to minimize that.

The things I am most worried about are these....
--what is the typical shape for the arms of a spur that goes entirely under a greave... and doe's it even matter?
--do I have enough real estate under the sabatons at the place where the buckle will be?
--is there a better way than having them under the greaves/sabs? The part where he will have to remove the sabatons to get access to the spur buckles strikes me as inconvenient.

I should have brought spurs to Baltimore......

Who knew....?!

Mac

[Mac]

Mac, if you are going to be sewing more eyelets ... are you doing the nice simple kind in the MoL? When you made the doublet for the helmet you seemed to be doing something more complicated. When I do medieval sewing, I always try to tell myself not to over-complicate things ... some modern tailoring techniques are 'fussier' than what seems to survive on 14th century clothing.

I appreciate that they may have used different techniques in this context, or changed between the trecento and the quattrocento, but I spent an hour staring at one of the liners for a jousting helm in the KHM, and the stitching is a mess because nobody will see it.

You have a good point there. I am doing my eyelets in the modern way.... with the threads twisted around one another at the periphery, like a (modern) buttonhole. It may well be that they were not done that way in the 15th C. I've just been looking at the eyelets in the burial doublet of Diego Cavaniglia, and they only have radiating threads... no twist.

I'll try making up some test pieces and see if there is any difference in performance. I'm sure they will be faster to sew.

Mac

[Tom B.]

There could be some good images of spurs in fechtbuchs that have sections on mounted combat:

Wiktenauer Treatises Page

[Tom B.]

KHM website search for spurs (sporen)

Back to your support belt

Back in November I bought a few yards of this stuff for such projects.
I think it is like your fabric but a bit whiter and 40% less in price.

I usually sew my eyelets like Sean mentioned and have not had any issues in the past.

[wcallen]

I will try to play with the spur this evening to see how it works.

Unless we are dealing with some really odd spur here, the spur mounts would have to either:
- go under the sab - which means that we wouldn't see them - which we don't in Tom's images
- go over the sab - which means that we should probably see them.

Over or under, there isn't a third choice if there are actually straps.

The 16th c. guys had spurs that connected directly to greaves without any straps. That heel oddity might be such a thing under the greave. I don't know where it would connect off the top of my head, but they do seem to imply that there is a gilded spur connected to something (or part of something) gilded that goes under the greave and covers the heel.

Wade

[Mac]

I will try to play with the spur this evening to see how it works.

While you doing that, could you get a measurement of the length of the arms?

Thanks!
Mac

[wcallen]

Wade... Remember..... Get spurs out and play with them. Maybe get some good pictures on a scale....

Remember....

My memory is terrible. I will try.

Wade

[wcallen]

The straight spur definitely fits only pretty far down on the foot where the curve is round. I have another long spur with a similar shape in the arms. The rest of the spurs I pulled out have a much more pointed shape at the heel, much more like higher on your foot.

Here we go. The spurs are on a 1" scale cutting board.

http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 747801.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 813181.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 817898.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 822836.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 830651.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 835404.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 856434.jpg
http://www.allenantiques.com/MacSpurs/I ... 908347.jpg

Linked this way so that you get the full sized image. No editing.

That should get you appropriate scale.

Wade

[Mac]

Thank you, Wade! That's extremely informative.

It's a bit surprising that they are pretty much all 3" wide at the ends and about 3" deep, but more or less round depending on (presumably) how high on the heel they are intended to sit.

Mac

[Christian Wiedner]

I think they will end all more or less at the same point on the foot - only in a different angel. Thats why they are all 3" wide

[Mac]

I think they will end all more or less at the same point on the foot - only in a different angel. Thats why they are all 3" wide

I think you are exactly right.

Mac

[Mac]

I've mostly been gathering pics of and thinking about those spurs with the straight arms. This morning I woke up thinking that they are probably all a bit late for this armor, and that I should really make something more curvy.



The straight armed spurs seemed like an interesting departure from spurs I have made in the past. It also seemed like a style that might be a bit faster to make. I suppose I got stuck on them because of the A21 armor in London, and the possibility that they were supposed to go in the outside of the greave. While that sounded convenient, it doesn't look like there's any real evidence to support the idea. It's interesting, how we can start off on a tangent and let it warp the whole project.

So, I guess I will start collecting different pics.

Mac

[Mac]

What I am looking for now, are images of spurs that can be dated to the 1470s or thereabouts.

The more I search for information on spurs the less I find. It seems like spurs are red haired stepchild of arms and armor, and no one has really done a proper typology. The dates one sees in museum catalogs have a sort of arbitrary feel to them, where very similar examples might have wildly differing dates.

Mac

[Tom B.]

It looks like the Met only has a few of their spurs online
"Spur" search at Met online

[wcallen]

My impression is that dating is pretty arbitrary.

I work from what I am given. My straight one has its date because that is what I got from some others, probably the RA one in particular.

Years ago I got some information from Doug Strong. He had been buying a boat load of spurs and doing his brass/effigy study and he seemed to have come up with some rules that were better than most for dating spurs. The ones I remember were earlier than you are asking about, but ping him. Maybe he has something useful to share that will help us all date spurs better. Annoyingly, I don't think I have the rules anywhere I can lay my hands on them.

1470's, yea, you probably want an elegant, sweeping set of arms with a nice medium-long stalk and a cute rowel.

Wade

[Sean M]

I wish I could find linen heavier than 8 oz/280g in the EU. I must be searching wrong.

You have a good point there. I am doing my eyelets in the modern way.... with the threads twisted around one another at the periphery, like a (modern) buttonhole. It may well be that they were not done that way in the 15th C. I've just been looking at the eyelets in the burial doublet of Diego Cavaniglia, and they only have radiating threads... no twist.

Great idea for a parallel!

I never learned the modern system so I don't understand what you are describing but I have been following the drawing on page 164 of Crowfoot et al. I won't try to describe it in words when they did such a good diagram. They only had one large piece with eyelets and I had been afraid I was doing the re-enactorism of finding one surviving artifact and assuming that was THE WAY THEY DID IT.

Matthew Gnagy has seen 17th century clothing where they just pierced the hole with a stiletto and whip-stitched around the opening (Modern Maker pp. 72, 73). He has some photos although they are not the best.

[Mac]

Today, I started in on the spurs. I have a little sketch in my notebook, and the casts of my August Patron's legs. With that and some cardboard, I came up with a template for the bodies of the spurs.



This is going to be a welded construction. I have made a couple of pairs of spurs by forging, and it's a lot of trouble for someone who has not been trained up in that craft. I'm not a very good welder, but I'm a better welder than I am a smith.

I thought I'd use 3/16" by 2" mild steel stock for the bodies, and that necessitated a trip to my local Metal Supermarket. When they handed me the stock, I looked at the thickness, and said (thinking out loud, really ) that it looked like it was about ten thousandths under. The one of them gave the other the "customer is a wanker" look, but I pretended not to notice. Well..... as we can see by the old Brown & Sharpe, the stock is .176" rather than .187", so I was not far off.



I cut the parts with the jig saw.....



...and cleaned up the lines with a disc.



After an hour or so of futzing about, I got them to fit the plaster legs.



I'll probably get most of the profiling done on the grinder before I turn my attention to the necks and rowels.

Mac

[wcallen]

Additional pictures of a spur similar to the new idea:

http://www.allenantiques.com/S-56.html

It is a bit bent, and rusted, but mostly still there.

The thickest part of the arms is the inside of the curve where it curves under the ankle. It is about .150 thick there. Much of the rest of the "thick" part of the arm is about .125. It tapers down to about .095 thick near the area used to mount the strap mounts.

The stalk tapers from ~.35 down to .25 just before the split for the rowel (sideways) and .31 down to .23 vertically.

All measurements in inches.

Wade

[Mac]

Thank you Wade! That's very helpful. I had been wondering if I should taper the thickness of the arms.

Mac

[Mac]

I took the spur parts to the wheel again to sculpt in the profiles.



After that, they went to the belt sander and then I hand filed them for a bit.



I'll go back again tomorrow and file them some more.

Mac

[Mac]

I neglected to report on yesterday's sewing activity. The mail sleeves are temporarily attached to a vest-like garment, which I needed to replace. I had been running around in my head about how best to make the new one, but I finally settled on something and just started making it.



I still need to make up the fabric panels for the un-mailed part of the upper arms, and sew in some eyelets for the pauldrons to tie into. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow when I get tired of filing the spurs.

Mac

[Mac]

Last night I had a growing notion that I had designed myself into a corner. This morning it was clear, and I made the necessary change on the sketch and on the spurs. The original idea was to have a crest line that intercepted the middle of the neck attachment. The problem with that is that once the neck is welded on, I can get a file in there to clean it up. Moving the crest line up a bit and attaching the neck entirely in the lower face solves the problem. (I hope)



The rowel pivots will be conical pads on the sides of the spur necks. In the past, I have made rather wimpy versions of these by working within the volume of the starting stock. Today, I thought I'd begin by upsetting the stock a bit to get more volume to work with. I cut a length of 3/8" mild steel a bit longer than both the necks combined, and upset each end.



Then I flattened out the upsets so the material spread out to the sides where I needed it.



This shows one of the ends after the initial grinding and filing up.



I'll get some more pics when my camera batteries are charged. I hope that will be before I start welding.

Mac

[Mac]

Having center punched each of the of the pads which will support the rowel shaft, I drilled from each side and met in the middle. This is a trick I learned from an old German machinist named Gunther. He used it to drill the tang-screw holes in wheel lock stocks.



Once the hole was drilled, I laid out the lines for slitting the end of the necks for the rowels. I carefully marked both sides of the cut and turned the work over frequently while cutting.



The lengths were taken directly from the drawing, and the two necks separated with a hacksaw.



Getting the parts aligned for welding was a bit fussy. This is a rinky-dink set up, but it only has to last long enough to get a bit of a tack. Then I can move it around at will to complete the weld.



I made another on-the-fly design change. This one was about the termination of the "comb". I had it fading out gradually, but found that an abrupt termination let me get the files and grinding disc in better.



They start to look more like spurs.



Mac

[RandallMoffett]

So much skill in one post. This really is a great project and I appreciate you sharing it here.

Best luck on the conclusion!

RPM