The Armour Archive

This is a Corrazina I am making. The metal is 410 spring steel.

Very pretty ! What gauge thickness of 410 did you use?

I like it a lot. I would love to see detailed pictures of its progress. I would like to make something similar. I currently wear a coat of plates that buckles in the back.

Steve

Very nice! What weight of leather is that?

I can post more pics of the progression. It is 20 gauge spring steel with 4 ounce leather.

Here are some more pics.

Since it is 410, are you going to harden it?

that is slick.

It already he been hardened. Thanks for the compliment. To me it looks like crap lol.

Awesome, thanks for the pictures!

Steve

Love it! I'm working on a similar project. I like the lines you've got going - very nice.

Thanks, this has not been an easy project. I am not much a leather worker so it has been a learning curve in how to rivet and prevent bulges in the leather on the breastplate.

ok 25% done now.

So there are no faulds in the back?

Steve

Yep, there will be.

Some more progress.

That looks great. The large straps and buckles look a little off, but as a whole you are doig a great job!

Looks way better than anything I could come up with; keep up the good work. Look forward to a shot of you wearing it.

Yeah, looking back I could of gone with the smaller buckles....

You still can...

It would be a very difficult chore and expensive to change out those buckles....

Sextus Maximus wrote:Yeah, looking back I could of gone with the smaller buckles....

Ckanite wrote:You still can...

Indeed. Here is St. Mike's armor for comparison. He's got a lot of nice fittings on his straps, but he's an Archangel. The important thing is the proportion.



Mac

Sextus Maximus wrote:It would be a very difficult chore and expensive to change out those buckles....

Sextus,

That's your first reaction. Let the idea settle in for a bit.

You could have the old straps and buckles off in less than half an hour. Use a dremel to remove the rivet heads on the inside and punch the shanks out from the back. Make sure the armor is "bucked" against something soft while you drive them out so you don't scrape up the covering. (I usually use my thigh, but a sandbag or even a folded up towel on the anvil will do fine.)

The new buckles could be made of 1/8" brass rod or iron wire and very little expense. You can shape them up freehand with a vise and a hammer. It will only take an a couple of hours to make six or eight of them, by which time you will be getting pretty good at making buckles. That's a skill that will serve you for the rest of your armor.

The old buckles are not the right shape for armor, but they will make perfectly good belts. That's one for you, and four to be given as Christmas gifts to your friends.

Mac

I will think on it... By seeing the actual pic of buckles on that piece it makes me cringe how mine looks like...

First of all I want to say good work Sextus.

Mac,

As usual I have a question.
Shouldn't there be a overlap of the plates in the front where the buckles are.
I know that in later brigandines this is definitely the case.

Sadly my own lat 15th century brigantine lacks this overlap and I am currently looking at two options for fixing it.

#1. "The right way" go back and replace all of the end plates on the right side so that they are a bit longer and extend 1" or so past the fabric.

#2. "Easier way" rivet extender plates to the back of the end plates on the right side. These extener plates would bridge the joint.

These plates are not a pair, but I think what's happening here is typical. The (wearer's) right is extended past the rivets to form an underlap. I don't know whether that underlap could have been covered, or whether the covering would have stopped just past the rivets to leave the underlap bare.



Here is another "pair", showing the same sort of thing.



I just ran a search on the Met's site for brigandine plate and was delighted to see that it looks like they have all of the Chalcis breasts and upper backs online. http://metmuseum.org/collection/the-col ... dine+plate

Strangely, though, this one http://metmuseum.org/collection/the-col ... cis&pos=52 does not come up in the brigandine plate search, but does come up when searching Chalcis.


Mac

Thanks Mac!
I was just doing my own Met search on a different subject and came across the last plate you posted above.
I like the idea of stop ribs but I am not sure I have seen any art or other extant pieces with them.

Given that the search I was doing, "Bashford Dean Memorial Collection, Bequest of Bashford Dean, 1928", was based on our other discussion about "Bashforization" of objects in the Met. I am suspicious of at least the stop rib at the arm. The two rivets at least look new.

http://metmuseum.org/collection/the-col ... lery-label

Here's another with a stop rib.http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5168/16177/



Mac

Tom B. wrote: I am suspicious of at least the stop rib at the arm. The two rivets at least look new.

http://metmuseum.org/collection/the-col ... lery-label

The stop rib has a delamination break half way between the second and third rivet locations. I trust the rib, but it has certainly been reattached with new rivets.



Mac

Thanks Mac.

Mac wrote: I don't know whether that underlap could have been covered, or whether the covering would have stopped just past the rivets to leave the underlap bare.

Mac

I know that on several surviving brigandines the underlaping plates are bare.
Maybe I can scan a few photo tomorrow.

I have taken in consideration a half inch overlap of the front plates when I was making the design.

So...I have wondered how stop ribs were handled on covered plates: The are applied! Hallafrikinlueja! So, second problem: Were they applied OVER the finished cover? Thanks Mac and all for these illuminating--literally--facts that those of us unable to see, photograph or touch the originals have never been able to access before!

http://metmuseum.org/collection/the-col ... cis&pos=52

You can zoom in at this link. The stop rib for the neck is definitely applied on over the original cloth.

stallari wrote: Thanks Mac and all for these illuminating--literally--facts that those of us unable to see, photograph or touch the originals have never been able to access before!

Stallari,

The plain fact is that most of what I know, I know from pictures. For every hour I have had the privilege to handle real armor, I have spent another hundred looking at pictures.

The trick is in how to look. Spend time looking deeply. Let the lines burn into your brain. Ask yourself questions about what you are looking at. Look at the way the light reflects off the armor and imagine where the light sources are. Ask your self what that tells you about the shape. Try to imagine what it looks like from a slightly different angle. Look at the "horizons" of the armor and let them soak in. Try putting those shapes into words. Where is the widest place? The narrowest? Where is is concave? Where is is convex? If if goes from concave to convex, where is the inflexion point? Look at the rivets, and ask yourself what each one is there for.

There is a tremendous amount of information in a picture, but getting at it is not a purely passive process. You have to work at it, but the more you work at it the easier it becomes.

Mac