The Armour Archive

I am new to this list, so let me start by saying hello to everyone.

Now the question: How do I add a row or two to the top part of the aventail to make it tighter, decreasing the diameter? I tried just going through 2 links at a time for a row or two, but it became obvious to me that this would yield a longer tube of the same diameter. I am not an armorer, only a fighter who knows as much as he has to in order to fix and tinker. I recently got a new helm...made to fit my mutant head...and am trying to fit an aventail to it. I sewed the aventail around the leather strip (don't know the name for it), but there is way to much left over. I bought it (the aventail) at Pennsic, and the armorer graciously cut some rows out for me, since it was too tight at the narrow end at first. For whatever reason though, after sewing it to the leather and fitting it around the helm, it's too big now. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Kenneth

Go through 3 links every so often, spaced evenly around the aventail. That will tighten it up in short order.

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Owen
"Death is but a doorway-
Here, let me hold that for you"

sent email

Kenneth, also remember not to have too much of your aventail's inner edge in front of your bascinet's face opening. Stretch it fairly tight there, and sew in the links quite tightly bunched into your camail strap (might as well call it that; I don't think anyone has actually come up with an authoritative, professional in-the-trade type term for it). The reason for this is that otherwise your camail won't stay up over your chin, because it will want to flop.

Something else that I picked up over at Firestryker Living History Board was the idea of making a thinnish quilted lining for the entire camail except the bit that rises up to the camail strap, if the strap is up on the helmet skull a bit, that is made in one with the helmet lining and just extends out under the camail. They liked this idea because all of a sudden their camails took on the shapes seen in hundreds of brasses of 14th-c. knights. Up at your lower lip, the edge of the lining may be stitched to the upper edge of the camail, for complete control over its height and placement. Now you can cultivate a 14th-c. mustache and hang it over the mail -- and hire out as a memorial brass!

Don't get too married to the idea of spreading the links out to their maximum stretch. Let the links be compressed near the camail strap, and let them spread naturally as they get farther out.

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"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

[This message has been edited by Konstantin the Red (edited 09-14-2002).]

Konstantin,

I sewed the top edge to the camail with holes punched as far apart as the rings naturally fell, which came out to be about every half-inch. Should I have made them closer? Maybe this is why it turned out larger in diameter than the we thought when the armorer cut it to fit. One other thing, this helm is VERY close-fitting, with a welded-on face grill. It turns out that I cannot take the front part of the mail up the sides of the face opening because I couldn't get my head into it. Tom Justus (who made the helm), showed me his latest bascinet, and recommended I do what he did...just leave a little bit of loose mail in the front and string some leather thong through the outer rings and pull them up and tie them to convenient spots on the side of the grill.

Kenneth

Oh, okay; I didn't know you had a fixed bargrill. Mine is hinged, so attaching a camail directly to it is a non-starter. I am obliged to use a more strictly period technique.

It certainly looks as if you should indeed have set the rings closer together; remember that camails attached to helmets and set upon flat surfaces should just spread out flat like big steel doilies. So naturally the inmost link rows will be rather more compressed than the links at full stretch on the hem.

I've used the suspension-thong method for the camail front myself, but I believe that when I construct the camail lining I mentioned above, that I will be able to dispense with the thong and the liner would be able to hold the mail up in its proper place.

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"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."