The Armour Archive

I'm at the planishing stage of my first piece. It is an elbow cop following the pattern described in sasha's article "how to make articulated joint armor". The fan seems to be overly large to me. If I place the cop on my right arm and reach to my left shoulder the fan just touches my chin. I plan on using this in the sca, and with a helm it would definetly bang against the front of my helm, or into my chest/throat should I for some reason decide to throw a high cross.

Can someone shoot me some advice about fan size on a elbow piece?

I don't know about the fan. There are better armorers than I on this board.

Come to think of it, a spider monkey with a nail gun is probably a better armorer than I am.

But if you are making it, you are free to make that fan the size you want. If you are making it for SCA specs (and you certainly might not be) then the cop must cover all three bony points on the elbow. If the fan is adequate to do that, the fan is OK. A man named Bo Diddly once told me about art. He said "If it is comin' out of your mouth, it's your song. Sing it the way you want to."

But I do have some very serious advice.

Don't make an elbow cop. Make a pair of elbow cops.

f

Thank you ! It is for sca, that is the info I needed about coverage, and it is the first of a pair.

I'm pretty limited on equipment at the moment, but I'm eeking it out with a bench mounted vise, the cap from a o2 tank, a ballpeen, a ground down screwdriver and a 2x4 with a groove down the center for the fluting. I maintain it is still fun tho.

Servus kfm,

Just out of curiosity -are you making the fan because it is appropriate for a particular time-period or are you making it for protection?

If it is only for protection, I would suggest getting rid of the fan - it gets in the way more often than it saves you from getting hit! Go for a simple, wingless cop and you can wear it either inside a surcoat or on the outside. Either way, unless the wing is asthetically pleasing, get rid of it.

Best of luck to you!

I only added it because it was on the original pattern. I will be quite pleased to get rid of it.

I like having a fan on my arms- though I only have one on my right, since my left arm is behind my shield a lot of the time and the fan gets in the way there. Not having the fan would make the piece a bit easier to make though.