The Armour Archive

really starting to develop a sweet spot for early 16thc nowadays.. my grip must be slipping.. and had some time waiting for a kettle hat getting TIG'd, so thought id try a gorget, and this is what i have after a day..









ok, the only problem is.. i don't know how they go together.. i know there's a hinge involved, but that makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.. the leathers on the lames i can manage.. but whats the basic construction on these things..

cheers...

Fred

Looking really good Fred, you definately seem to have a feel for the later pieces.

Wade Allen has a particularly good shot of the closure of this type of gorget. It consists if a semi solid rivet on one side and a post and keyhole arrangement on the other side.

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-127.html

Hope that helps you!

Anyway, shouldn't you be doing your own research at your age?!!!

Ah, we all get some help.

That is a nice gorget. Perfect example of the period. Annoyingly, the parts right next to the joints are patched. The idea is like almost all other gorgets like it. A wiggly rivet on the left shoulder, and a pin in the rear plate and a keyhole in the front plate. The rest of the plates float on leathers and then the top neck lame has a hinge on the left side and a pin in the rear that engages in a hole in the front plate.

The nice ones I have seen have the hinge made as part of the upper neck plates, cheaper ones have a separate hinge. I am sure that there are high end ones with separate hinges too, but it is a fun feature.

This one has a more original set of pins on it:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-25.html

This one is similar:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-110.html
I feel it was originally a nicer one with upper plates that was re-worked into a simple gorget.

The other gorget on my site is similar in overall construction. It seems to have been pretty commonly done the same way.

Keep going, add more plates. You need a really big cool roll on top.


Wade

Very helpful pics!

Well, Fredwinu, that middle pic says you have a lot of hammer time! The forming of the plate gorget simply proves it.

Fred,

for what it's worth...I find it easier to start with the uppermost lames of the collar and to work down. This is counter-intuitive, but it helps. It is especially useful if the collar is going to have a helmet rotate on it. The uppermost "ring" of such a collar must be tolerably round and must sit in a plane at the correct angle. It is easier to start with this rather severe constraint and proceed to the rather less exacting shape of the main plates, than to start with the main plates and try to work toward the round plane.

Does that make sense?

In either case you will be assembling the parts with temporary fasteners. The inside holes from the temporary assembly will serve to attach the internal leathers, and the outside ones will be plugged with decorative rivet heads.

Mac

Last time I heard, Tom does it that way too - starts with the top and works down.

I think I did the last one I did in an even more perverse way, I started at the top and the bottom and filled-in in between. I wasn't making it fit a helmet, but it did have to fit the neck pretty well. The middle plates were a bit of a thrill, but I decided to be a glutton for punishment there too and made the front middle plate from a straight strip and worked it into shape instead of just cutting the curved shape from the plate. It didn't take long and it was more fun that way.

Temporary fasteners will be your friend. Look at where the obvious rivets are in the finished one and put them there. As Mac says, the inner will be used for the leathers, the outer plugged with a nice decorative rivet. They did this a lot on 16th c. armour. There are fake rivets all over the place where they wanted to hold things together but then didn't need the hole in the final assembly.

Wade

finished this afternoon with help from my girlfriend and my engineer mate..


moves like a dream

Time to do some thread resurrecting!

I really would like to attempt a gorget of this type with it's articulating lames that encase the neck. However, I don't know how I would hinge the front and back halves. Are the neck lames just supported by some thick leather with two rivets on each lame? Any insight into the construction of this type of gorget would be greatly appreciated! And by the way, fredwinu did an excellent job with his.

Also, what sort of pauldrons and helm would go with this type of gorget?
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-25.html

With that gorget-going-on-munion, anything throughout all the sixteenth, and into the seventeenth -- a burgonet especially, and sixteenth-century gauntlets with the curvy cuffs. Morions and cabassets might have been used, but were I think rather second-best.

The hingeing will be at the lames. The gorget front and back plates won't hinge together, for one ends up swiveling under the other to open the gorget. So the front plate should overlap the back plate, I should think. Am I off base?

Structurally, the leathers joining the lames are the ones with the rivets through them. A lining is largely independent of the metal, though it may attach to the vertical leathers that are doing the articulation work. I should think not two rivets per lame, but three (if not doubling up at least the centerline leather, so anything up to six rivets per lame) -- three shortish leather straps, on the right side, left side, and centerline.

Thanks for the info, Konstantin!
Alright, I'm starting to get a better picture of how this thing would work.
Would there be a hinge on each neck lame, or just the top one? And would the hinge be integral or riveted onto the inside or outside? Do the lames overlap front over back?
So, on the right side main plate there's a rivet and keyhole type closure with the front overlapping the back, and on the left there's a stationary rivet that'll let the metal rotate on it?

Hi there, These are my favorite kind of gorgets for sure, thanks everybody for all the pics and info on them. Wcalllen thats a great site you have there with alot of great info, Ill be all over that.
Mac what you said about starting at the neck makes alot of sence to me, starting where the measurements are critical. Ill do it that way when I try one.

Fred nice job on the gorget, great hammer work there.

Take care

Pitbull