The Armour Archive

I didn't want to sidetrack Jeffs thread so started a new one here. There is so much going around about jousting lately and especially the divide between balsa/historical/solids/full contact etc etc etc.

You can be unhorsed just the same with a balsa lance as with a solid lance.

I have been working on the PJL for a while now and we have events in place for next year and we have been pleased with how well this idea has been received by existing jousters and by those interested in jousting. We have something for everyone and this opens up the competitor pool. We are also working on a foot combat division.

I will broadly explain what it is we are aiming for. Please bear in mind that this is a work in progress and we are still working through the details. This has been a bit slow as I am very busy in the US for 10 weeks. I apologise if the following is a bit disjointed.

The PJLA is aiming to present jousts as a modern sport. There is nothing new here, it is what the majority of people have stated in the past.

Due in part to a project I am involved with in the US, I see a chance for growth in the sport.

There have also been some,,,, interesting developments in the US of late. I believe that we can present something that combines the best of what everyone is doing. I am in a unique position as I have done historical jousting, US style jousting and balsa historical and sport jousting.

I see all of these style have merits and disadvantages, bad and good points.

The PJLA will have 3 divisions.
Amateur- Balsa with Ecranches. This is the standard balsa joust that we are all familiar with. Good quality historical harness of any period needed. Standard balsa tips with the first 6” split and taped in the Full Tilt style.

Pro 2- Balsa with Grandguards- Any period plate harness fitted with a Grandguard and Tiltbuff (unless a bolted down Frogmouth or Great Bascinet is used) Arrets and grapers used.

Pro 1- Solids (looking at coronels) with Grandguard- Any period plate harness fitted with a Grandguard and Tiltbuff (unless a bolted down Frogmouth or Great Bascinet is used) Arrets and grapers used. Lances are not the dowels like those used in the US but are the tapered solids like those we have used in the past for our historical solid lance jousts down here.

The reason for the GG in the pro divisions is because these are sport (prize money) jousts so everyone will have the same rigid target.

We are working with armourers to have an approved armour made for this style at a reasonable cost. I have already used my spring steel version of this harness.

We will be holding regular training weekends for new and established jousters. We will be starting with two tournaments next year here in Australia and will attend some international tournaments. By being affiliated with the IJL this will allow IJL members to have their scores count towards their IJL ranking as well.

Yes, we will hold local championships and we will hold a world championships. We will allow invited countries to choose their own competitors to send, with the caveat that they must meet our standards for horsemanship, joust ability and armour. We will hold qualifying before events and if competitors do not pass then it doesn’t matter who they are or how far they have come, they will not be allowed to compete. I have DQ’d local and international competitors both here at our events and at an NZ event.

We will be working on approaching major sponsors for events down here and will allow sponsors logos on the field (we have always done that at Full Tilt events). If a sponsor wants their logo on the tiltline we will also allow that if we think it is in the interest of putting on the event. Some of our jousts will be more historically themed then others, some will be more modern sport themed.

The Pro-joust style that we are working on is simply a 16thC joust with some small rule changes so it appeals to a broader competitor and sponsor base. The lances are not the US dowels, they are the same lances that we have used down here for our solid lance jousting.

The armours used in our balsa jousting is the standard historical armours. The armour in our Pro-Joust style is a plate harness fitted with a tilt buff and grandguard. Again the patterns for this is all based on historical armours.

The running of the joust is the same as it is done all over the world in the modern era. We have in place the option to run teams events or individual events. The paegentry is the same. Yes, we will have modern music played. We have always done that.

The only major difference is that we will allow sponsors more exposure. I would love to be able to fund events out of my own pocket but that is not going to happen.

I will be working more on the PJLA whilst in the US and meeting and talking with more people about it.

Our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257141230964230/

Color me interested...this sounds fantastic.

Gotta start putting a new team together....

When you say grandguard do you mean gridded like this?
http://www.lightlink.com/armory/kelly.html

or would smooth like this be OK?
http://www.bridgemanart.com/image/Germa ... 15&page=41

I'm interested.

Your PRO2 level doesn't really need grande garde and buffe if you're using 3' balsas. Those things don't hit hard enough to warrant augmentation. It's way easier to ride without all that crap bolted over my neck-reigning arm and all targets legal above the waist makes for more interesting matches.

Trystyn of Anglesey wrote:I'm interested.

Your PRO2 level doesn't really need grande garde and buffe if you're using 3' balsas. Those things don't hit hard enough to warrant augmentation. -SNIP-.

Actually they kinda do, so the plates will stay for this division.

Oh I see.
Sounds like your balsa is much firmer than the stuff we have.
I'll wear the augmentations without complaint if that is the rule.

Trystyn of Anglesey wrote:Oh I see.
Sounds like your balsa is much firmer than the stuff we have.
I'll wear the augmentations without complaint if that is the rule.

It's not so much the balsa, as the 6 feet of solid ash lance that the good guys can drive into the granguard, buff or head.

We are having discussions that this division is actually harder hitting (when done by people who know what they are doing) then the straight solids, so it may end up being the Pro 1 division.

Rod Walker wrote:

Trystyn of Anglesey wrote:Oh I see.
Sounds like your balsa is much firmer than the stuff we have.
I'll wear the augmentations without complaint if that is the rule.

It's not so much the balsa, as the 6 feet of solid ash lance that the good guys can drive into the granguard, buff or head.

We are having discussions that this division is actually harder hitting (when done by people who know what they are doing) then the straight solids, so it may end up being the Pro 1 division.

Interesting.
I think ours are made of poplar.
James Acuff made ours so if he is there with you you can ask him the details. (or Paul Schneider).
I don't do Facebook so I'm not really up on who's there right now and who ain't, except to know that a lot of my friends are there. (sigh)

Tim,

Balsa comes in a wide range of densities, even right here in the USA. You can get stuff that's light as air, up to stuff that's hard as oak. Rod is absolutely correct in stating that the portion of solid lance supporting the replaceable tip is highly dangerous in the right hands. The lance bases typically don't break, so if the tip breaks fully, it's like getting slammed with a shorter nearly unbreakable lance. This fact and the belief that all balsa is light as air are two common misconceptions about jousting with balsa tipped lances. The primary reason most replaceable lance tip jousters use balsa is not to reduce the impact of the strike, but for the -way- it breaks. That is, it's pretty safe for the horses and pretty safe for the jousters. It breaks in a way that usually doesn't create sharp penetrating shards, unlike other woods such as pine, fir or hemlock.

I'd wager that most serious jousters that use balsa tips are using wood that's similar in breaking resistance to that used by the "solid lance" jousters. We do at our tournament.

Thank you Rod for opening the door to correcting some of the misconceptions surrounding balsa tipped lances.

Jeff

Interesting. Thank you, Jeff.

Up to now, I've always ended my strikes when the 3' balsa breaks.
Since I was primarily jousting with friends for fun, I thought it would be rude to make that second strike with the socket.
I guess that's why my hits with those lances had zero recoil. <- epiphany!

I guess I'll have to start committing to that second (socket) strike to be competitive in this new league.
No problemo.

I wonder if that shortened stick hits much harder than a Roy Cox lance?
Because we used those without augments all the time and it is just good clean fun.

I just get bloody tired of the gridded grand gardes and humongous buffes all the bloody time.
It impairs vision and reigning, overbalances one to the left and makes more work for the squires.
It seems like (most) North Americans just cant do a joust without them.

Hi, what Jeff said.

I am flat out on this show so am having trouble getting time on the net.

I'll post more behind the divisions when I get back later tonight.

Ok, looks like I have 5 minutes spare.

We have the standard balsa joust with ecranches as an amateur division. No slight intended. This gives an entry level joust where the main objective is to break the tip cleanly upon the ecranche. Armour can be from the 14thC onwards.

Balsa tipped lances against plate harness fitted with a gridded grandguard and tilt buff, (unless a boltdown frogmouth/Great bascinet is used then these take the place of the tiltbuff). Strikes to the grandguard or helm allowed. The objective is to break the tip against these targets. Extra points for breaking the body of the lance or un-horsing. Now of course breaking the body of a balsa tipped lance or un-horsing is diffulcult (but not impossible), that is the whole point. It means the control and skill level needs to be higher. It means that not every pass will be a car crash and that the jousters will need to be highly skilled to make the most points.

A bit about our ances down under. The vast majority of our lances are the dowels fitted with a 3 foot long balsa tip. The dowel is Tasmanian Oak, also known as Ash. Pine dowel is hard to get down here and very expensive. Now Ash lances take a hell of a hit to break. When you smash the balsa you then have a 6-6.5 foot long (in front of the hand) lance that is almost impossible to break. These things are tough. You can really do some damage with these. Hence the extra armour requirements for this division. The balsa we get is bloody hard as well. Some of the tips are like pine.

The GG and buff also mean that all competitors have a standard rigid target area. This is a prize money division as well.

At the moment we are thinking that we don't even need to add a solid lance division as the balsa lances will fulfil our requirements.

Got to go, I have been called.

Sounds like fun.
Sign me up.
Say hi to me mates for me.

Weren't you experimenting with pine tips a while back Rod?

Mike England wrote:Weren't you experimenting with pine tips a while back Rod?

I'm offended!!!!!!

Has anyone ever done column compression testing on balsa and pine to compare numericly or is it all based on experience. (Not that experience is bad, it's usually very good. I'm just a science geek.)

Sean

Darn, I thought I could slide that passed you Lloyd. You have my most humble apologies.

I don't think the pine Rod was using is the same as the pine we are familiar with here (in the USA). Different soils and weather conditions can produce trees with different consistancies and pine can identify a large number of trees most of which the local lumber yards will all pile together.

Sean Powell wrote:Has anyone ever done column compression testing on balsa and pine to compare numericly or is it all based on experience. (Not that experience is bad, it's usually very good. I'm just a science geek.)

Sean

Sean,

I know that there is a somewhat heated discussion on going on the FB Tiltyard group about this. Let me take a look and see if there are specifics to your question. One of the things that I know from personal experience is that the hardness of the balsa varied within a single shipment from Lonestar Balsa, the company that I always ordered my balsa through. We had pieces that shattered instantly (we didn't cut ours) and we had pieces, from the same box, that you damn near couldn't break cross-wise (I remember distinctly, Cassandra and I beating the crap out of a couple of tips that we had just used in a show at Silverleaf over the edge of the steel trash container - without either piece breaking. We damn near blew each other out of the saddles with those tips and used them on all four of our passes).