Initial review: Windrose/RFH gauntlet finger kit

[Klaus the Red]

I just bought a set of the new hourglass gauntlet finger plates made by Cet and sold through Windrose, partly because I'm really sick of demigauntlets, but mostly because I'm an armour whore and I can't resist a bargain (they were part of Johannes' 10% off sale). Here are my initial impressions just based on the product out of the box:

Service and sale: near-perfect. I had a moment's unease when the site shopping cart didn't factor in the sale price, but Johannes assured me that it was but a glitch, and my card did get charged the correct amount. I think I ordered them on a Friday and got them in the mail Tuesday or Wednesday.

Product itself: really quite nice. The plates are made of 18 ga. stainless and look exactly like the picture on the site, which I've appended below. Very clean, no burrs or rough edges, minimal hammermarks on the dished knuckles. The only minor issues were that a couple of the fingertip plates were a little twisted and will need to be straightened (I will be re-shaping them anyway, see below), and that the rivet holes in the knuckles were punched before dishing, so that now they're rather squished and will need to be re-drilled. The different shapes are pretty intuitive and I was able to sort them out on the table into the correct order without having to look at the photo.

Even for the non-sale price of $125, these are definitely worth the money- you can see the labor that went into them, and I'm happy to have my gauntlet project jumpstarted by that many hours. Still, they are not for the novice armorer; they certainly need additional work before they're ready to be riveted to leathers. My fingers are on the shorter end of the size range, so I will be cutting off the extra length on the long plates. The fingertip plates need to have the ends creased and flared so they articulate correctly (and I will correct the twist in the two slightly imperfect ones at the same time). I also need to deepen the curve on the long plates where they articulate with the knuckles. The holes are going to get the beveling treatment so I can do flush rivets. I think I'm also going to be making a knuckle rider, depending on what gauntlet bodies these end up being married to.

I have a set of old hourglass demis that want reshaping before they are worthy of these fine fingers, and I'm also in Mad Matt's tentative queue for a set of demis with the option on fingers as well. (Don't worry, Matt, I haven't abandoned you, but Windrose's price is really hard to beat!) Anyway, I am going to try to photo-document the process of putting the gauntlets together and would love to launch another web site in the mode of my popular Klappvisier tutorial, but I predict it will be a few months before I have the free time to start them. Please be patient, and while you're waiting, go buy yourself some of these fingers before they all vanish!

Klaus

[Mad Matt]

I have a set of these waiting till I get to an order in the queue that's stainless before I try them.

BTW they're available from Cet (at least they are to me as a wholesale customer).

They're not too bad. they do need some more shaping. Hadn't noticed about the holes.

Man I've got a lot of new stuff I wanna do. Can't do any of it till I get caught up on orders.

You've got a klapvisor tutorial? I'd love to see it. Interesting to see how other people do things.

[Johannes]

Klaus, glad we could help. I've been talking with Cet about them, and some of the thing you cite are being addressed, but like most things, it will take some time. They do take some work, but they're really meant to do exactly what you said, cut some of the time off the project. Finger gauntlets really need to fit right in my opinion, so the Rough From The Hammer kit adds all the adjustment room.

I have a set of hand sewn gloves in progress for mine, because modern gloves are most of the reason the finger gaunts I have handled don't fit properly.

And Matt's right, these are available from Cet directly, for the same price. We like to think we make it easier, though.

[Klaus the Red]

Matt, here's the site:

http://www.nickfriend.fatcow.com/klappvisier

[Iain (Bunny) Ruadh]

... and that's a good tutorial. Each person might tweak it to get some parts exactly as they like, but this is a great one to give the overal idea of how to do padding under the aventail and the helm padding.