Shoulders...

From Ruth Thompson's great picture



This is the picture which the client sent me. Ruth Thompson's very lovely painting of the knight and his lady on horseback. Very angular, brass accents all over. Not really making this exact armour, but one similar to it. Well, except for the spikey knees. I drew the line at that. I made nice knees...with brass accents. Those were the ones I posted here a few days ago. Please click on the pictures to see them full size.
Please note that I have not yet obtained permission to use Ms Thompson's picture, so you will just have to click on the link.



Here is MY interpretation of the above shoulders. The brass was kind of fun...its bright yellow and high polish contrast nicely with the steel's matt finish and the leather picadills.

The leather is actually only there to keep the lames from scratching each other. They can be replaced very easily by the client if they wear out, become ratty, or otherwise do their job. They are only glued into place with contact cement. There are four eyelets up there at the top....two to hold the shoulders onto the gorget, and two to hold the laces for the arm harness.
These shoulders have been modified from the original to allow for more mobililty in the shoulders...though one might expect a fully armoured knight to be limited in his forward movement of his arms (in favor of protection) one can hardly expect the client to have such limited mobility. Therefore I have allowed a pivot rivet to take the place of two side rivets, the whole thing can now fold up on itself like a chinese fan.

The problem with the single pivot rivet is that it is inherently weak, as are ALL pivot rivets, and a fence is required to strenghten the large shoulder lame. My client (Mr. A.) likes the idea of a fence, not because he plans to actually FIGHT in this armour, but because a fence is very pretty, and will form a good base for "angel wing feathers". So, I shall remove the pivot rivet and install a fence, reinstall the rivet and see if I can have it all ready by the weekend.


In the interests of making sure this holds its shape, the steel and brass are all sixteen gauge. Don't let the prettiness fool you, this is real battle armour.