Sgt P.s Armour

click on the images to enlarge. This is Sgt. P.'s armour...its a little skinny for me, but I think I am bulkier than he is. These go over a breast and backplate, and may need to be squashed or tugged into position a bit when he finally gets to wear it and see how it fits. Should not need too much modification however.
In this picture you can see how it articulates.

Above is a good view of the shoulder. I rather like the look. Obviously, some more work has to be done on the basic shapes, but this is functional, will work well and doesn't look too bad. Since this picture has been taken, the points on the lower spaulders have been truncated to match the back. I just rushed to get this picture taken while there was still some light.

Upon reflection, the bottom lame, the one at the elbow, might be a bit long. Though of course, its primary purpose is to hold the elbow cop. On the other hand, it is easier to shorten the leather holding the lames than it is to lengthen them. I will have to see how they fit him when he has them on before drilling out the leather rivets for a final fitting. But that fitting job is part of the contract, and will needs to be done.
This is the back wing. You can see the roll around the top edge where it goes up against the neck, but I gave up on that big outside roll down towards the arm and did a nice flare instead.

Lots of work with the english wheel, lots of hammering, and some funny leathering allow this armour to articulate well, fan together in front when he makes a strike, and all in all, work as a functional spaulder.

The black armour from Prague Castle

click on the images to enlarge.
above we see a detail of the sabotons. 8 lames in the soles mean this fellow would be able to walk just fine! I personally love the 4 lames at the ankles. This is a very sophisticated armour!
The knee cops are, well, competent. They are a sort of standard four lame knee cop which, like the rest of the armour, has been fire coloured black, and then gilded. I am sure the gilding added a lot to the price of this otherwise quite plain jousting armour. I am a little surprised about the thigh armour....these are articulated cuisses! Go figure! Never saw those before! Must have made the armour really comfortable to wear. The long articulated tassets are representative of that period of history. They stopped wearing the big faulds since of course, the lames were too delicate to withstand the impact of the joust lances, and the smaller tassets, in addition to being more comfortable, were less expensive to replace after tourney season.

The mitten gauntlets. I think I have made just the same sort of mitten gauntlet! This is for the rein hand, and uses straps across the palm to hold everything in place. This is a departure for this period and location since the standard was to have a leather gauntlet made with flanges onto which the gauntlet pieces were riveted. This very common mitten gauntlet works well for the left hand since it really does not need delicate fingers to hold onto the reins.

Thank you Pierre for this picture. Great stuff.

Pictures from Prague

Pierre took these pictures from his visit to Prague Castle. This is the biggest castle in Europe, and the armour is really quite interesting. It looks too new though! Maybe it is just being really well kept! click on the pictures to enlarge.


The above picture has in the foreground a couple of really pretty dog faced bascinets. And lower down a couple of the morions which became popular in the renaissance. These are northern European morions, and they don't have the little tag at the top, but the one on the left has a comb, and the one on the two lower down on the right are the tall "high hat morions" that must have taken a smith an uncounted age to make. The lower one has a flat brim. Very unusual.
The three bottom helms are clearly jousting helms....those very narrow eye slots. These are the helms you usually see on coats of arms, and is the helm which is assigned to an esquirry. The bottom helm is also a jousting helm, but there is something interesting going on in back of it! Maybe you get into it by opening the back.

Any single one of these helms is worthy of extensive discussion....we can only happily look at them and think about the times they would have had to wear these!

The top three are "spectacle helms", and they look like spinnings. You can even see the horizontal tool marks from the spinning tool in the middle one! I love the way the sides draw upwards on the sides of the skull in one big swoop! Wonderful! The little lathe turned spikes are kind of cool...one wonders why they bothered....but hey, it makes the wearer look tough, and maybe that was the point.

The nasal helms all down the right are clearly hammered out from stock of some kind. The hammer welds are really good, which implies they are actual iron, rather than the modern steel. The Norman Helm (second from bottom on the right) seems to still have a leather chin strap hanging off it. That would have to be a more or less modern addition since it is unlikely that leather would have lasted some 900 years! I like the shape of the nasals though....very nicely done.

On the left appears to be a grilled face Roman inspired Norman Helm. That mongrel would require closer examination. I have never seen anything like it. Again, it appears to be built upon a spinning, with some decorative brass spangens.

The middle bottom helms are clearly Helms...designed to fit over top of a helmet. They don't need to be pretty to be functional! These are battle helms, and would have been used in battle, not the joust.

SUNY Demo 08

I was not fighting at this demo, but I thought my readers might like to see the range of armours being used by the SUNY medieval club. Lots of good action. Check out the catapult in the background!

After Plating

And there we go. Not the best looking scabbards in the world, but then, you can't put metal back after it is gone! Hopefully this will be good enough from ten feet away. Most of the damage you still see is on the part of the sword you really can't see because it is between the sword and the wearer's pant leg.

This is the best work I have ever done. Doesn't look like much does it?