Armour?

Tim Simmons · 9th September 2005, 08:33 PM

You have covered your nipples and belly but I could stick my lattest mail piercing Telek right into your heart. Tim

Aqtai · 10th September 2005, 11:13 AM

Nice work there

. The arm-guard looks like a distant relative of a Turco-Iranian bazu band. Although I vaguely remember an Indian vambrace with a similar structure from somewhere. The mail and plate cuirass has a similar structure to a 16th century Turco-Iranian Krug, however the shapes of the actual components are different. Islamic oriental mail and plate armours tended to prefer more geometric shapes like circles, rectangles and squares.

Here is a 17th century Turkish vambrace or bazu-band (from the Karlsruher Turkenbeute collection). Most contemporary Iranian and Indian vambraces would have had a similar construction but a different style of decoration. Vambraces of this type were used in the middle-east from the late 15th century to the early 19th century.

This is a 16th century Ottoman krug or korazin from the Royal armouries in Leeds. This type of armour was probably used from the early 16th to the late 17th century in Iran, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. In Iran and India the Krug was superceded by the chahar-ayna cuirass in the late 16th century.

This is another type of mail-and-plate armour, variants of this were used in the Mamluk Sultanate, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India and Russia from the late 14th to late 18th century AD. This particular example is Turkish and is in the Royal armouries in Leeds:

Finally if you haven't got these two books already then I would recommend them. They're a bit old fashioned and occasionally downright out-dated, but they're cheap (especially if you buy them second-hand from abebooks.com) and have lots of pictures, so they are a good starting point:
http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublicat...486407268.html
http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublicat...486418189.html

rasdan · 10th September 2005, 12:36 PM

Hi Ahriman,

I think the the wire diameter of 2.5mm (12ga if i'm right) is too big and ring diameter also is a bit large. What i see normally in a Moro armour they would use a 14ga wire with a diameter of 5/16" for the suit and 12ga wire with a diameter of perhaps 3/8" for rings connecting the plates. The plates are also a bit thick. I thought 2.5mm thick would be adequate. But, well, this is only my observations, i dont have the experience of making one myself.

Btw, i have a few questions. Do u cut your rings by yourself? What material is the rings? Can u please tell us, how do u make the plates curve? Do u use a stamping machine or a hammer?

Regards,
Rasdan

Ahriman · 10th September 2005, 12:43 PM

Thanks for the good pictures, especially the krug, and the comments!

I forgot to add a few infos about that cuirass: the photos are more than a year old, while the cuirass was an absolute side project in the last 2 years. I've drawn the patterns for the plates directly onto the steel free-handedly, and I, indeed, made the armpit too vulnerable. I'm currently planning the next version with more krug-ish lines, but with keeping the "musculata" feeling. Oh, and I didn't know anything about the krug back then... And it was my first-ever m&p stuff. Even then, I'd like to finish it with elbow lenght sleeves.

Tim: I know, you're quite right, but back then, I thought that I'd need such a big armpit for mobility. I was wrong.

The mentioned sleeves'll help a bit, but won't solve the problem fully. The next one will be better for sure.

It seems to me that the eastern people tended to have quite thin arms - I haven't really seen any bazuband that could fit to my arm. This seems strange because they were fighting and shooting arrows most of their lifetime... Or am I wrong?

Ahriman · 10th September 2005, 12:51 PM

I use only hammers for platework. I hate machining tools excluding the angle-grinder, the drill, and that huge thing that can rotate metal (I don't know it's english name).
Yes, it's indeed VERY thick. From mild steel, 1.5-2 mm would've been enough, from tempered spring steel, 1.2 mm would've been overkill already. Wire thickness is due to the hungarian demands - be it cheap and durable. Cheapness rules out riveted mail, durability rules out anything under 12ga.. And I'm almost famous for the strenght of my stuff.
Rings are steel and, of course, cold drawn, which makes it better. I coiled and cut them with that huge thing etc, and my angle grinder.
Another pictures, not eastern, but it proves that I use hammers....

It's a half-done musculata with less than 5 hours of work in it, with planning-patterning.

Aqtai · 10th September 2005, 06:56 PM

That lorica musculata looks pretty good after just 5 hours work, is it bronze?

On the subject of mail, it's my understanding that mail was usually made from iron rather than steel, there were good sound reasons for this apparently. If I remember rightly if struck, a steel ring was more likely to break where as an iron ring would deform, but not break.

I would't worry too much about the armpits being exposed on the krug-style cuirass, AFAIK the krug, like the chahar aina, was meant to be worn over a mail shirt.

I still haven't found the bazubands I mentioned, but I'm sure I've seen one like yours somewhere. Here are a pair of Iranian bazubands circa 1700 from the Royal Armouries:

With regards to what you said about the size of bazubands, I encountered the same thing with a tulwar I recently bought, the hilt was too small for my hand. I can only surmise that the average Turk/Iranian/Indian circa 1400-1800 was smaller than most modern Europeans.

Solid plate bazubands were also used in India, like this example from "The Arts of War, Arms and Armour of the 7th to 19th centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, VOL XXI" by David Alexander. These often look a bit bigger.

Ahriman · 10th September 2005, 08:25 PM

Sorry, the iron-steel thing is my fault. I've learned physics and chemistry, and I worked a year with a machinist. Everywhere I was told that there's no thing like iron wire, or iron plate, because 100% ferrum is absolutely useless... and every iron-based metal which has other components is steel. In this case, the rings are from "mild steel", which is called iron by MOST people. They're technically wrong, but there're only a few idiots like me and my teachers who know this - and I'm triing very hard to be clear, but it's quite difficult when the same thing has a million names.

Much more serious case is that here in Hungary I can't even describe a sword well, as even the semi-experienced folks know only that a "kard" is everything which is straight and longer than a feet, and a "szablya" is everything which is curved... Try telling them it's a yataghan, a shamshir, or a curved kindjal...

No, it's not bronze - it's way too expensive to use it for side projects. This musculata was amongst the first pieces for which I actually did patterns and calculations other than eye measure. I haven't worked on it like a month.

will post more tomorrow.

Battara · 11th September 2005, 06:31 AM

Rasdan is impressively correct about the Moro dimensions. They often used bronze or brass chain-maille, 4-in-1 pattern for conneting the plates. Your's also looks 4-in-1, and you might want to consider brass, which is cheaper and more easy to work. I will start working on restoring my Moro armor in a little bit, repairing the plates and mending the chain-maille (with the exception of the American bullet holes

). You may also want to check out the armor section of swordforum.com as another source, and do a search there on chain-maille. Like your work on the Greek(?) body plating.

10th September 2005, 06:56 PM	#6
Aqtai Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Merseyside, UK Posts: 222	That lorica musculata looks pretty good after just 5 hours work, is it bronze? On the subject of mail, it's my understanding that mail was usually made from iron rather than steel, there were good sound reasons for this apparently. If I remember rightly if struck, a steel ring was more likely to break where as an iron ring would deform, but not break. I would't worry too much about the armpits being exposed on the krug-style cuirass, AFAIK the krug, like the chahar aina, was meant to be worn over a mail shirt. I still haven't found the bazubands I mentioned, but I'm sure I've seen one like yours somewhere. Here are a pair of Iranian bazubands circa 1700 from the Royal Armouries: With regards to what you said about the size of bazubands, I encountered the same thing with a tulwar I recently bought, the hilt was too small for my hand. I can only surmise that the average Turk/Iranian/Indian circa 1400-1800 was smaller than most modern Europeans. Solid plate bazubands were also used in India, like this example from "The Arts of War, Arms and Armour of the 7th to 19th centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, VOL XXI" by David Alexander. These often look a bit bigger. Last edited by Aqtai; 10th September 2005 at 08:54 PM.

9th September 2005, 08:33 PM	#1
Tim Simmons Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: What is still UK Posts: 5,854	You have covered your nipples and belly but I could stick my lattest mail piercing Telek right into your heart. Tim

10th September 2005, 11:13 AM	#2
Aqtai Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Merseyside, UK Posts: 222	Nice work there . The arm-guard looks like a distant relative of a Turco-Iranian bazu band. Although I vaguely remember an Indian vambrace with a similar structure from somewhere. The mail and plate cuirass has a similar structure to a 16th century Turco-Iranian Krug, however the shapes of the actual components are different. Islamic oriental mail and plate armours tended to prefer more geometric shapes like circles, rectangles and squares. Here is a 17th century Turkish vambrace or bazu-band (from the Karlsruher Turkenbeute collection). Most contemporary Iranian and Indian vambraces would have had a similar construction but a different style of decoration. Vambraces of this type were used in the middle-east from the late 15th century to the early 19th century. This is a 16th century Ottoman krug or korazin from the Royal armouries in Leeds. This type of armour was probably used from the early 16th to the late 17th century in Iran, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. In Iran and India the Krug was superceded by the chahar-ayna cuirass in the late 16th century. This is another type of mail-and-plate armour, variants of this were used in the Mamluk Sultanate, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India and Russia from the late 14th to late 18th century AD. This particular example is Turkish and is in the Royal armouries in Leeds: Finally if you haven't got these two books already then I would recommend them. They're a bit old fashioned and occasionally downright out-dated, but they're cheap (especially if you buy them second-hand from abebooks.com) and have lots of pictures, so they are a good starting point: http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublicat...486407268.html http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublicat...486418189.html

10th September 2005, 12:36 PM	#3
rasdan Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kuala Lumpur Posts: 369	Hi Ahriman, I think the the wire diameter of 2.5mm (12ga if i'm right) is too big and ring diameter also is a bit large. What i see normally in a Moro armour they would use a 14ga wire with a diameter of 5/16" for the suit and 12ga wire with a diameter of perhaps 3/8" for rings connecting the plates. The plates are also a bit thick. I thought 2.5mm thick would be adequate. But, well, this is only my observations, i dont have the experience of making one myself. Btw, i have a few questions. Do u cut your rings by yourself? What material is the rings? Can u please tell us, how do u make the plates curve? Do u use a stamping machine or a hammer? Regards, Rasdan

10th September 2005, 12:43 PM	#4
Ahriman Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Hungary Posts: 72	Thanks for the good pictures, especially the krug, and the comments! I forgot to add a few infos about that cuirass: the photos are more than a year old, while the cuirass was an absolute side project in the last 2 years. I've drawn the patterns for the plates directly onto the steel free-handedly, and I, indeed, made the armpit too vulnerable. I'm currently planning the next version with more krug-ish lines, but with keeping the "musculata" feeling. Oh, and I didn't know anything about the krug back then... And it was my first-ever m&p stuff. Even then, I'd like to finish it with elbow lenght sleeves. Tim: I know, you're quite right, but back then, I thought that I'd need such a big armpit for mobility. I was wrong. The mentioned sleeves'll help a bit, but won't solve the problem fully. The next one will be better for sure. It seems to me that the eastern people tended to have quite thin arms - I haven't really seen any bazuband that could fit to my arm. This seems strange because they were fighting and shooting arrows most of their lifetime... Or am I wrong?

10th September 2005, 12:51 PM	#5
Ahriman Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Hungary Posts: 72	I use only hammers for platework. I hate machining tools excluding the angle-grinder, the drill, and that huge thing that can rotate metal (I don't know it's english name). Yes, it's indeed VERY thick. From mild steel, 1.5-2 mm would've been enough, from tempered spring steel, 1.2 mm would've been overkill already. Wire thickness is due to the hungarian demands - be it cheap and durable. Cheapness rules out riveted mail, durability rules out anything under 12ga.. And I'm almost famous for the strenght of my stuff. Rings are steel and, of course, cold drawn, which makes it better. I coiled and cut them with that huge thing etc, and my angle grinder. Another pictures, not eastern, but it proves that I use hammers.... It's a half-done musculata with less than 5 hours of work in it, with planning-patterning.

10th September 2005, 08:25 PM	#7
Ahriman Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Hungary Posts: 72	Sorry, the iron-steel thing is my fault. I've learned physics and chemistry, and I worked a year with a machinist. Everywhere I was told that there's no thing like iron wire, or iron plate, because 100% ferrum is absolutely useless... and every iron-based metal which has other components is steel. In this case, the rings are from "mild steel", which is called iron by MOST people. They're technically wrong, but there're only a few idiots like me and my teachers who know this - and I'm triing very hard to be clear, but it's quite difficult when the same thing has a million names. Much more serious case is that here in Hungary I can't even describe a sword well, as even the semi-experienced folks know only that a "kard" is everything which is straight and longer than a feet, and a "szablya" is everything which is curved... Try telling them it's a yataghan, a shamshir, or a curved kindjal... No, it's not bronze - it's way too expensive to use it for side projects. This musculata was amongst the first pieces for which I actually did patterns and calculations other than eye measure. I haven't worked on it like a month. will post more tomorrow.

11th September 2005, 06:31 AM	#8
Battara EAAF Staff Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Louisville, KY Posts: 7,280	Rasdan is impressively correct about the Moro dimensions. They often used bronze or brass chain-maille, 4-in-1 pattern for conneting the plates. Your's also looks 4-in-1, and you might want to consider brass, which is cheaper and more easy to work. I will start working on restoring my Moro armor in a little bit, repairing the plates and mending the chain-maille (with the exception of the American bullet holes ). You may also want to check out the armor section of swordforum.com as another source, and do a search there on chain-maille. Like your work on the Greek(?) body plating.