Armor Essays

Techniques and opinion on what armor is good.

Finally, New Knees

At last, my new knees from Motorcycle Superstore arrived, and they work! These are Alpinestars Bionic Knee Guards and my greatest fear--that they would be too shallow for proper side of the knee coverage--was unfounded.

They're a big improvement over the KneePros I've been wearing for the past 5 or so years. They look more durable and they cover more. Instead of plastic hinge pins on the side, they have billet aluminum. The velcro straps are much wider too, and seem much more convenient than the old KneePros, which had to be permanently attached in order to keep the buckles from coming off in the middle of a bout.

Of course, like the KneePros, they have to be worn under pants.

If you get tired hauling your full leg harness back and forth into the woods battle, a pair of these might be just the thing as replacements. I'll use these without my cuisses for the woods and other skirmish style melees. If you think you're going to get whacked in the thigh with a stick though, don't use these alone!

I recommend these for anyone whose knees are at least as skinny as mine. But I'm not sure I can recommend the vendor. It took about 10 days for them to ship the product after I ordered it. And I don't mean travel time. So call your local cycle shops for alternatives.

And if you have big knees, then maybe these things will work for you as elbows. Mungoe once borrowed a spare KneePro from me when he forgot his arm harness.

Update: Over the course of a year of regular use, 3 of the 4 C pins that held the billet aluminum hinge pins in place rusted out or otherwise failed. Nevertheless, after repairs with copper rivets and fender washers, the knees work fine. I've also been hit on the knee several times, with no injury.

Make a Shield for Armored Combat

This article should help you correctly hang an already curved and shaped shield blank. It doesn't tell you how to make a blank and for now, it does not discuss covering, edging or painting. But watch this space for more on those subjects.

A few notes about shields: Though many beginners make their first shield from a flat piece of plywood, flat shields have a significant disadvantage. Any three dimensional object has a center of balance that must be measured in three dimensions: height, width and depth. Most people overlook the last of these when thinking of their shield, because a shield isn't very deep. However, when using a shield that's strapped to your arm, you want your elbow to be as close as possible to the center of balance of the shield, so that it hangs in the right position without the wearer having to constantly fight the shield's attempt to follow gravity to its balanced state. With a flat shield, height and width balance points may be in exactly the same place as for a curved shield, but the depth balance point is inside the body of the material that makes up the shield. There's no way to get your arm inside the shield's point of balance. Because of that, a flat shield tries to rotate away from the strap it's hung on, usually making the top fall away from your head and the tip rotate toward the leg. To overcome this, flat shield users have to constantly correct their shield into the proper position.

With a curved shield, the front-to-back balance point moves to a spot behind the inside face of the shield, exactly where you want to put your elbow. That's because much of the shield is curved around that point.

Incidentally, this is why center grip shields have handles that are even with the face of the shield and a boss on the front to protect the hand. It's important for the hand to be at the balance point of the shield with a center grip, and in most cases that balance point is in the middle of the shield material.

Many thanks to my knight, Sir TJ for showing me how to do this right the first time.

Now read on for the actual "how to" section.

Find the center of balance	Mark it	The marked center point
Pad behind the handle	Mount the Handle with T Nuts	Make a shield strap
the top of the strap lays under the arm	elbow just behind the balance point	mark the top of the arm
mark the bottom and elbow	arm position marked	find the strap's position
view from behind the elbow	from above the elbow	Hold the top of the strap in place
Mark the top mounting holes	holes marked relative to arm position	The strap flips over!
Find the correct hang angle	mark and drill and mount	balance point at top of shield strap
from above, it hangs straight	it hangs almost perfectly	control the shield without your hand

Technorati Tags: armor, Armor & Weapons, Crafting, Heavy Fighting, Heavy Weapons, SCA

Tandy Leather

The "new" Tandy Leather in the west end of Richmond offers great service. Importantly for me, they ship for low cost and do it quickly.

They have a monthly sale and if you contact Sir TJ or Skorri, they'll probably be able to help you out with their wholesale business discount they have set up there.

Tandy

Technorati Tags: Armor & Weapons, SCA

Cuir Bolli Bauzband Attempt Mess

I'm working to replace my venerable, mismatched vambraces with some new, harder, matching, colorful, octofoil-decorated bauzbands. Using Cariadoc's instructions, I attempted (again) to mold the leather enough that I don't need to add darts. I was more confident than last time, since I had a more accurate thermometer than last time.

Nevertheless, it seems impossible to get enough bend in the elbow to close up the back.

These pictures are of the first attempt, done in 10-11 ounce leather.

See how straight the whole thing still is?

Cuir Bolli Bauzband Attempt - 6