You can view pics at this link.
http://groups.msn.com/IntheLists/rodaustralianjouster.msnw?Page=2

I rode and jousted ar training today in it and found it very comfortable.

So have a look and tell me what you think, OK, hideously inaccurate, rather nice etc. Doesn't matter, critiscim is fine as long as it is constructive.

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I think it is an excellent attempt. Questions though - the front upper chest, the leather seems to bulge very slightly on the center line, I know it is very tough to have the plate lie smoothly against the cover in some insances - was this one of the first or last plates put in?

Most of the Wisby reconstructions by Thordman seemed to be a bit longer, carrying the cover down past the plates, to give the edge of the armour the same look as what he saw on effigies of the same date. Is there any particular reason you didn't follow his example in this insance? Obviously his reconstructions of the covers were entirely speculative, as none survived excepting as the tiniest scrap under a rivit, and the decomposition of the cover gave some contradictory evidence, such as the textile pattern rusted onto some of the exteriors of plates that would be under a cover, but the sraps of leather under some rivits.

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Just a couple of thoughts. Kudos for all your work with the leather tooling and the rivet heads. That attention to detail really adds to the overall impression. A couple of things that would help with a more period appearance on your next COP:

You used considerably fewer rivets than the originals - the horizontal plates on Wisby #1 had 11 rivets, and you used 5. Additionally, you don't need to rivet down the bottom of the bottom horizontal lame (the curved one).

If you leave five or six inches of extra leather on the bottom of the COP, you can cut a very nice set of dags. There were several shapes popular for the dags. The Thordeman Wisby book shows most of the surviving representations of these harnesses, and is a good source of reference.

Shoulder cops - they're not all that difficult to shape, and they'd really enhance the look of your harness. Again (broken record here...) consult the extant examples in Thordeman. I can even email you a pattern that I made for mine, though there's really nothing to making a pair. Don't forget to incorporate a hinge plate!

The fastening on the back of the COP looks like it will be functional, but isn't exactly historical. You've got two straps that each go to the top-middle of each section of back plates. More period would be a single strap that joined the top edge of the last lame of each half of the back plate to a ring riveted to the leather shell. In doing this, the strap forms a triangle: the base is the top edge of each side's lame, the top is the ring on the leather shell. This is much easier to understand by looking at a picture, than it is to type out!

Again, kudos for the extra attention to the rivet heads and all your tooling work. It looks like you're generally on the right path. If a more historical appearance is something you'd be interested in, buy/borrow a copy of the Thordeman for reference. I think you will really enjoy delving deeper!

Best regards

I didn't carry the cover past the plates as I didn't want the extra material under me. There is nothing worse than sitting in a war saddle and having a heap of extra material under your butt. This is for my c1340 harness and most of the split flap versions I looked at were earlier. Basically I came up with a design that is comfortable for me in a saddle.

I based the rivets on the rivets shown on the brass of Sir John d'Abernon, c1340.

I used so many rivets simply because I had made so many of them. The embossing was pure showing off. I do have some leather cut into dags that I was planning to sew on when I sewed the lining in.

I wasn't going to use shoulder cops as I have ailletes. Not protective I know but I thought they may interfer with each other.

I didn't like the look of the triangle fitting as it caused the back to bulge. I looked at a heap of period CoPs representations and adapted mine to suit. I used the Wisby#1 pattern as this seemed the easiest for a first attempt.

I think I will have to get a copy of Thordeman.

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Hope you didn't take offense - just wanted to give some constructive criticism. Reenactors can be pretty rude in their critiques of each other (a major pet peeve of mine) and that's not what was intended.

As for getting your own Thordeman copy - an interlibrary loan and a good Xerox machine are a lot cheaper than the recent reprint. Just a thought

Regards

quote:

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Originally posted by David Meyer:

Hope you didn't take offense - just wanted to give some constructive criticism. Reenactors can be pretty rude in their critiques of each other (a major pet peeve of mine) and that's not what was intended.

As for getting your own Thordeman copy - an interlibrary loan and a good Xerox machine are a lot cheaper than the recent reprint. Just a thought

Regards

D

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No, God no. I didn't take offense. Did I come across that way? I just answered the questions asked why I did things a certain way. I admit I didn't take the 'as per the book' route. The reason I enjoy the early 14thC. so much is the amazing variety in items of harness and materials used. I approached my CoP with this in mind. I feel that something like a CoP would have had infinite variation in its design and construction. So I looked at a heap of pics and built accordingly. Am I wrong in this approach,,,,,,strictly speaking, probably yes. I cannot say with certanity that this CoP is right. If I had taken something like the St Maurice statue and copied that, than I would have been on firmer ground.

I really like the idea of having the book. Expensive yes, but I love books.

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