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Help on Gothic Harness!

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Sir James A:
I would personally go with the pauldrons without the haut guards (the pieces sticking up) ... every historical piece of armor, and the very few, that I've seen with those seem to be done as jousting reinforcement plates. I can't recall any foot combat armor with them, and it would be a truly NASTY thing to have on the field ... can you picture someone gently dropping their polearm between the haut guard and your neck, and giving that polearm a nice sideways yank? It's a nice little pivot point for a lever; instant broken neck, since that's the softest thing (between a polearm, steel armor and flesh). As such, they are also illegal in most combat groups, except sometimes as flexible material such as leather, and then only with LARPers. I don't recall seeing any gothic harnesses at all with them, only italian and english styles. But again, just my experiences and readings.

I would also ask Allan if he's willing to do a slight modification to the arm harness. Germans LOVE the point-tie styled arms (http://www.museumreplicas.com/p-31-german-gothic-rerebrace-vambrace-couter.aspx). It is a simple 3-piece set, and each piece is pointed (tied) to the arming coat/gambeson. I have that same set, which I was hoping to have enclosed, and sent the vambraces to Allan at MercTailor. The existing pieces were essentially useless, so I had him make me a whole new two-piece floating vambrace, albeit without fluting. Allan might be willing to make a set of floating arms. He was willing to flute my vambraces, and Allan does REAL fluting with a hammer and chisel - not the bead rolled econo-flutes from the MRL pieces - and I opted to keep the vambraces plain so that the rest of the harness wouldn't look worse in comparison. :)

If you have the funds, you could get the vambrace and rerebrace from Allan (and hopefully he would flute them), and you could buy the MRL gothic arms and use just the elbow cop; though, I would clean up the fluting on it if you can.

If you're handy with a hammer and a dull chisel, you could give it a go at fluting some pieces yourself. The plackard should be especially easy to do since it's so wide ... but absolutely test it out on a number of scrap sheets before putting a hammer to finished armor.

The two most important bits of advice I can really say ... one has been mentioned by Sir Edward already ... "do what makes you happy, since you'll be the one wearing it". The only other advice I can give is that almost no one has ideal plans and follows them set in stone forever, so you can always get started on it, and swap out bits and pieces along the way as you find opportunities to change it to your liking. When I was younger, I wanted a suit of armor, and sans helmet and gauntlets, I'm up to 4 harnesses now.

Once you get one kit almost done ... you're probably going to want another one or three. ;)

Sir William:
Amen, Sir James- having only one kit gets old fast- need more diversion!  Seriously, I have a conglomeration of armor pieces that I'll sometimes mix and match for aesthetic reasons, or rather, I WILL from this season on.

Sir Wolf:
hehehe tell me about it

Sir William:
Yea, if anyone would know about that it'd be you, Sir Wolf...or Man-E-Faces if you will.  lol

Used to be one of my favorite He-Man action figures.

Joshua Santana:
Thank you Sirs for the additional advice!  This is most helpful!

Sir James:  I will make the change, also another wild idea of mine was to ask Allan is he was willing to flute the arm harness, gauntlets, leg harness, placard breastplate and pauldrons (simple).  I bet he will say no, but it is worth a try (or better yet, the plate breastplate and back plate flutted!) And I will talk to him adding the point tied style arms (I am looking for armor that I can put on myself with assistance, although I read that point tied armor pieces are the type you will need someone to help you tie them)

Sir William: the idea of getting more than one harness was an old plan of mine but I can see there are more fellow Knights who go along with this.  My first plan was getting a german gothic style harness (all plate), an italian style plate harness and a Maximilian style Harness.  All of them composed by arms, legs, breastplates and gauntlets by Merc's Tailors with different helmets from either Therion Arms or from GDFB.

German High Gothic Plate ideas

SCA
http://armstreet.com/store/armor/full-gothic-knight-armor-suit-SCA



http://www.bestarmour.com/armour_1.html
KA 1.1



https://ssl.perfora.net/www.finditarmory.com/sess/utn;jsessionid=154dcae6481f791/shopdata/index.shopscript



http://historicenterprises.com/armour-full-german-circa-1470-p-573.html?cPath=101_133



or

http://historicenterprises.com/armour-full-german-circa-1480-p-1126.html?cPath=101_133




Italiain Plate Harness

http://historicenterprises.com/armour-full-italoflemish-circa-1471-p-575.html?cPath=101_133





Or on a grand, wilder scheme with Merc's Tailors

Italian Harness

Helmet

either this



or this

http://www.anshelmarms.com/helmets.html



in conjunction with these














or 16th Century Maximilian Style

Helmets

http://www.therionarms.com/reenact/therionarms_c1250.html



http://www.bytheswordinc.com/p-9316-tudor-close-helm-26-300432.aspx



http://www.bytheswordinc.com/p-1634-maximilian-close-helm-ah-3824.aspx



in conjunction with these


(this applies to both Italian and Maximilian harnesses)







also, same gauntlets, greaves and pauldrons might I add.


Now you all can see why this to me is a headache and I think the Maximilian is a lot easier than the italian or german, but like Sir Edward did say, go with what you like.  To tell you the truth:  I LIKE THEM ALL!  I CAN'T MAKE A FINAL DECISION!   



HELP!

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