helm help.

[Sir Vander Linde]

I've decided I need a new helmet, the one I have no longer matches the majority of my kit.
so  I find myself stuck between my odd tastes,  I want to either go with a Sallet or a visored kettle or a transitional piece between the two. not sure which is best. so just asking for an opinion on what you guys think would work best.

my armor currently is Gothic in style, and I have a morion helm of all things. I currently only have a breast plate, shoulders, arms and hands. (excuse the lack of actual names of the parts) all but the breast plate and morion are made in the Czech republic, and I'm looking to get a helm from a smith over there.

unfortunately the pic I have is to large.

[Ian]

You can't beat a nice Sallet with Bevor for that gothic look.  If you have a photo of what you've got currently and it's hosted at another site like Flickr or photobucket, you can link to it using the img tags and you won't have to upload directly and thus not worry about the size limit:

To link an image from another site just type:

Code: [Select]

[img]http://www.yourimagelocation.com/yourimagename.jpg[/img]
just replace 'your image location' with your correct URL and your image name with the name of the actual file.  Being able to see what you've already got will really help.

[Thorsteinn]

Jiri Keplac- http://www.armour.cz/

Jolly Knight- http://jollyknight.com.ua/armoury/index.php

[Sir James A]

Agreed on Sir Ian's sallet vote.

I currently only have a breast plate, shoulders, arms and hands. (excuse the lack of actual names of the parts)

Breast plate = breast plate, unless you have a back plate too, which can be "breast and back", or typically when it has faulds and/or tassets I see it as "cuirass"

Shoulders = spaulders or pauldrons (I've recently been told spaulders should be spaudlers, but you'll see spaulders 99% of the time)

Arms = arm harness usually, sometimes just "vambrace". If you have the type that isn't attached to itself fully and ties on, it is "point tied" or "floating".

Would like to see some pictures too

[Sir Douglas]

For Gothic-style armor, I'd definitely cast my vote for a sallet as well. I'm rather fond of the longer ones myself, but that's just me. They look so sleek and intimidating.

(I've recently been told spaulders should be spaudlers, but you'll see spaulders 99% of the time)

I've never heard that before. I'm curious now; any more info on that?

[Sir Edward]

(I've recently been told spaulders should be spaudlers, but you'll see spaulders 99% of the time)

I've never heard that before. I'm curious now; any more info on that?

New to me too. Sometimes mistakes catch on and become quite widespread. Other times, it's a new mistake that someone passes off as "new" knowledge. I'd love to know which it is. Frequently the "common knowledge" is quite wrong, so it's certainly plausible.

[Sir Vander Linde]

alright then, a sallet seem to be the way to go.  I asked a buddy of mine at a smithy about a particular type that I'm fond of and needless to say a $1500 helm is a bit out of my price range at the moment. So I'm going to have to come up with a nice sallet to acquire, buddy of mine recommended a GDFB one, but I find them not to be wasted correctly.

oh and my arms are point-tied, and I have more of pauldrons than spaulders if my mind is working correctly.

as for the spelling thing, I believe that, especially when one takes in to consideration language & dialect diversity at the time they were in use.

[Sir James A]

(I've recently been told spaulders should be spaudlers, but you'll see spaulders 99% of the time)

I've never heard that before. I'm curious now; any more info on that?

New to me too. Sometimes mistakes catch on and become quite widespread. Other times, it's a new mistake that someone passes off as "new" knowledge. I'd love to know which it is. Frequently the "common knowledge" is quite wrong, so it's certainly plausible.

Random armor conversation I had on Facebook (hear that Sir William? ) with some guys from New England. Someone posted a video of their new armor, and a good conversation came up regarding "bevor" or "wrapper" on an armet helmet. And whether or not "bevor" is "bev-or" or "bea-ver". And "arm-et" or "arm-ay". And "gor-get" or "gor-jay". I'll summarize since I don't want to copy/paste a private chat.

Back in the source italian in Boccia's book:

it gets called both "bavaria" and "volante". On the page with a sallet, it's called "lama di barbosa". Then in Blair's book on page 202, the armet wrapper is called "reinforcing-bevor or wrapper". On that same page, there's another picture of an armet, and it's just called "armet with wrapper". On page 200, Blair talks about a sallet, and only says bevor.

I brought up the vagueness of "arming coat" and "gambeson" and "arming jack" and "aketon" historically, since they used them somewhat more interchangeably than our modern-day sense on language is comfortable with. We want a "feature X,Y,Z makes it this or that", and they didn't seem to care as much. It was agreed the discrepancy in terms, especially across cultures, meant there isn't a specific label.

An armorer also said it's important that you and your armorer are talking about the same thing when you use the same words. He said that building "arms" and "arms with integral spaulder" are two different things. Someone corrected him and said there's no such thing as a "spaulder".

We also talked about rebrace, rerebrace, vambrace. It was said that vambrace, which we tend to take to mean forearm armor (like a "bracer"), is inclusive of upper cannon, couter, and lower cannon - the entire arm harness minus the shoulder. Blair said that "rerebrace" is an archaic term for shoulder and upper arm armor. Edge and Paddock use "rerebrace" to refer to early transitional armor with floating/pointed armor, and it refers to the upper arm/bicep.

The closing comment was: "I recognize that lots of people get the spelling of spaudler incorrect, but I promise you that that's how it's spelled in every scholarly source of which I am aware."

I'll see if I can get him to come down to Shortpoint. One of the guys in that convo is already coming.

Actually, I'm going to copy/paste this into a new thread with terminology. Some good info here that isn't all helmet specific.