15th century kit

[VaughnStrever]

Well, I registered long ago and was going to make a big post and all, and for some reason or another I did not follow through. Though I am back and have something for this go around!

This is my kit in progress and I have been working on the maile (hand wound, hand saw cut, no power tools) and the whole kit for three years now. I have hand made my arming vest and leggings (All the way down to hand sewing) After this much time I have finnally come to have a kit that fits great. All plate bought from Allan at the Merc tailor, Great work he has put forth!

The arming jacket is the underlying foundation, without the jacket, my whole kit would fall apart, lol.
A total of a whopping 15 straps secure everything together. From suiting up, I have got to say this must have been a ritual to knights in the days of old.

here are some pictures from the first days of the kit and to date pics.





Here is the arming jacket and leggings with voiders attached.. The cod piece was attached after initial pics of armor taken. Sorry for bad lighting, I took the pictures at work with the timer on the camera...






This shows the vest in its new condition. You can see it straps up on three sides of the body and thus allowing a lot of the weight to rest on the hips, without a belt digging into my hips.



This is an older pic, though before I recieved the breast and back plate.



and the final piece..

[Sir Brian]

Huzzah! Excellent harness! Thanks for posting the progression pictures! I'm happy and a bit sad for
you. Happy to see your vision come to fruition and sad to see your project come to completion. 
It seems for me to always be a bitter/sweet time at the end of a project.

Well done indeed! 

[Sir Edward]

It really does look great! Huzzah and congrats on getting it altogether.

Yeah, the mail is pretty brain-numbing and time consuming, isn't it? I'm still technically not done on mine, though I'm close. I hand-cut the links but use a power-drill to wind it.

[VaughnStrever]

Yea. I never thought about that sad part at the end of a project... But your right about that bitter sweet. Yea the maille was crazy time consuming. I would not do it again, lol. Thanks for the compliments.

[Sir Gerard de Rodes]

Nice Harness. Projects like these never really end though do they, there`s always something going wrong with bits or ( don`t tell the Lady) but there`s always something better that you see and want lol 
G

[Sir Edward]

I get harness-envy all the time.

[VaughnStrever]

Lol, Sir Gerad, you are correct, just the other day I had to suit up and make some adjustments to my back plate. I had to bend in the edges, my pauldrons kept getting caught under the back plate.

So I put my mother and my wife through the ringer. I had to have them put on and take off the breast and back plate like 6 or 7 times to get it just right.

Now I have my eye on weapons! Just bought a morning star flail today.

[Sir Matthew]

This off season I'm planning to expand my look with a "light" armor kit.  I'm planning to make heavier padding than what I currently have and wear that in conjunction with a gorget and helmet to be decided at a later time, most likely a burgeonet.  This will be my late 16th century kit.