Main > The Armoury

Bill's Harness

(1/6) > >>

Das Bill:
Well, I guess its time I actually posted pictures of my harness, particularly since Pamela took pictures at practice this past Wednesday.

This piece is going for a mid-15th century gothic style. Underneath the harness is an arming doublet by Revival Clothing, and it is *wonderful*.


The cuirass is a heat treated spring steel piece by John Gruber (who no longer armours due to a shoulder injury). It was a fully custom piece, and fits perfectly. It is also incredibly light. I believe the steel is either 20 or 22 guage, but you can jump up and down on it and it will always spring back into shape.

The mail fauld is a wedge rivetted piece from Historic Enterprises from several years ago, and I believe its from GDFB, though I'm not totally certain.

The helmet is the GDFB celeta. It fits surprisingly well, and looks great. I was incredibly impressed with it for the price.

Pauldrons, arms and gauntlets are Museum Replicas. The arms are decent, though the elbows are pretty ridiculously big. The pauldrons and gauntlets, when they first arrived, were pretty terrible. They had almost no articulation. Thankfully, Peter Fuller contacted me about this, and we worked out a deal for him to do some customization. The man is a miracle worker: The pauldrons are now excellent, and the gauntlets are reasonably functional (though there was only so much he could do short of making a completely new pair). So the entire shoulder-arm-hand pieces look excellent, and thanks to Peter, function decently.

The legs are the GDFB Milanese legs. 14 gauge steel, so a little on the heavy side when compared to historical pieces, but not too bad. The wings at the knees stick out a little too far for some reason, but with some work I think I can bend them into place eventually.

Das Bill:
What I still need:

-Greaves. I've ordered the Revival Martial Arts legs, which come with frontal greaves that I know fit me. I have no idea when those will be in stock, though.

-Neck protection. I'd gotten a bevor to go with my old sallet, but it didn't fit very comfortably under the cuirass, and sat a little dangerously close to my face. I've decided I like the open faced celeta more, anyway, so I've instead ordered a mail standard from Ice Falcon. Again, I have no idea when that will be in stock.

What I need in the long run:

-New shoulders. The MRL pauldrons are slightly large. They fit really well, except when I make certain movements, where the corners poke me in the neck. The mail standard will hopefully negate that (the bevor certainly did), but in the long run I may move to articulated spaulders with besagews. They're more my style.

-New gauntlets. The MRL ones, even after Peter Fuller's work, still don't allow perfect movement. The wrist does not float, so they only articulate forward and backwards. The articulation for the fingers allows me to grip a sword reasonably well, but not as well as I'd like. And if I put the thumb on the flat of a blade, the thumb plate lifts up in a very vulnerable way. For actual fighting, I can cheat and use my Lewis Moore hourglass gauntlets, which are wonderful, but they don't match the time period of the harness, so I don't use them for demos.

-New arms. The MRL arms are okay, but the elbow piece is just gigantic, leaving a huge opening at that joint.

-Mail voiders. At the moment I can live without them, but in the long run I'd like to get a set.

Das Bill:
And here's a shot of the back. The photo isn't great, but there's a lot of really nice fluting that Gruber did on the cuirass, and the fluting on the MRL pauldrons are surpisingly really pretty. There also some really gorgeous piercework on the MRL pieces that you can't see from these photos... I'm amazed at the amount of detail they produced, and yet didn't make them very functional. It goes to show the level of metal working skill that Windlass potentially has, and at the same time how you can't reproduce armour without having an intimate understanding of how it works.

By the way, the mail fauld does cover me all around, but in this photo the points came loose, so that's why it's hanging open.

Sir Edward:
Your kit is really looking good! I envy your close-fitting and lightweight cuirass (lol, the spellchecker suggested "jurassic" as a possibility for what I might have meant by "cuirass"). Yes, I guess it's the velociraptor harness... :)

It's really coming together nicely! I'm glad the rust-cleanup on the mail worked too.

Yeah, that MRL stuff is very pretty. At one time I was tempted to snag the whole set from MRL when I had the opportunity to do so very cheaply. The photos make it look gorgeous, but of course, if the functionality just isn't there, it can be more trouble than it's worth.

I know we mentioned this already with regards to Pamela's stuff, but since we all need gaunts, let me know if you're doing an order overseas. I'm still cheating with crappy hourglass gaunts, and need something a lot nicer.

I'd be curious to see what your entire harness weighs. Without the helmet or gauntlets, but including the incomplete fauld I have, mine came in at about 48 pounds, but it's also heavy-gauge SCA gear.

Das Bill:

--- Quote ---I know we mentioned this already with regards to Pamela's stuff, but since we all need gaunts, let me know if you're doing an order overseas. I'm still cheating with crappy hourglass gaunts, and need something a lot nicer.

--- End quote ---

Will do. One of my concerns with this is the tanking US dollar: Places such as BestArmour don't want you to pay until they are able to actually start... I've heard they have a year waiting list. If that's true, I have no idea what the exchange rate will be, but its quite possible that the gauntlets will be more expensive by the time we have to pay. :(


--- Quote ---I'd be curious to see what your entire harness weighs.
--- End quote ---

Now that you mention it, I'm curious too. I remember when Gruber first formed the cuirass, before heat treat, polish, or adding the faulds. He sent it to me just to make sure it fit before he did all of the other things. I had him send the box to VAF, and Deb ended up receiving it. She told me there was a box for me, and when I said it was my armour, she raised an eyebrow and said it felt like an empty cardboard box. She said it was impossible that it was armour.

Sometime I'll have to weigh myself with the armour on and off to see the weight.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page