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Main => The Armoury => Topic started by: Sir Patrick on 2010-11-01, 03:53:31
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I armoured up in what I have of my early 14th century kit tonight and took the kids treak-or-treating. It's the first time I've worn the helmet for any length of time and man do I have a crick in the neck! I made a close-fitting, padded liner (the kind that makes you look like you have on a jester's cap until you tie the dags up at the top) so there was not a lot of movement, but by the end of the night I just wanted the thing off. It's a 16 gauge crested sugarloaf (I've posted pics of on other threads). Does anyone else have this problem with their helms? Is there something wrong with my padding set-up, or do I just need to suck it up until my neck muscles get used to the weight?
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no it takes a lil time to build up the neck muscles. plus your crest is high and probably makes you have to do a balancing act whether you know it or not. any pics? hehehe. i noticed i had to wear my helmet with the bottom front tilted toward my neck and the face plate almost touching my nose in order for me to see out of mine. totally different than how i thought it should fit.
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My sympathies to you good sir, I have experienced that pain numerous times! :(
Surprisingly my sugarloaf with the visor gives me more neck fatigue than my crested great helm and I attribute that mainly to the gorget that I wear with the great helm and not with the sugarloaf helm. ;)
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Yeah, a lot of it has to do with getting used to the weight, and also your posture. I find the armor is less forgiving of bad posture in general. :) But it could be your suspension. It's hard to know on a forum.
My sallet is the heavier helmet of mine, and I wore it all day at the renfaire with my plate armor. I did fine with it, even though I'm not used to doing it all day. With my great helm, I wear it only here and there and end up carrying it a lot. The sallet, with the visor up, wasn't a big deal to wear the whole time despite the weight. And my suspension isn't even all that snug. The helmet would end up shifting, and I had to keep straightening it, which is an annoyance, and yet I did OK.
So I'm not sure. :-\
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My sympathies to you good sir, I have experienced that pain numerous times! :(
Surprisingly my sugarloaf with the visor gives me more neck fatigue than my crested great helm and I attribute that mainly to the gorget that I wear with the great helm and not with the sugarloaf helm. ;)
I was wondering if a gorget would help. maybe I should invest in one :-\
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any pics? hehehe.
Here's one. This kit is in the VERY early stages, and obviously needs A LOT of work (like the right footwear, or some maille!). I'm really just in the "soft kit" stage right now (BTW that surcoat is way old, and just being used as a placeholder at the moment).
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thats a small picture! hehehe
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thats a small picture! hehehe
That's ok, there's not much to see! ;D
EDIT: I resized the pic so it's easier to see.
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Kit looks like it is off to a nice start. I know that when I first started wearing the maille coif and kettle helm, I had a sore neck for a while. Once I got used to the weight though, it didn't bother me at all. One of the guys at PaRF that I know had a different experience though. He wore his helmet, a burgonet, pretty much all the time during Faire and had a sore neck and shoulders afterwards. He attributed it to the weight of the helm and didn't think much of it. His wife mentioned it to the doctor when he went for a checkup and the doctor examined him and told him the helmet was causing one of the nerves in his neck to be pinched which was causing the pain. He's now only supposed to wear the helmet for demos and for short periods during the day, not that he really listens to that all that much. He is a pikeman after all ;)
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I'm pleased to report my neck feels pretty good today, so hopefully I avoided a pinched nerve! Thanks for the kind words about the kit, madmanpsu :)
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that kit looks cool man. glad the neck is doing better
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Kit looks great so far! I love the ailettes.
What's great is that it look pretty good even as it is without all the armor. You could take it to a renfaire and look knightly without all the heavy stuff! :)
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Thanks for feedback! I'd been so worried about the state of the kit that I was afraid to post any pics! Glad to know I'm on the right track.
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Your kit already has the knightly sheen...it seems to me that armor is optional; just depends on how deep you want to get into your persona. Glad to hear the neck pain's gone away...I know in the past for me, it always took a couple of weekends before my body got re-acclimated to the weight.
This year, I decided to be proactive and put together a workout regimen that focused on my shoulders, back and legs since those were the problem areas I'd noticed in years past. Mostly free weights, I worked in squats, deadlifts, leg and core workouts - as Sir Edward stated, your posture has a lot to do with how your body's going to feel after being laden down with armor all day.
Hitting the lower back has been especially beneficial for me as I've always had poor posture but I'm more aware of it now. Getting an area like the neck 'used' to carrying weight depends on how strong it is in the first place. Sir Wolf's right, you can definitely end up with a pinched nerve if you're not careful...you might try something like strapping on a 18 gauge display helm and wear it for like an hour a day until you no longer notice that you're wearing one, then graduate to the full-on 16 gauge helm. Just an idea...its what I do; but then, I'll wear various bits of armor around the house just because I like to. Luckily for me, my wife finds it adorable and somewhat sexy so...guess I'm good. Nothing worse than having your spouse look at you like you've grown a third eye or something to take the fun out of things. lol
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I find at the beginning of the faire season, my problem spots are the shoulders (top of them, and under the shoulder blades) from carrying the shield and helmet around, and also my feet from all the added weight on uneven ground. It gets easier as the season progresses and I adjust to it.
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I must admit to cheating somewhat...I wear those gel inserts in my boots; that uneven ground about killed my poor dogs the first Faire I ever went to. That was probably the first addition to my first kit!
I experienced some tightness in the shoulders, but not as much as it used to be, since I started using more than one belt- to redistribute some of the weight. I think I'm going to end up with a padded gambeson at some point, or folding hand towels and then tying them to my shoulders to help with the press-in of rings as the day goes on.
Oh, there is one problem area for me that I noticed no one else spoke on- wearing greaves. Since I don't have a full-leg harness, the greaves dig into the mask of the foot and can be quite painful if left unattended. What I did was get some bootstraps with a thick leather plate at the top that does help in mitigating some of that weight but I can still feel stress in my ankles due to the weight. What I think I'll do is go with a 3/4 leg harness that terminates into the boot like Sir Edward's and leave it at that. Maybe rivet some steel plates to the boot if I'm feeling adventurous (just an idea, small chance of that actually happening) - but I don't necessarily want to cobble it from my current greaves. I'll come up with something.
On another note, it sure would be nice to put that greathelm onto your saddle horn, wouldn't it, Sir Edward? God help them if they ever let us in on horses! lol
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As far as the shoulders, I can relate! Any padding you can apply will help. My 15th cent placard from Ice ( Andre Sinou) has thin leather straps over the shoulder. Used to be, I was almost crippled by the time I left a Faire. My wife cut down some plastic, screen type panels and we slide them in a cotton envelope which we velcro into the shoulders of my jupon. Good as new!
As for greaves, mine don't have enough of a curve (most don't) to relax on my instep. When I strap on my cuisse, (15th), my wife straps my greave so that it doesn't rest fully on my instep. i.e., she suspends the topmost greave strap from the bottom cuisse strap....makes all the difference after a long day....
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Maybe I'm a little stranger than most of you, but I wear my armor all throughout the year to keep myself accustomed to the weight. I play in an RPG group every other Sat. evening and generally will wear it to that. I really don't want to repeat the beating I took when I first started wearing the armor, it was bad enough the last two weekends of this season wearing the Brig after wearing the padded armor almost exclusively. I will say that I noticed this season my ankles and feet bothering me a bit more after a day at Faire, but I think my problem is that the boots I wear have almost no sole left on the bottom of them. I really need to get them resoled before wearing them. Son of Sandler boots are definitely worth the money, I have had a pair of their lace up calf high boots for about 10 years and in that time the only thing I have needed to have done is the laces replaced and now the soles redone. They are probably the most comfortable boots I have ever worn and I will sometimes wear them out even if not in garb.
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On another note, it sure would be nice to put that greathelm onto your saddle horn, wouldn't it, Sir Edward? God help them if they ever let us in on horses! lol
One of the things they sometimes did in period sounds horrendously uncomfortable. Some of the great helms had holes near the bottom on the front, where they'd run a strap or chain through it and just hang it from their neck such that it hangs on their back. I can't imagine that being comfortable for very long.
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I bet that was fun at the canter! Ouch!
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any pics? hehehe.
Here's one. This kit is in the VERY early stages, and obviously needs A LOT of work (like the right footwear, or some maille!). I'm really just in the "soft kit" stage right now (BTW that surcoat is way old, and just being used as a placeholder at the moment).
Man I’m away from the board for a couple of days and miss the pictures of your excellent harness! It looks great Red Knight! :)
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On another note, it sure would be nice to put that greathelm onto your saddle horn, wouldn't it, Sir Edward? God help them if they ever let us in on horses! lol
One of the things they sometimes did in period sounds horrendously uncomfortable. Some of the great helms had holes near the bottom on the front, where they'd run a strap or chain through it and just hang it from their neck such that it hangs on their back. I can't imagine that being comfortable for very long.
I wonder at that myself...I mean you already have the shield hanging from the neck (at least according to de Troyes lol) and now the helm as well? As heavy as those can run, can't be comfortable.
Sir Matthew, Son of Sandler boots, noted. Especially like the looks of the 4 buckle boot: http://sonofsandlar.com/product-line-2/
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I suspect that any time they'd be doing that, they'd have the shield on their arm. But still.. ugh, it doesn't sound good.
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Thanks, Sir Brian. I only hope one day it's as cool as yours!
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I suspect that any time they'd be doing that, they'd have the shield on their arm. But still.. ugh, it doesn't sound good.
I'd think only when they're prepping for a charge...when they're just riding along in full kit, the shield hangs at the back- and I've read a number of stories where the shield hanging from the neck was described; the description led me to believe (initially) that it hung with the strap across the front of the neck which is most uncomfortable- my first commissioned shield was strapped thusly and I'd told them that it couldn't be done like that anymore. lol
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hmmmm the guige ( name of strap that holds onto the body) shouldn't hurt the wearer.
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You're right...unless it lays straight across the front of the neck, like that first shield I commissioned. I almost asked the guy if he wore his like that then I saw that he doesn't wear a shield. He'd never made one for a left handed fighter so I gave him that. The second shield, which you saw, was much better...gonna have him make me another one over the winter break to match my new jupon.