When it comes to finish, I'd recommend going back to mirror polish, if you can afford to have it that way. As a "squire" with own armour and my "knight's" armour to take care of, I greatly apprechiate his mirror-polished gothic armour. Shure, it requires more regular und more miniscule work, but in general it requires less of it. Plus, it just looks a million bucks better. Speaking of finish, I understand your armours are being uses regularly and frequently. But in honour of this channel it might be a good idea to get them back to "spec" by mirror-polishing and re-blackening (if possible). I realise this would involve disassembling the armour, sending it away probably and all the cost and time involved. But I recon it would be 100% worth it. You could also reapply the interior coating and polish those brass (?) pieces to make them shiny again. Thanks for your time and effort, keep it up!
Cool! Yeah, we planned to disassemble everything and do what you said, but that would mean we'd be out of using our harnesses till they were complete...we've still got a lot of techniques we want to cover, so that would slow us down from that. Course, we can film it and show the progress, but I think most of our viewers want to see us fight ;) Thanks for the comment! -Reece
Hey guys! I'm big fan of your channel because you're one of only channels on You Tube that covers anything armored HEMA related in a comprehensive way similar to Blood and Iron videos but for armored techiniques. I heard from an earlier comment you guys were coming down to Kentucky for the Days of Knights event to showcase harnessfechten. My HEMA club from Cincinnati Ohio, the Southwest Ohio Swordsman's Guild is considering traveling down ourselves and maybe if we can show our unarmored Lichtenaur intepretations with a sparring exhibit for advertising our club and such. We were wondering if you guys would like to join forces at the event into a bigger HEMA showcase showing both armored and unarmored combat?, which I don't think is done very often.
Thanks for mentioning Blood and Iron. Missed out on their channel. Like Knightly Arts, they appear to ask a lot of basic questions and address them, like kicking in sword fights.
My armour is stainless steel. I know thats contravertial, but I wanted to reduce the amount of polishing i did, and the risk of missing a spot. Currently I am looknig at getting a low weight breast/backplate/fauld - I'm in the UK, and when i fight in armour its generally at a 2,500 person larp- so involves a lot of running. As my kit is 35 kg loosing some weight is going to make that a lot more fun.
Right on! Yeah, we'll be attending Days of Knights event here in October and visit with, Ian. Ian's channel focuses on medieval armour and we wanted to focus on the martial art. So we have a good working relationship and hopefully will get him involved in Harnischfechten once his shoulder fully heals :) -Reece
Awesome to see you making a long episode to answer our questions about your armours! Looking forward to the interview about fighting as an amputee, and the possible Discord server. One thing that comes to mind, is the eyes take in more information than the brain can process, particularly under stress. So while the visor limits your view, the brain is likely working harder to translate what it can see to a working image of your surroundings.
Awesome video! I can only imagine how much the complete knightly harness costs to have finished, and then the minor costs then involved in maintenance. I'm happy that most of my interests fall in the early fourteenth century. Lots of kit being developed, still used, and still functional against different pieces of kit.
Tobias Capwell has a great lecture about that very subject. He states in this video that the armour was cheaper then the polishing. It's a long video, but well worth it! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-COAIQPsgZWY.html
I would love to get a mid-15th century German styled harness (I just think the kastenbrust style looks so interesting), possibly basing it on Norwegian harnesses of the time, but there are two problems with that: there is very little information on the Kastenbrust style -- even less that I've found on 15th century Scandinavian armor -- and, as you two brought up, funds are the main issue.
Well, if you understand German, than there are a few books about the Kastebrust from Ulrich Lehnart. And you have quiet few depictions of the Kastenbrust in Artwork. By the way, it is spelled Kastenbrust, it is composed of "Kasten" (Box, Chest) and "Brust" (Breast) The Umlaut ü is not in this word, although it is looking cool ;)
You might want more, if you were actually going to war. But, you can only have so much, before it starts to restrict your movements. Maybe Knightly Arts or Knyght Errant will make a video on this, sometime. And of course, you can wear a padded surcoat to act as some extra padding. soft layers sandwiching hard layers works amazingly well.
There are a lot of variants to consider when discussing this. The gambeson went through many variations over time in thickness, fit and purpose. If it was the primary armor you were wearing, with just maille or little or no plate, then you'd want it pretty thick. If you were wearing plate but it was a bit milder than top notch, you'd want some, but not a lot of padding. But in a high quality harness with a good temper, the extra padding is just redundant and not worth the heat. It's not necessarily that thicker padding is the more primitive option, it's just that as time progressed, armor became of a more consistent standard that didn't require it. People who fight in say, HMB usually over do the padding a bit, comparatively speaking to historical examples. But that's because they play a game of "hit the protected part with a blunt object until the person gives up." Which is counter intuitive to how medieval martial practice was implemented. They're experiencing a lot more blunt force trauma than was necessary to protect against historically.
Arms are by Historic Enterprises, the helm is custom made by andrey galevskiy and the curiass was bought from Spain from an online dealer (doesn't recall the name as it was several years ago) and required a lot of tweaking to make it work. Hope that helps! -Reece
PursuingThe KnightlyArts Thank you so much I'm doing my kit inspired by churburg if in a few months you'll see a new kit so you know you helped me do it
Hello, I was wondering if you could share the dimensions of Reese's bascinet's sights. How "tall" are the sights? And how far is it between the posts? Thanks in advance.
Personally I'm trying to build a German harness from 1380-1400 of a slightly poorer man at arms that includes a houndskull bascinet and a brigandine fauld for the breastplate. Would the brigandine fauld be historically accurate to the period? Also, I'm 14 and can't afford a custom harness. Where can I purchase functional armour for a reasonable amount?Cheers
Mr. Beetleman Hi, I'm in the same boat as you, I'm poor and cant afford fully fitted armor at least not yet, however through some trial and error I have found that armstreet does a great job at supplying fittedish armor for a really good price, as does but if even that is above your price range I would definitely recommend at least getting something with multiple sizes so you can find something that at least sorta fits you. I would definitely consider saving up for something at least a little fitted, it makes a huge difference in comfort and movability
Mr. Beetleman, for 1380_1400 German you wouldn't be using a houndskull. Most effigies show Klappvisors being used. As a general rule, the earlier the period the cheaper it is. Have you looked at 1340_1360? The Germans had lots of use with leather and splinted plates. A lot cheaper than full steel articulation/floating.
Spend some time looking through the effigies. You'll see what was common with the style then. Hope this helps! effigiesandbrasses.com/search/?year=1340&year_end=1400&country=4&country=2&tags=&institution=&name=&costumes=1&genders=M
I don't if you mentioned it but what are your thoughts on steel gauge and mild vs. spring steel for armour? (When it's meant to be used for fighting and wrestling, I mean).
Best material would be hardened spring steel, cuz it's light, strong and close to what they had back then. Most of our harnesses are mild steel, but are working towards upgrading to spring steel. -Reece
If painting your armor helps with the maintenance, why didn't more people do it back in the days? Why was "white armor" so popular? How can you tell friend from foe, if everyone's wearing the same armor? Does thicker padding help counter chafing? Also Ben's voiders don't seem to cover gaps in the back of the elbow. Is it intentional?
Valera Valerovich, polished armour was a status symbol. The polishing itself would cost double or three times as much. A lot easier to maintain when you have 2_4 squires helping you maintain your armour. As far as being able tell who is who, this is exactly why heraldry came into be. Being able to recognize who is who based on their coat of arms. Both Ben and I haven't experienced chaffing at all...must be cuz we both have custom made doublets. Ben's mail is an Indian made piece... So it doesn't cover as well. He is looking to upgrade to custom made sleeves once he gets the funds. Hope this answers your questions! Reece
Interesting video. How does it feel to get hit with so thin padding? Historical Medieval Battle rules demand atleast 10 millimeter thick padding which protects well from blunt force, but is a bit overly bulky. Have you ever gotten bruised from an impact to the armor?
I forget how painfull is to me to watch this kind of videos😅. I'm a reenactor, but my assosiation is really poor, because we live in one of the most poor regions of Italy (we are Sardinian) so we don't have basically any kind of founding, and it's rather difficult to collect the right ammount of money since most of us are young students, and those who work can't afford to spend too much on armor because of taxes and other of those kind of annoying stuff. We're growing though, so we hope to get to this level, right now we must limit ourself to use really cheap stuff, often of second hand, but maybe we might face each other one day, who knows
Shardana keep at it man! I'm part of the same group as Reece and Ben and I don't have a lot of money either. Took me years to get my harness a piece at a time.
Dario Nietlispach, the axes we use are from purple heart armoury. They're rubber heads, but sometimes we get struck with the haft which can dent armour. We use still swords for bouting and the pommels can cause dents, given that they're made of steel. Reece
PursuingThe KnightlyArts very nice =D whats your opinion on blunt force trauma? Is it possibel to kill an oponent in full armor, with a pollaxe or warhammer trough a hit to the head or body?
Dario Nietlispach, of course. Hammers and axes were popular for a reason. You can absolutely cause damage to the body beneath armour. Blunt force trauma breaks bones, causes hemorrhage, etc
Guys im sorry i didnt see your last comment =( i dont get messages for following answers it seems... thank you very much for the answer =D your content is awesome guys
PursuingThe KnightlyArts that’s awesome I want to make a kit based off of the romance of Alexander and the Sir John D’Abernon effigy from the same time period
