Real arm progress
So the work on the right arm is moving along again! It's only a few hours worth of work before I can fire it. Here are a few things I've learned recently.
Using a large pipe to planish over has really helped make it rounder and more even.
The tulipping I was shooting for was too extreme. I've spent a little time looking at a bunch of late 14th century vambraces and come to the conclusion that the flare in the Chartres harness both begins higher up on the arm and has a larger total flaring than all the other harnesses. I was basing my shape on that one, and it's just not typical. Besides, there's no flare to be seen on the Black Prince effigy.
Pictures, pictures, pictures. Find a ton of them, hang them up and look at them often. I've always done research and looked at pictures, but the convenience of having them UP and VISIBLE without having to dig through debris on the work bench really makes it easier to get a much better final design. There a ton of little questions about how folks generally did things that can be answered with a glance rather than half an hour of pondering. Besides, it's very inspirational.
The hinge on the upper vambrace should be inset pretty far. The farther in it goes the more overlap coverage you get, and the better the piece will look. Of course there is a limit to this.
I'm incabable of not altering the pattern every time I build this arm harness. The only pieces I haven't messed with in this round are the hinges. The plus side is that the next itteration will be quite a bit better, lighter, and faster to build. Assuming, of course, that I don't mess with the pattern some more.
The upper vambrace is still a bit of a puzzle. I'm going to have to spend some time measuring things out in detail to figure out how they managed to not have it pinch a bit when you bend your arm. It's not like I'm a body builder, but even with all the improvements I've made there's still some bunching of the muscle that might get painful. How did they get the vambrace to come up so close to the cop without flaring it out of proportion and without pinching there?
Specific improvements I've made in this edition:
Narrower lames. This keeps the articulation closer to the natural joint, keeps me from needing additional rivets, and saves some weight.
Slightly smaller vambraces. There was too much flare in the old pattern both by the wrist and by the elbow. This should lighten things up a bit. It also didn't fit tightly enough at the wrist.
Added some curve to the rerebrace. This will improve articulation and should eliminate gapping without the use of an extra rivet.
I still have a little playing to do with the cop, since the inner wing is too long. On many originals the wing is too short to pass our safety regs, so I'm going to have to cheat a little here.
Using a large pipe to planish over has really helped make it rounder and more even.
The tulipping I was shooting for was too extreme. I've spent a little time looking at a bunch of late 14th century vambraces and come to the conclusion that the flare in the Chartres harness both begins higher up on the arm and has a larger total flaring than all the other harnesses. I was basing my shape on that one, and it's just not typical. Besides, there's no flare to be seen on the Black Prince effigy.
Pictures, pictures, pictures. Find a ton of them, hang them up and look at them often. I've always done research and looked at pictures, but the convenience of having them UP and VISIBLE without having to dig through debris on the work bench really makes it easier to get a much better final design. There a ton of little questions about how folks generally did things that can be answered with a glance rather than half an hour of pondering. Besides, it's very inspirational.
The hinge on the upper vambrace should be inset pretty far. The farther in it goes the more overlap coverage you get, and the better the piece will look. Of course there is a limit to this.
I'm incabable of not altering the pattern every time I build this arm harness. The only pieces I haven't messed with in this round are the hinges. The plus side is that the next itteration will be quite a bit better, lighter, and faster to build. Assuming, of course, that I don't mess with the pattern some more.
The upper vambrace is still a bit of a puzzle. I'm going to have to spend some time measuring things out in detail to figure out how they managed to not have it pinch a bit when you bend your arm. It's not like I'm a body builder, but even with all the improvements I've made there's still some bunching of the muscle that might get painful. How did they get the vambrace to come up so close to the cop without flaring it out of proportion and without pinching there?
Specific improvements I've made in this edition:
Narrower lames. This keeps the articulation closer to the natural joint, keeps me from needing additional rivets, and saves some weight.
Slightly smaller vambraces. There was too much flare in the old pattern both by the wrist and by the elbow. This should lighten things up a bit. It also didn't fit tightly enough at the wrist.
Added some curve to the rerebrace. This will improve articulation and should eliminate gapping without the use of an extra rivet.
I still have a little playing to do with the cop, since the inner wing is too long. On many originals the wing is too short to pass our safety regs, so I'm going to have to cheat a little here.
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