My New Leg Armour and a Fitting for the Breastplate

It was time to go back to Chesterfield to see how my armour was getting on. Right, so, moment of truth. Ex-curtains. Yes, I think I have some ex-curtains that will do the job. Ooh, so shiny. There's the fan on the side of the knee there. It's lovely fluting. And topped off with some nice leather with the holes for lacing it to the arming doublet. Shall we just show you how it moves? That'll actually bend more than your leg. Yes, yes. The greave for the lower right leg. All shiny with its hinges, top and bottom. Down and rounded off. And buckles in brass there. And a fancy rivet. Ooh, and a little bit of brasswork at the top to hold another strap. Holds the lower lame strap from your leg. Stops it coming up, riding up onto your hamstrings and stuff. And he'd made matching bits for the other leg. Thoughtful. Have you ever made two of the same side accidentally? Many times. Really? Many times. That's me age, you know. Quite a big gap on the inside around the back of the thigh. Which will enable me to ride a horse. Should you ever wish to. Should I ever wish to? You've got a chance at least once, haven't you? I think so. I found myself just staring at it. Right, well we're going to have to try these on. You can cut these down, but obviously if you cut it down it makes it harder to pull when you turn it on. What'll happen is that'll drop one of that after time and all these straps will drop down. So this really needs to be given a bit of an upward pull on it. So we've got domed brass rivets here on this top bit, which is articulated like that. It's all on sliding rivets. So it slides up and down as well. It folds down as well as moves forward. Does this back bit? Oh no, the back bit doesn't. No, it doesn't need to. Ooh, bargain. At the moment this feels very light, but I imagine it all adds up. You put the whole lot on it'll start to feel heavy, but at the moment it really doesn't. You're going to get chafing. If we need to, we can take a little bit off of that. This is why you're here, for a fitting. When you fasten up there, it pulls the weight off the top of there. So that pin's really important. And you see that on Milanese, English, on Gothic. You see that pin on every one. Without that pin, you'd get twist and all sorts of... That's really important. But obviously I can't put it in until you've got the leg armour on. And we can see where everything fits. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to mark a hole. So I can pull that pin in for you. The arming doublet would really help here. Yes. So I'm having to do what I think the arming doublet would be doing, which is giving a constant little pull at the top here. That's more secure, isn't it? Yeah, it feels less wobbly. So, let's try again. Yes, I mean obviously. You've got to do that, don't you? Absolutely. Is there a particular knee that you go down? Is it right knee or left knee? It's up to you. Either knee. Whichever one's not arthritic. God's not that fussy. Get it to where it's comfortable for you. Well, I suppose it's the bending of the knee. That's the main thing. Maybe I should do it with the knee bent, maybe. Yeah. Is that better? Right. I can actually... Excellent. That's as good as you're going to ever get. Let's put that pin in now. Just hold that steady there. This? Yeah. And when he nods his head... It's it. Perfect. So there's an interesting technique you used there, Dave. What? You used the ball to start and not the flat head as most people would. We've kept the idea going through the entire armour. So, yeah, if we can do this on the back... That's not exactly symmetrical, is it? No, it's not. No. But when it's on the breastplate, you'll see why. And you'll see it's on the leg armour, too. I've got a cobbler's last, which I've used many times. Ah, yes. I could do rivets on that. Real men have got cobbler's lasts. I've already got sea-freeze-through-them-on-the-hutch in my head. It's somewhere else, isn't it? I guess so. I suppose I'm going to have to kneel on the half-surface one of these days. Do you want a scrap job? Well... Do you want a curtain? Well, you know, am I going to treat these... I mean, I don't... In my workshop, you are. OK, right, fair enough. All right. It is a good point. Thank you, Sir Francis. OK, so... Actually, I'm not putting... Right, so I'm trying on my new leg armour here over the authentic woolen medieval hose. And I can honestly say that as I bend down, the most uncomfortable thing is the medieval hose, which is riding really uncomfortably down my back and, yes, having trouble riding up on the inside of the... The actual metal bit is more comfortable than the wool underneath it. So there you go. That's how well-made these legs are. There's a slight... Where is it? Yeah, it's the same bit again. Yeah, we've not done that yet. Same bit, biting in. Last minute alterations here. Just before Dave put the breastplate onto me, I noticed there was a large bolt sticking directly into about that bit of me. So he's making an adjustment. There was no interchangeability, so if you needed a new nut, you'd have to make a new bolt as well. I think that's one of the interesting things. It's only in what I'd consider recent times when nuts and bolts were standard that I was going to interchange them. Very recent. The quarter-inch Whitworth. Well, the bolt of the British Empire. Let me just show you that. Just tell me when you can see. Oh, yeah, I can see. Yeah, tilt down a bit, down a bit, down a bit. There we go, yeah. It looks very, very nice indeed. I am a little... I see, so there's actually not a huge amount. There's actually... You can see there, the bottom of the fold and the top of the... There's actually a bit of gap. So this is not actually... There's not a huge amount of redundancy, not a huge amount of layering. Now then, when you're sat on a horse, you can see where it comes into play. The tasset actually covers the gap from the leg armour to the bottom of the fold. So that is a plate to take that gap away. And obviously, it's extremely flexible. So if you're on a horse, you get that sort of movement. Well, let me tell you the way that breastplate fits. The fit around here is, as was the case last time, it's just really glorious. I can feel there's air obviously there. But we want that. Yes. I still have this smack onto my... You can see my very bony collarbone and that's still... Oh, you have got a quite pronounced collarbone. I have a very pronounced bony collarbone. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take that out a little bit for you. But I'll make an outing choke on there. That's unreal. I didn't realise. I did. Yes, but I didn't think it was that bad. If this is a problem... That is quite definitely... If I got hit there, it would just break my collarbone. What I can do is take that off there. So that is underneath and leather goes on the top of that. If that doesn't work next time, I'm going to take it off to there. That's a shame, isn't it? It'll be covered anyway. Your pauldron covers it. True. You don't see it. But it is part of... When just looking at that piece, it is a significant part of the shape of that nice elegant piece. Well, it is and it isn't. If you look at some of the 15th century ones, they're actually straight and the straps come off. Then you've got this edge here. Yes. So it's not a big problem. If it means it's a lot more comfortable for you to wear, then we're going to do that. Could it go... I'm going to try and do that. Right. Put a tunnel in there for you. If that doesn't work properly, then I'm going to take it off. Okay. Then push this edge out slightly so that it won't bite in at all. Once there's a leather strap on there, or a buckle, I don't know whether we put a buckle or a leather strap on there, but best for you. Probably leather strap so there's nothing solid on that clavicle. Right. Can you get a camera around here? When the fluting is done, this is going to be so pretty. Where it fits in small, my back, that feels very nice indeed. No builders' crack on show? That's good to know. It fits so well. You've got to get it bang on. But when I get my beer belly... Oh, don't do that. That's why I can't have any armour. Oh, you can. I could turn it upside down. I made some for a guy. They were a 54 chest and a 50 waist. But I tell you what, at least it was that way round. You know, they called him Volvo when he'd got it on. And this was the current state of progress. Next trip would be for the arms and shoulders. Perfect. It lines up perfect. I never doubted it. Yes, it is.