Roman semi-rigid scale armour: made and tested

Skyland lamellar vibe between them for three distinctions that set them apart from other forms of armour those distinctions are which of them has the greater antiquity which of them has the greater duration of use and which of them has the wider geographical distribution these are all interesting questions yet never likely to be resolved with any certainty and I don't intend to deal with them here but rather something more specific if you want to see both armors discussed in some detail the book on-screen is still available and besides academic interest it could also be of use should you want to make some type of scale armor or lamellar for yourself in one aspect lamellar far exceeds steel armor and that is in the diversity of the ways it has been constructed over the millennia scale in contrast is much less variable and can be Tiffa hide into a progression of five types which are defined in the book the progression is based upon two interrelated characteristics going from the least rigid and their fall is protective to the most rigid and hence most protective over the decades I've made a wide variety of lamellar but much less scale and the reasons are twofold one is that the most basic and common varieties of scale armor types one and two and the topology defined in armor never wear is a much more labor-intensive for a result than many varieties of lamellar the other reason is because the fewer variations lessens scales ability to maintain the interest for a maker like me a couple of types of scales had retained some interest particularly the uniquely roman variety known to the scholars a semi-rigid scale armor in which the scales are not only connected horizontally with metal staples as the Romans often did but were also joined vertically by the same method this construction is quite often mistaken for lamella and done using textile bindings to a uniformly on his Oracle and practically unsuccessful result I wondered how semi-rigid scale was to make compared to the more familiar textile backed forms of scale armor and what it would be like to wear and use thus when some suitable scrap metal came my way as I cast about for a covert 19 lockdown handcraft project I decided that it was time to satisfy my curiosity I had handmade all the scales my first such armor many years ago and have made plenty of lanes since so I was familiar enough with that side of the production process what was newer was making staples it did require a somewhat different technique from making the tens of thousands of male rings that had been the feature of my first year in historical recreation because staples had of course to be rectangular rather than round I must say though that there was a certain sense of postmodern absurdity in the fact that I put all that effort into cutting a large sheet of iron into hundreds of small pieces and then did more work punching thousands of holes with them simply so I could do yet more work stapling them back together in a big sheet of metal but not takes no account of the processes and economics of iron working and armor making an antiquity according to which it does all make sense when it came to assembly I found that it was a bit of a revelation it was more akin to lamellar assembly than that of bat scale the first stage was the same as the common method for Roman backed scale and analogous to most lamella that is stapling mend wound your pieces together in a band that will be horizontal to the finished harness it was the attachment of the Rose that was the refreshing change from all that tedious slow and awkward stitching required for a backed scale armor laid out like this with supports at each end and anvil in the middle for clenching the staples and access on either side it becomes tolerably rapid and a simple process that took a little over one hour to attach each body row of fifty-seven scales if the ends of the staples are well set to the interval of the holes the placement of the holes on the scales makes it quite easy to slide the staples into place through both scales working blind under the armor as there are to my knowledge no semi-rigid scale lauric I sufficiently well-preserved to supply complete and reliable data the overall form of the armor had to be speculative for the main body structure made in one piece and opening on the left I took my inspiration from slightly later lamellar armors one of my objectives was to have an armor that I might ride him should the occasion arise for that there are plenty of artistic precedents confirmed by my prior experience dictating a different form to the hex Museum lorica seen earlier which was probably for infantry the shoulders were clearly going to be much more of an issue than with backed forms of scale but I'd long since solved that matter when building my lamb lockvar Nia so I simply transferred that experience the shoulder scales obviously had to be curved longitudinally and then my design core for each of the six rows of the shoulders to be made of a tapered sequence of scales so they had a suitable amount of drop out from the neck this didn't require any alteration in the layout of the scales merely slightly in the lengths of each so it didn't slow down the manufacture to any great degree I've initially had designed the neck whole is symmetrical but that left more of the cervical vertebra exposed and I wanted while closing it up even by one row would make the opening too small for my head ancient Armorer's had solved that problem with a standing collar and I could do no better then learn from them I had initially planned for the shoulders to be closed but then I figured that the arm would be much easier to store if it could open that flat rather than being a fairly solid cylinder knowing that the banded armors the so called segment Tata had closures using turning pins and hooks I decided to try the latter this has turned out to have an enormous unexpected advantage it makes the armor vastly easy to take off by unlatching the shoulders as shown before I'm doing the straps one thing I discovered along the way in trying the partly finished item on was that the armor still needed aligning because otherwise the staples catch on everything not just my admittedly on Roman hairstyle but on any textile worn under it that can then pull the staples open making the problem still worse now finish to my satisfaction there was time for testing the testing was to be quite robust in one sense because I do not yet have authority over us to wear under it and so any defects of fit and function would quickly become acutely apparent first to take it out for a substantial walk and jog that excursion reveals that was surprisingly comfortable despite the lack of any padding as I said earlier another objective was to have an Armour a might riding I will not really know until I try it properly on a horse in motion but at least I know that I can sit on a Roman saddle wearing the courselet the final test of course was to confirm that it readily allowed the use of various appropriate weapons and a shield throwing javelins a spear wither shield and without and of course the sword I acknowledged that my sword and shield style shown here is more about single combat dueling than the battlefield and some would no doubt say for a later period but it was a more rigorous test than melee fighting all in all I'm very satisfied with the result and I look forward to the end of the pestilence giving me the opportunity to go out and use it I hope there's been interesting and might give some viewer the encouragement to get him more herself this son Justin neglected variety of early roman armor

Channel: Levantia

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Id: BkbQVm3xTFs

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020