Written by Christopher Lehr
Monday, 19 July 2010 09:27
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 Now that my helmet is done, it is time to work my way lower... to that of the cuirass. This particular piece of armour comes from a pattern that I developed for leather. (Which you can now find with the Sable Manticore). Furthermore, the initial work that I accomplished was done prior to my entering SIUC as a metals student, so, generally there are a lot of mistakes that I am going to have to work around. However, I am not wanting to waste so much material and time, so I am certainly willing to accept this challenge. Besides, the mistakes are not so horrendous as to render the project uncompleteable.
At this point you may notice that from the last time I took a picture of the cuirass that it was rusted pretty badly. Like I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had used Rio Grande Pickle to clean off the black oxides from the armour that I took to Ragnorok this year. I did the same for this armour and the rest that had been badly oxidized. Previously I had used a five gallon bucket for the helmet pieces. However, the cuirass will emphatically not fit in such a small container. Another trip to Lowe's and I purchased a large plastic tote that I was able to completely fill and add pickle to... and voila... all clean! While a light film of rust did develop pretty quickly after cleaning the parts, I am not too worried about that as I have much more work to do on the piece anyway.
 The largest issue that I need to contend with is the alignment between the front and rear plates. With leather armour, this is not a great issue, as the plates can overlap each other as well as flex and shift with the wearer, also being more adaptable to the wearer's size & shape. This, however, is not the case with plate. There will be a lot of work required to not only align the top portion around the neck hole, but also an alignment at the sides below the arm holes. Further, aligning these parts must also allow a full range of motion while wearing the armour to allow for maximum fighting capability and minimum pinch or bite to the wearer.
Currently, my intentions for the piece are many. As I need a gorget to fight in the SCA, and as I am rolling and roping the neck, I am going to incorporate an articulated gorget into it. Also, I am not thrilled how the bottom of the piece works. While it is fine with leather, it isn't so much in plate. What I will probably end up doing is working in some extra plate into the bottom of the piece so that it terminates much like 15th century armour, such as this. Though it will incorporate lower lames such as the Gothic example shown, I also want to incorporate roman armour aspects such as found in statuary found in Rome, such as this. Also like the helmet, it will be painted black... though I am unsure as to whether I will be adding any brass elements to it or not.
While I do have a plan of attack in finishing this particular piece, as always, each items ends up taking on a life of its own and I am certainly curious as to what the final outcome will be.
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