Could anybody give me some pointers on making a early 15th century brigandine? Are there any kits available on the market or do you have completely fab the thing yourself?

No finish yourself brig kits on the market that I'm aware of.

there is one peice of advice I can give...

Buy a Roper-Whitney #5 Punch.
http://www.roperwhitney.com/punching/2-45.cfm

(or at least a kniock-off copy)

Trust me, when you have 9000 holes to do...

the choice of a drill, clamping the plate down, centre-punching it, then lining up the drill, drilling through the hole, then taking a larger bit and doing a quick spin on each side to remove the burr, or 9000 holes to simply slip the sheet of metal in, line up, press and "thwunk" one instant nice clean hole, well, the whitney punch costs £80/$80 ish, but it'll save you dozens of hours of work.

I prefer a drill press to be honest.

Centre-punch each hole and just hold the plates (in your hand or in mole-grips) in the correct spot - do a whole batch of plates in one session (I work on one column at a time out of preference) and then counter drill on the back side to remove the burrs.

I find this easier than using a whitney punch but we're all different right!

There is no real short cut to making a brigandine, they take time, but they're worth it.

As for a pattern, the real adjustment should be done in the fabric, the plates (or more accurately the spacing of the plates) can be adjusted to fit the fabric with relatively little stress (some plates may need to be trimmed or extended to cope with extreme differences in size of course!)

JonT

If I'm drilling a fairly small object, I hold it in a vice grip. Otherise, I've had no problem with a drill.

JG Elmslie wrote:

Jon Terris wrote: I prefer a drill press to be honest. Centre-punch each hole and just hold the plates (in your hand or in mole-grips) Nyargh. Afraid I'm rather.... erm. attached to my fingers, and rather dislike drills' abilities to snatch and bind, creating a nice whirling guillotine affair.... Call me paranoid, but drilling without each and every plate securely fixed into a vertical vice clamp is screaming "accident waiting to happen" to me. but then again, I'm a power-tool-phobe, and take great delight in cutting wasters to shape with a hand saw and putting in the taper with a #4 bailey plane, over the same job with a power plane that takes a thousandth of the energy. gives a nicer finish too, I think.

Ok. Other than Windlass, what ready to wear brigs are out there? I would think that there would be more given how widespread they were used during the middle ages.

Larry, how widespread thier use was during the middle ages isn't the problem, the enormous time consumption involved in building one right is. Brigandine is not simply a shell with alot of plates of the exact same size riveted inside but instead plates of a variety of different sizes to allow the garment to taper to the form. By way of example is this piece, Italian c. 1470 http://medievalreenactment.fotopic.net/p2198980.html . The armour shoppe of today s often, very often,a single individual or at best two or three rather than seven, ten or even more of a period shoppe, making all the wares that they offer so the ability to have some one or more than one dedicated to doing nothing but making brigandine all the time, much like riveted maille , is simply not possible or practicle. I think most will agree that White Rose does some of the nicer ones avaliable http://www.whiteroseapparel.com/brig1vel.jpg http://www.whiteroseapparel.com/brig2.jpg

I see said the blind man. I just wondered if there were other suppliers, probably using 3rd world slave labor like Windlass, who had brigs on offer for reasonable money. I just thought that since the brig was prevalent in ye olde times that there would be a current market demand sufficient to support several mass producers of them, ie lots of people would want one. I guess not though. Having made a costume brig for myself when I was ten or twelve with cardboard plates I have some idea as to the asymmetry of the plates required to conform to the human body and the man hours necessary to fit them to the support garment, which is why I had hopes someone out there was producing good brigs for a approachable price so I wouldn't have to spend a year or two making my own. Where is that army of serfs when you need them for pete's sake, anyway? Some people have have lots of spare time, other have lots of spare cash, I always seem to have neither. ;)

go over to www.armourarchive.org and ask about brigandines... you will even see some for sale and in kit form... my suggestion would be to make sure you do your research and know what you want historically speaking first at any rate. Armour Archive is mostly SCA and nothing against that but their standards for being historically correct vary tremendously... aka to the point of plastic but there are some really great armourers on that site as well

With regards tp producing a brigadine/jack/corizona(?), one would think that those who make armour would have scrap and off-cuts left behind, so whilst being time consuming in the extreme (unless they've got an apprentice :lol: ), if they had enough stuff left behind, and there was a demand for it, why would one not just do some oldde school recycling.
After all, a plate that's a tad thin here, or a bit short there won't matter too much when it's under spiffy velvet or leather. I mean, I'd still buy it.
Just my Aus$00.02.

Note to self: Make brigadine one day... Maybe...

Edit:

JG Elmslie wrote:

Trust me, when you have 9000 holes to do...

It's over 9000?! :wtf:

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Not a brigadine, but feasibly it could be made from left overs.
(I believe I got this from someones album [I think]).

Thanks for the web link, I'll go check it out.

So far I haven't seen too much historical evidence that says there were very specific brig styles or types linked to specific eras, although I'm sure there is a brig guru out there who's spent 50 years studying them who will correct me on that. Thus, I'm more interested in one that looks the part. Frankly I think it would be cool if some one was building brigs using cool materials such as titanium or ballistic rated polymer plates under period looking velvet or leather. The 14th cent coat of plates would work I suppose for say a merc or older/less affluent knight/man at arms, but I doubt the upper crust would have worn such an older piece. However since the coat of plates was usually covered by the surcoat, I suppose one could conceal it under the tight fitting jupon that was just starting to fade in fashion by 1415.

Now that I think of it, a coat of plates would be less labor intensive and I could gin one up with a reasonable amount of time/money invested. Plus, I could use it in a back dated ensemble for Cr'ecy.

Good stuff. As I said I have only given a cursory look such things. The good news is is that if I cover it up with a tight jupon I can account for a multitude of sins and few will be the wiser. All this may be for naught however as I've looked at the Mercenary's Tailor and I can get a full up breast and back plate with fauld and tassets for less than $400 which would do me even better than the brig I think and I get more effective armor in the bargain. Still I've always thought brigs were a cool mix of textures and the rows of rivets give the whole thing more visual energy than plate. If I really do this right I could have enough kit to swing with ease through the length of the hundred years war. Yehaw!