Just picked up a pair of MRL gothic mitten gauntlets for an excellent price. To my pleasant surprise, they look beautiful. They really are very well finished, and the piercings and fluting is very clean. They're even lined with a thin leather mitten inside that would accomadate many sizes of hands.

But, like so much of MRL's line, there is a definate reason that they are priced the way they are. The articulation, despite having five lames on the finger portion, is terrible. I can barely close my hand with these on. I certainly can't grasp a sword hilt well enough to feel secure in swinging it. Unless if there is some way to fix this (any ideas?), these will definately have to be immediately retired to the "decorative" bin.

---

 Attachment: 35.3 KB



 Attachment: 38.2 KB

You're right. They look quite nice. I'm curious, what was the price point?
I've found that articulation can often be helped by repeated use and bending of the pieces. Of course, it the patterns used to make the thing were completely hosed to begin with, nothing will help it.

They're normally $175. I managed to get mine for $100 through a friend of a friend (that sounds so shady when I say that. :cool: ).

I did try to bend them a little, which slightly helps, but overall it's still not good enough. The holes where the lames are rivetted are not "slots", for the articulation to move around, but are simply holes just big enough for the rivets. I think the only way to fix this is to send it to an armourer to take apart and redo the slots, which I'm not sure is cost effective enough to justify. I may ask around, though.

I really like the pierce work on these. They match the gothic cuirass that MRL also sells, a piece I've always been in love with aesthetically... but I've always been far too hesitant about functional issues to actually throw the money on. These gauntlets are a perfect example of why I'm not willing to risk it.

---

 Attachment: 45.21 KB

They can probably be fixed to work, but it may be spendy to have someone who knows armor do it. Wouldn't want to sell 'em would ya, Bill?

BTW, I just got an order in from Lutel yesterday - including a Dagger to match the Kazt I bought from ya. They look good together.

Yep, David, I'll definately bring them to class.

I talked with John Gruber, who's been working on a gorgeous cuirass for me (and soon to be working on a beautiful sallet for me), and he's going to go ahead and take a look at these, so maybe there's some hope yet. So Jeff, no, I'm not willing to sell them YET, but if it turns out I still can't use them, you'll be the first person I'll contact. (And you should post some pictures of the Lutels... not too many people seem to post Lutel pictures for some reason.)

I'd seen Armouronline before, but I never paid that close attention to them... HOW ON EARTH ARE THOSE FINGER GAUNTLETS SO CHEAP!?

Yeah, I've been looking at the pictures trying to figure out what's wrong with them. They definately do look stamped out, and naturally the whole thing lacks the refinary of higher end gauntlets. But if you say they are flexible enough for use, I may have to take the plunge here.

What pair do you have, Steve?

Hi Bill,

Sorry you fell into this one too. One of our new guys just purchased these, with the same articulation problems. We checked them out and felt that altering them to resolve that issue would be almost impossible without creating aesthetic compromises. They are articulated with the plates overlapping each other too much, so the only way to fix that would be to take the things apart and re-rivet them with new holes. This would leave, in some place, the old holes still visible. At any rate, he sent them back ultimately.

It's a shame, because they are nice looking. But you can see in how the fluting on the back of the hand doesn't line up that they're very careless in articulating these things. And unfortunately, they're so tight that you can't count on simply breaking them in.

Sorry,

Christian

PS. Actually, the cuirass is the better deal and is functional. It's the one Ben is wearing in 'Secrets'. The only thing I did was remove one of the fauld lames to shorten it up a tad.

Hi Christian,
Actually, though it doesn't show in the angle of my picture, the fluting on mine does line up pretty well. Much better than what I've seen some American armorers do. Aesthetically I was very surprised with these. But if the ones you saw had flutes that didn't line up, that's a big sign of the common MRL quality control issues, unfortunately.

For the price I paid, having Gruber look into modifying these may be worth it, even if there's some tell-tale holes.

Ben posted on the Armour Archive another pair (Deepeeka I believe?) that seem to articulate better than the Windlass ones. I'm looking forward to seeing how those compare.

All I have to say is thank you. I was really close to buying those gauntlets. I'm glad I found out about them before I did. Thanks.

Ben[/img]

i was on the waiting list from MRL for 3 months. kinda glad i canceled. i have seen the Deepeeka finger gaunts and I can say save your money. I didn't like them really at all. Riviting and fluteing were dirty and crude. The fingers looked to be glued to the glove, but the ones I had seen had already come apart.

Chuck