Boris,

I've been following your thread since the beginning and have refrained from posting until now. The level of detail and beauty of your work is incredible. The brass cut outs for your bazubands clearly show your excellent workmanship. While we all must be careful of pride, you deserve maybe a little smile. I can not wait to see the finished product.

Regards,
Scott

These beauties

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came home a couple of weeks ago. They are the decoration brass plates for the breastplate of the yushman. The figure is an arabesque - very typical Islamic design, usually of floral motifs. It is evenly divided in twelve.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to make them by hand (in previously shown method) and I was forced to order them. And so, they are laser cut - a lifeless product of modern technology. To correct, at least - partially, this unjustice I re-work them a little bit, or how we say here in Bulgaria - "they were touched by human hand".
In this case I used a file to smooth the edges and curves and engraved the contours. Here the brass plate is already riveted over the steel one.

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Although this kind of engraving (usually known as "point engraving") is very simple and basic, it looks pretty enough if is done correctly. And here is a more detailed (and clear) picture of the engraving:

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The diameter of the points is approx. 1 mm.

The breastplate is ready, waiting for blackening (actually already done yesterday, but I will post pictures after I clean and repolish the brass-plates)

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The traditional Ottoman locks, known in Turkish as mandalma (singular; in plural - mandalmalar), a little bit re-worked with the Dremel tool, drilled and polished, and with hooks attached

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The bazubands after blackening:

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The hard work on them is already done.
Now, what they need is only to re-polish once again the brass plates, to sew the maille gauntlets over the gloves, to make a padding (there is such under the outer plate), to add straps and buckles and to assemble all these in one piece.

This may sounds a lot of work, but at least it's not hard nor tiring.

The cuirass after blackening:

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Tne next step is the riveting of the mandalmalar.

Good sir, I bow down to your persistance and skill.
I can only hope that when, or if, I ever get an Islamic kit up and going I can achieve a quater of what you've done here!
Keep up the awesome work!

Today I managed to rivet three of the mandalmalar.
Here I show two of them, arranged in the future successive raw:

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As expected earlier, the mandalmalar hide some areas of the arabesque, but there's no other way, so I'm ready to pay this price. Another thing that I must do is to trim a little bit the hooks - now they are just a bit longer.

You can see once again the appearance of the combination "reddish copper over yellow brass". Re-polished after riveting, brass is very shiny, but several days from now it will become darker and the contrast between two metal will be even better.

If you remember one of the previous posts with a picture of the breastplate in it, you've probably seen two narrow lames in the middle of the breastplate (they were already blackened, while the other were not).

Being too narrow to accomodate mandalmalar, these lames are fitted with leather strap and buckle:

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I hope, tommorow I will be able to finish the six remaining rivets.
The system is somewhat complex, but good and looks nice - anchored to the left ring on the right plate, the strap runs through the ring on the left plate, returns to the buckle where clasps and finaly - runs through the rightmost ring.

Very nice work so far!

Aren't you afraid to wear the armour in, what it was ultimately designed for; fighting? It would be a shame to see this beautifull artwork hammered to dents....

Hi, Johan!

Actually, I'm not afraid to wear this armour in fight.
Although we fight in almost full-contact, the trick is that I wear a a jacket with sleeves over my armour.

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What you see on the picture is actually a kazaghand - a type of Oriental armour, consisted of maille, sewn between layers of fabric. I post it here, because my jacket is made, using it as a model (just fabric, no maille). The other option is a light (I mean - unpadded) kaftan over the armour.
It protects the armour well - already tested with my old yushman. The only problem could be the protection of the bazubands.

Now, everything on the breastplate is ready

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and today I started to assemble it.
I checked my previous posts and found that I've never shown the outer panels of the breastplate. These trapezoidal rows were made when the backplate was made. I show them just now, because I think they belong here - when we discuss the breast, not the back.

It's stunning! It almost seems like a shame to have to cover it up for combat.

The breastplate is ready

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The back- and breastplates of the cuirass after the assembly

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The front

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The front again; just slightly different view - with mandalmalar locked and leather strap done

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And finally - the back

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Again beautiful work. :D :cool:

Whoa, it sure looks beautefull! Very, very nice work on this project!

Your documentation of this project has been stellar. Thank you for doing this.

stupid question perhaps , but how are you intending to close of the shoulders? There's no place for straps and the like on the front part, and there seems no clear place for the neck...

Johan,

Your question is not stupid, you just think as an European/North American - I mean you see this armour through your knowledge of the Western ones.

Please, have a look on this classical example of 15th C. yushman (again Askeri Muze in Istanbul - one of my favourites regarding Oriental arms and armour) and you will answer yourself

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There are two yushman armours in Topkapi Museum, Istanbul, arranged in manner, which allows the visitor to observe their front and back simultaneously. Unfortunatelly for me, the Armour Chamber was closed for repairs during my two visits in Istanbul and I haven't my picture to share, but you can see them here

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=8890

post#14 by Micha Hofmann

So, the back- and breastplates are connected with maille, there are maille sleeves and collar also. This makes the armour very flexible and relatively light.