Hello everyone! My name is Paul and I am a new member here! I was hoping to get some guidance from someone much more knowledgeable than I about the current topic at hand. I am looking to put together a suit of armor for recreational purposes, like medieval festivals or dressing up for Halloween. I will be using a typical padded gambeson with maille as the base for the kit to keep it somewhat, and I use this term loosely, historically accurate, but along the way I have decided that the plate portion of the armor will be a bit more in the realm of fantasy. I would like to use a cuirass and matching gorget/pauldrons from a company called Stahlgilde. Here is the armor set that I am looking at...

[ Linked Image ]

I plan on purchasing the Hand and a Half Sword and matching dagger from Cold Steel to go with this to complete the set, but I am not sure if having the sword belt go on the outside of the armor is correct. Normally, if it was just the breastplate, the belt would cinch directly underneath the edge of the metal, but with the tassets in place I feel like the belt would interfere. I have not been able to find any pictures that show a sword belt over top of the tassets...the only images I find are of sword belts that cinch closed directly over the maille or hold together a tabard/surcoat. Can anybody point me in the right direction? Thanks so much for your time, it is greatly appreciated!

Easy to find pictures of sword belts over faulds, and you should be able to find some above the flange where the bottom of the breast and back is flanged. But for this particular armour, I don't think that'll work. Depending on how down the tassets come, you might be able to wear a swordbelt under the cuirass/tassets, with the sword either to the rear, behind the tassets, or below the tassets. Below won't work so well if they come below the point of the thighbone.

Otherwise, consider a baldric instead of a swordbelt. It's a common historical choice for armours of breast + two large tassets (like pike armours).

Timo: Thanks for the quick reply! Under normal circumstances I would agree that a baldric would be the best and easiest solution to my dilemma, however, there is another complication with that...
There is another piece of the costume that I am planning on wearing and it is a medieval-ish type cloak that I am hoping will 'enhance' the look, for lack of a better term. This one in particular...

[ Linked Image ]

I can only imagine that the wearing of this cloak will not allow the use of the baldric as the fabric will cover the entire thing. Drawing the sword will be impossible unless the cloak is off. I am thinking that a better option now is to find out if the tassets can be removed, or to find a breastplate that does not utilize tassets at all. Maybe another option would be to ditch the breastplate altogether, and find a gorget that drops down really low to cover areas like the sternum? And then couple that gorget with a matching pauldron set? Oh, I am so confused...Any insight would be most helpful! Thanks!

I don't see why a cloak like that would stop a baldric from working. I think a baldric would work better with it than a sword belt, because you can have the sword with the hilt in front of you and fairly high where the cloak won't stop you from reaching it. The sword could also hang fairly vertically, so it won't interfere with the cloak.

Since you're going mail+gambeson as a base, and have some interest in historical accuracy, you could go for a more historical breastplate. Such as:
http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=...tury+Armor
although that's perhaps too expensive for a limited use costume piece. It won't get in the way of a sword belt, and it should work well with a large cloak.

Timo: I think I understand a little better why you recommended the baldric. For some reason I was under the impression that a baldric was designed for a larger sword to be hung on the back and therefore, drawn by reaching your hand behind your head and over the shoulder to get to the hilt. After actually taking the time to search I found that some of the baldrics will allow the sword to be mounted very close to the hip, which is a desired location for me. There might be a small problem, however, in that the sword ends up sitting almost vertical. This may cause a slight conflict as I am only 6 feet tall and my hip to feet length is shorter than hip to head. With the Cold Steel sword having a total length of 45 1/2 inches, the sword needs to be at a decent (probably 30-45 degree) angle to keep the tip of the sheathe from dragging on the ground. Couple this with the fact that I want to also carry the matching dagger on the opposite side so I don't think the baldric will work for me :( ...

As far as budget, I am not limiting myself on price to obtain specific items. I don't plan on spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to make an armor costume that will see the light of day maybe 2 or 3 times a year, but spending upwards of $500 for armor doesn't scare or deter me from getting it. I also went back to search for some images of sword belts being used with plate armor and came across a really nice armor set that features a girl standing in the snow with full plate armor and a red cape...

[ Linked Image ]

I love the look of this! The sword belt does not seem out of place here like it does with the cuirass that I want to use, and this girl is obviously wearing a cuirass...you can even see the tassets hanging from it! You wouldn't happen to know who makes that armor, would you? I assume that I could make another thread for that topic if need be...

Needlessly to say, I am still kinda confused. I am torn between keeping my armor historically accurate and adding a flair of the fantastical. Guess I will just have to keep looking around!

The Effigies showing sword belt

[ Linked Image ]

[ Linked Image ]

[ Linked Image ]

[ Linked Image ]

Ok, after some detective work (by scrolling through some comments on pinterest) I was able to find the username of the person who owns the armor shown in the picture that I posted with the girl in the snow. Supposedly, the cuirass was 2.5mm thick stainless steel and was purchased from a friend of his (they all live in Sweden) but the maker is unknown. The arm and leg armor came from Epic Armory under the Balthasar Collection, which has been discontinued. The gorget, pauldrons, lower leg greaves and helmet were all purchased from Oaklake. He didn't specify how long ago he bought the armor, but some searching of those companies revealed that none of the armor pieces taken in that picture are currently being offered at this time.

So back to the drawing board for me...I have noticed a trend where I find a set of pauldrons/gorget that I like, but the matching breastplate is kinda meh, or I find a cuirass that looks really nice but nothing else really seems to go with it. Does anybody know of any other sites that specialize in LARP/Fantasy style armor that I could look at. Thanks again for all your help!

If you're not too fussed about doing it the historical way, you could try using the Japanese method -- wrap a long sash around your body (at least twice around) and then stick the sword in at a shallow angle through the layers of the sash. It might work better with cuirasses that don't have the historical European shape with a pronounced waist and sharply flared-out faulds.

A couple of later examples showing how important it is to have flared faulds or tassets to comfortably seat a sword-belt over the armour.

---

 Attachment: 36.75 KB



 Attachment: 58.65 KB

Look at the plate armor on Kult of Athena , Medieval Collectibles , and Epic Armory. They have a lot of cool stuff....some all the same , but they also have some different items as well. Just my two cents...........McM

Oh.......I forgot Armstreet armoury..........pricey, but cool. .............McM