[Sean Flynt]

For a long time, I've wanted to put together a basic 15th c. infantry kit--munition stuff, nothing fancy, but properly fitted to me.

Dean Motoyama posted about a two-piece breastplate last year, and provided some great details about fit and construction: http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=331...ight=fauld
That info and the $100 price convinced me to give this a try as a project.

I got the medium size in this armour from KultofAthena: http://kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=SNSA9103

The first image below shows the armour as I got it.

This armour arrived pretty much ready to go for most costume or display purposes, but I had a few changes in mind to upgrade it. My task list for this project was as follows:

Trim shoulders by about 1"

Move buckles from sides to shoulders, and reverse shoulder straps.

Trim the central cusp from the single fauld lame that comes with the harness (useless by itself)

Make a three-lame fauld using the trimmed stock lame as a rough pattern (I eventually narrowed all the lames)

Trim the cusps from the plackart

Cut down the plackart terminal

add a hole above the central sliding rivet slot (to fix the plackart to the plastron--loose rivet to allow side-to-side movement)

eliminate sliding rivets on sides

trim a couple of inches off the bottom of the plastron to improve fit with plackart

refinish all

I'm happy with the result, especially because I didn't invest more than about $130 including the 16 ga. steel for the fauld. I might do the fauld a little differently next time, with straighter lower two lames to fit the hips more closely. The upside of the more flared construction shown here is that it doesn't require internal leather suspension.

The plastron is a bit flatter than the plackart, but remember that this is a very cheap piece. It would not be too difficult to refine that shape, but you can see from my above shot that the fit isn't bad at all at the top of the plackart.

I was able to reuse the rivets for the buckles and straps, adding my own domed rivets for the fauld construction.

[That last display shot isn't meant to be a 15th c. collection. The sword there would post-date this kit by many decades. The sallet and dagger would/could be contemporary with the breast.]

[Dean Motoyama]

Amazing upgrade, Sean! I wish I had your skills to do the same to my breastplate.

[Sean Flynt]

thanks! there's a certain amount of trial and error in that fauld, but a cheap throatless shear makes it easy to try again. i cut the first two lames to length without allowing for the extra distance each succeeding lame has to span. duh. best to leave them long until drilled and temporarily joined with bolts. then cut and clean up. ideally, make the fauld out of foam craft sheets first, adjust as needed and use that as the template.