help with brigandine nails

[Sephty]

Hello esteemed friends, I'm looking for some advice on a project I'm working on with my father. Who can tell me what nails I should be using for the construction of a set of brigandine; if possible where I may buy these nails from Very grateful in advance for your learned wisdom Sephty

[deBrownhill]

Hi,
firstly, what style of brigandine armour are you making and for what era? Upholstry tacks are what you are looking for, something with a broad head and narrow shank.
David

[Sephty]

Pretty sure its 15th c pattern

[deBrownhill]

the style that looks like a fitted sleaveless doublet and has a large number of small plates? then it would be upholstry tacks in triplets per plate. What are you using for the outer shell?
David

[Sephty]

That's right yes, were using doubled over sail cloth

[deBrownhill]

Good luck with that. As I said you want a broad headed narrow shanked nail/tack for this so that it doesn't pull through the fabric.
David

[Sephty]

Appreciate all the help thanks man

[Colin Middleton]

I'm guessing that you'll want a washer on the side that you pein over too.

[deBrownhill]

If the plates are to the inside with no inner shell then washers would only be needed if the heads of the tacks/nails arent quite broad enough. The nails could simply be peined over on the plates themselves.
David

[Sephty]

Hmmmm interesting

[Thomas Hayman]

From the Brigs i've seen the nails are clenched on the rear without an inner layer of fabric. Seems to have worked rather well.

[RICHARD.D46]

You could try copper roofing nails.B + Q sell these cheap enough,they can be easily cut to the required length,and, due to the nature of copper are really easy to peen over(washers are useful,but as has been said,you can get by without).I 've got some that I 've used for something similar and found them easy to work with.You could get copper rivets from a leather work store/shop but these are prohibitively expensive if you want hundreds and hundreds of ther things.As an aside.........I 've got a short length of railway track I use as a miniature anvil for working the copper nails........it's very handy ....

R.

[Strickland]

Found this useful for brig construction ideas.

http://www.eskimo.com/~cwn/brig_craig1.html


Neil

[The_Maille_Tailor]

Also, I'd go for sqaure washers rather than round ones. Much more period.
They're dead easy to make from a strip of 3/8" (10mm) wide steel bar.
Good luck!

[Colin Middleton]

From the Brigs i've seen the nails are clenched on the rear without an inner layer of fabric. Seems to have worked rather well.

Just a random thought, but do we think that the brigs were made without a lining, or that the plates were rivited to the front, then a separate lining added (without the nails through it)? This lining is likley to have fallen out over the interveining years and gone missing.

Just strikes me that you'd want the cloth to help protect your clothes from the plates.

Best wishes

[deBrownhill]

my understanding is that they did not have a lining.

[The_Maille_Tailor]

Hope this helps? http://www.flickr.com/photos/25639089@N08/2453920809/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25639089@N ... otostream/
It seems the nails are clenched against the plates, and a section of liner exists on the top R/H of the image.
Also, carpet tacks seem a safe bet due to the proof in the image above.

[Sephty]

Thank you for all your help! back to the anvil

[Skevmeister]

From the Brigs i've seen the nails are clenched on the rear without an inner layer of fabric. Seems to have worked rather well.

Just a random thought, but do we think that the brigs were made without a lining, or that the plates were rivited to the front, then a separate lining added (without the nails through it)? This lining is likley to have fallen out over the interveining years and gone missing.

Just strikes me that you'd want the cloth to help protect your clothes from the plates.

Best wishes

Colin, RA have some late 15th Early 16th plates that were threaded on diagonal string and then the face was covered and the back was covered and the plates where supported in between.

For most though, I believe that maintenance would have been much harder if the back was covered in the event that you needed to patch or repait it. And you would have more than likely worn some padding or extra shirt underneath it anyway.

Can you imagine hemming a lining into a brig?

[Colin Middleton]

Can you imagine hemming a lining into a brig?

Why would that be hard? Aren't you just sewing the lining to the facing, like you would for any other garment? That can then easily be unpicked to do repairs and replaced. It might be a bit more tricky if you've got a leather facing, but still not that hard.

[Chris T]

Modern nails with are sold for furniture tend to have heads made separate, which fall off when hit, leaving nasty sharp ends.

It is quite a lot of work: as always the best advice is to use decent materials....it may cost a bit more,(but also may be cheaper) but makes a better product that lasts longer, and they often save effort.
Solid rivets are available, if you want the heads can be reworked, depending on exactly what you are making.

[cloudy-cola-corp]

For my brig I used copper clout nails cut down to size (make sure they are pure copper though not steel with a copper plating) through the leather outer then piened directly onto the steel plates in the triples pattern. that has worked well .

[Mark Griffin]

my understanding is that they did not have a lining

They did. Even examples with none in now show signs of something having been sewn in. Or it would abrade whatever was worn underneath. And I must have handled over 30 of the blighters.

Get the Tyrol Castles brigandine symposium book. All the pretty pictures you will ever need, wonderful.

[deBrownhill]

Hi,
would it be possible to have the full name or isbn for the book you mentioned.
Thanks
David

[gr ben]

hi the isbn is 88-901142-3-1 the book is in german and italian but stil a goog book loads of pictures