News - Transitional Armour Kit “Bird of Prey”

For decades, the armoured combats have evoked courage and creativity – that is exactly the ArmStreet’s way. Our team of knowledgeable and skillful smiths and designers is eager to help you feel like a participant at the Hundred Years War battlefield! From the versatile “Hound Of War” armour harness, new transitional armour lineup is definitely up to the challenge, whether it’s LARP, SCA, BotN or elsewhere.

If you’re in the market for reliability with a little spice of luxury – check the all-new “Bird of Prey” armour addition. Presented in March 2017, it offers an even wider range to choose from, with six new products available in an infinite set of colors and styles.

Its composed look describes the transitional armor type used in Europe around the 14-15th centuries, as body armor moved from simple mail hauberks to full plate. Sharp design with a slim-fit brigandine body, conical couters, and powerful shell-articulated poleyns reflects self-confident nature of the harness. The Bird collection follows the Hound of War, still it strikes out on its own, being even more impulsive.

Leather brigandine as a form of coat of plates armour is a convenient way to carry overlapping metal segments. It provides full coverage still bending with ease, though after producing three of this kind we can say it's trickier than it looks. Making of the Bird armour brought us a few revelations which we feel greatly contributed to our skill improving. One realization was that the sole size of the steel plates isn't enough if we wanna beat plate cuirasses in agility qualities. It takes an immense skill to design, shape and polish the plates so evenly to keep the fabric lining and leather outer safe and sound. Experimentation with lots of methods allowed close-fit and pliability.

The use of multiple materials is the key stylistic element of the transitional armour. As exemplified by the Bird, a kit could employ steel gorget, pauldrons, couters and poleyns, while rerebraces and vambraces, cuisses and schynbalds are leather studded with steel splints. We've decided to take a step further to the veg tanned leather, which is a completely unique material.

Vegetable tanning is performed with oak bark and other hardening agents derived from plants to impart leather ductility, strength, and exclusive wear resistance. The result is an elastic material, which allows precise forming. The use of various materials gave the armor different coloring, textures and more elegant appearance.

Experimenting with various forms of rigid neck defense to substitute chain mail coif, we've found ourselves making leather covered gorget, again. Presented in two modifications, with stand-up high collar and without one, it prepares you for taking the battlefield by storm. Concealed metal plates with innovative fastener system strengthen the sensation of sporting agility, while tooled ornament is a true eye-catcher! It's authentic-looking ornithomorphic ornament depicting birds, flowers, and plants, developed by our designers to adorn the leather outer shell as it befits knightly harness. It's complemented by dozens of intricately shaped hand-cast solid brass rivets.

The thing about an armour of such price tier is that you should know what do you pay for, so we've done some math and hope you'll find the results expressive, same as we did. Creation of only ONE “Bird of Prey” full armor takes about 7.5 square meters of plain genuine leather and more than 10 square meters of veg tanned leather! We've preferred it for the embossed splint arms and legs armour not only for its outstanding strength, but also because embossing of a pattern abounding in small details can be performed much more qualitatively on its surface. Shaping it to create anatomically correct greaves involves special forms, kind of wooden boot tree lasts used in the production of footwear, but higher. Once the tanning is complete, the leather is then dyed manually to get color variations and needs to be treated with particular solutions to fix the pattern.

All the stainless splints are cut from metal sheets, then cold forged, cleaned and polished by hand - and you still believe that takes hours, not weeks of patient labor? Then let us introduce: 1530 brass rivets. And it's not a typo, you need 4 rivets for fixing each of the 350th brigandine plates, and up to 8 to attach the splints, so that they hold tight even if an enemy blow has caught you off guard.

More than fifteen hundred rivets are hand cast from brass, then carefully cleaned and handled to give more clarity to the product - some jewelry billets are manufactured the same way, so we'd say the Bird of Prey is quite a diamond rock! Their advantage is solid construction and thus strength, as well as that they are completely immune to corrosion, which simplifies the care and allows you to keep the armor in its original condition for years to come. That's how our team ditches the unrefined basic armour in favor of something a bit more sophisticated.

Edgy medieval elegance and custom-sized adjusting will certainly enhance your fighting experience. Wear transitional armour to double the safety in your swordfight practice. Get this bird into your hand, and you won’t need those two in the bush! To learn more about our quality lineup of “Bird of Prey” collection, contact us today at contact@armstreet.com or online using our contact form.