Sunday, March 5, 2023

Greenwich armour project - Facts and figures.

Now that the Greenwich armour project is nearly finished, I thought I'd post some of the weights and totals of decoration and rivets used to complete the project. 

Time line of the project:
Started by Robert MacPherson in 2000  (Estimated, it may have been as early as 1998)
Stopped (due to injury) in 2008 or 2009
Started by Jeff Wasson in 05/2014
Last piece completed by Jeff, 12/2021
First etching test 10/2017
Last piece etched 08/2021

There are roughly 40 steps required to etch each piece of the armour, and there are over 160 pieces (Not counting the 84 finger lames) that make up this armour. 



Some figure related to the decoration;

Gold plated rivets 1,188
598 of these are capped rivets. (A separate larger diameter brass dome is soldered to the top of the rivet)


64 ft. of figure eight etching
66 ft. of wavy boarder etching
316 ft. of vine etching
Approximately 352,000 hand applied dots.....




I did around 100 etching tests to develop the etching paste, and used approximately;
100 lbs of Copper sulfate
100 lbs of fine salt
13lbs Charcoal





Here are the individual component weights:
(I'm 190cm / 6'3" - 123kg /270lbs)

 Armet - 2.61kg / 5.8lbs
 Field visor - 1.30kg / 2.9lbs
 Visor reinforce - 0.35kg / 0.8lbs
 Tilting visor 1.37kg / 3.0lbs
 Burgonet 2.82kg / 6.2lbs
 3-Bar grill 0.36kg / 0.8lbs
 Falling Buff 1.23kg / 2.7lbs
 Gorget 1.23kg / 2.7lbs
 Breastplate 3.45kg / 7.6lbs
 Backplate 2.04kg / 4.5lbs
 Fauld / Tassets 2.43kg / 5.3lbs
 Pauldron (ea.) 1.78kg / 3.9lbs
 Arm (ea.) 1.77kg / 3.9lbs
 Gauntlets (ea.) 0.83kg / 1.8lbg
 Cuisse (ea.) 1.58kg / 3.5lbs
 Greave / sabaton (ea.) 1.86kg / 4.1lbs
 Spurs (ea.) 0.05kg / 0.1lbs
 Lance rest w/ screws 0.32kg / 0.7lbs
 Grandguard 3.75kg / 8.3lbs
 Pasguard 1.62kg / 3.6lbs
 Manifer 1.20kg / 2.6lbs
 Locking Gauntlet 1.05kg / 2.3lbs
 Plackart 3.56kg / 7.8lbs
 Mail Sleeve (ea.) 3.10kg / 6.8lbs


 Here are the total weights for different configurations:


    Field - 29.04kg / 64.0lbs


Lancer (w/Plackart) - 29.06kg /  64.1lbs

   Infantry Captain - 19.95kg /  44.0lbs

     Tourney - 30.07kg / 66.3lbs

   Joust - 35.68kg / 78.7lbs


   Barriers -  21.85kg / 48.2lbs




Configured like the Buckhurst armour (A62) in the Wallace Collection - 29.62kg / 65.3lbs
(Note: the original weighs 32.03kg / 70.6lbs without linings)


A couple of side by side (A62 and my replica)

The completed garniture