I am somewhat interested in medieval armor and weapons, and I would like to start learning how to make this stuff...

Making real historical plate is hard as balls and you'll basically have to relearn all the old methods from scratch.
The main difference between modern and historical plate is that every piece on a proper historical suit was hand-rolled to different thicknesses (thicker in the center, thinner on the edges), in order to make the whole suit lighter without compromising protection (since the thinner sections tended to overlap each other).
Modern plate is uniform in thickness, causing a modern suit to weigh more and not be as comfortable.

This
Making authentic high/late medieval period plate armour requires lots of skill that you only acquire through years and years of practice. Just make simple mail shirts or scale armour as those aren't all too difficult to make with modern means and tools.

I'd say brigandine/jack-of-plates is the easiest to make, since it was historically designed to be easy to construct. The pieces came from discards or broken plate and were simply cut to the same length before being stitched or riveted to a bog-standard quilted gambeson. There was little swaging or rolling involved.

>Modern plate is uniform in thickness, causing a modern suit to weigh more and not be as comfortable.
That's assuming you match the maximum thickness of each plate, if you don't need all that protection you could keep the weight the same instead of reduce the maximum thickness down instead.

A not shit CoP or brigandine most definitely has the plates shaped to follow the contour of the body better, and while you could in theory make on with scrap metal and an old gambesson, I strongly doubt such was all that common. The CoP in particular exists in a time where full breastplates are just about starting to appear, so the supply of damaged ones to cut up would be severely limited. The shells used to hold the plates in place don't appear to have been anywhere near a full gambesson either, given that they are only mean to hold everything in place, and will probably be worn on top of your usual "arming" gambesson anyway.

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That would work as well, but the plates would have to be fitted and sewn pretty neatly overlapping each other so as to not hang loosely or create gaps. Whatever armour OP chooses to try his hands on he's going to be in for a lot of precision handiwork.

I was thinking of a brigandine style made from many narrow 'hoop'-like strips of metal, which, due to their small size, could (though admittedly weren't very often) be made out of recycled older pieces of armor.

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Ah, yes, that's what I was thinking of.

Ignore posters like They have nothing to live for and are just bitter

Indeed, which is why you had noted factories (employing dozens to hundreds of people) in renowned cities making this stuff, instead of individuals.

That'd make recycling a bit easier at least than some others. Dunno if it'll really save any work though. It may be easier if you don't have the facilities to work with larger plates of course, as that'd make a single piece breatsplate impossible for example. But assuming you can work a full breatsplate that may prove to be the easier route, as you "only" have to shape a few or even a single plate, instead of having to cut, drill/punch, file and dish a few hundred to play nice with all their neighbours and all together end up at the right shape. Historically we see a shift towards few, large plates both in Europe (ending in full plate and similar) and in Japan (as the lamellar was made with fewer, bigger pieces with less lacing, eventually ending with "full plate" breastplates) due to a number of reasons including ease of manufacture. And this despite lamellar for example begin a case where we often can get away with using mostly just flat plates of identical size, as opposed to the vast array of differently shaped plates used in a brigandine.

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Newsflash boys but for every master crafted set of armor there are ten thousand goblin tier helmets and breastplates rusting in a bog, that were by definition "authentic". If you are going to be a pseudo historian at least apply logic.

I thought the shift from brigandine to single large pieces occurred due to brigandine being useless against gunfire. The large, rounded and keeled breastplates like the one you posted could bounce all pistol shot, all unaimed (glancing) arquebus rounds and possibly one or two well-aimed ones.

Would a brig really be all that bad against guns, especially the ones with larger lung plates? Stopping bullets isn't purely a matter of deflection, simply having enough impact toughness matters too, and we do see as firearms get more popular that ever thicker breastplates show up. This won't do anything about the angle of impact, but it does increase the impact toughness. At the same time, assuming a brigandine can't be taken up too far there, the minimum thickness seen in breatsplates remain much the same, so it'd appear some at least didn't see any pressing need to be all that bullet-proof all the time.

Also worth keeping in mind perhaps is that the shape of the breastplate was often heavily determined by pure fashion, with the very bullet-resistant examples we find in the 17th century usually being far less bulged than that early 16th century example. They curve around the body, and that's about it.

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Helmets like the bascinet and skullcap (if that's what you call goblin tier helmets) were considered the standard poor-mans armour piece at the time worn by common soldiers. Any metal smith could craft a simple metal helmet shaped and fitted with padding and a leather strap. You needed an armourer and a team of apprentices to forge something like pic related.

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Armour was usually made by specialised craftsmen (though not all great masters of course). Knowing what to do well means you can do it a lot faster than those who can only barely get things right-ish, so the skilled smith can pay off even if you have to pay him a skilled worker's salary rather than an unskilled labourer's one. The cost of the materials also help "mask" the labour cost a bit. And so while most armour in the late medieval and renaissance period was indeed mass produced stuff sold by the dozens, hundreds or even thousands, that still means stuff like or this sallet here. A lot of work is saved compared to mid-range armour by not really bothering with any polishing, things were left "black from the forge", and sometimes painted.

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Basic grunt armour in the Graz armoury.

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Ill re surmise my post.

People sperg about how difficult it is to create full plate armor and by relation think its hard to create authentic medieval military equipment. But then again im sperging right now.

>Any metal smith could craft a simple metal helmet shaped and fitted with padding and a leather strap.

Is exactly the kind of thing Op might want to hear but these threads attract strange people with fantastical and extreme answers. Could you teach a chimp to make a spear head? Would learning practical blacksmithing take more time than mastering other difficult traditional skills? I know there were craftsman guilds for masonry and shit but how about blacksmithing?

Yeah, if you're referring to the 16th-17th centuries which many historians don't consider to be medieval times anymore.

That may be "grunt armor" in a specific node of history but you are educated enough to know there were people fighting in much more basic shit. Why try to lie to me friedo

>these threads attract strange people with fantastical and extreme answers
Welcome to every other thread on Jow Forums
>I know there were craftsman guilds for masonry and shit but how about blacksmithing?
There were guilds for every trade in the medieval times, chandeliers, cordwainers , brewers, fletchers, bakers, millers etc. you name an industry or trade and they pretty much had a guild for it. This was befor corporations and free trade principals. Guilds ensured quality control as well as gave people license to practice the trade. It was also worked like a union because you could settle grievances at guild meetings or ask for help if you fell on hard times. You would also hold a lot more influence than a common farmer or burgher because you're part of an important organisation.

Here are two YouTube channels with quite interesting stuff
youtube.com/channel/UCkmMACUKpQeIxN9D9ARli1Q
youtube.com/channel/UC9pgQfOXRsp4UKrI8q0zjXQ

The sallet's 15th century. Overall though examples form earlier on are difficult to present since we have very little armour preserved form back then. It's mostly later on that we do see decent amounts of preserved "grunt" armour, and what we see here is the kind of level that such armour would often have been at. To the best of my knowledge there's no evidence showing us that grunt armour form earlier on would be any cruder. We should also keep in mind that the cost of labour increased quite a lot in the first half of the 14th century.

Armour that's simpler and less well made will of course have seen some use at some point, but I don't think we have good reason to assume that to be the norm.

>I know there were craftsman guilds for masonry and shit but how about blacksmithing?

Not just blacksmithing, in the bits of the continent where craftsmen's guilds where a big thing you'd see knife makers' guilds, cutlers' guilds (ie the sword makers), armourers' guilds, and so on. In other places the specialised armourers, even if working without a rigid guild system, would still have been taught the same way any other craftsman was, they started as apprentices to the previous master. (This would be the case of the guild places too, the guild was the master's "union", not an organisation directly involved in training people.)

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What is the difference between a coat of plates and a brigandine ?

The CoP is the earlier take on the theme, less form fitting and with relatively large plates. It evolved into the brigandine, which is more "shapely" and consists mostly of smaller plates, though some have a two large plates at the front.

This and shows coats of plate, and brigandine.

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