Many thanks again to Martyn, Dave, Kev and Paul!
The Medieval Knights were certainly a heck of a lot fitter than your average person of today, that's for sure!
They were of course 'professionals' just like today's athletes and more like the Samurai of Japan in that the poor old peasants did all the hard work of growing the food on the table leaving the knights to spend many hours a day just practising the skills and building up their strength. The armour itself was far lighter than many realise and a fully armoured knight could easily get to his feet again if unhorsed or knocked to the ground.
The historical advisors on the 1940's Laurence Olivier film of Henry V tried valiantly to have the scene of a French knight being hoisted onto his horse by a crane jib deleted as such things never happened - but the producers liked the scene and in it stayed!
OK, before I start seeing double again, here we go!
Before starting the epic saga of applying Frederick’s ring mail to the model, there were a couple of loose ends to finish off.
Photo 1 shows the ‘white leg’ with the
Humbrol Maskol removed from the polished tin greave tops. These will be left in the polished metal effect and later varnished over with the overall
Humbrol Blue-Grey Enamel Wash which will be applied to both the metal new parts and the silver leafed plastic original sections. This shot also shows some of the shadowing applied with the
Citadel Ink washes behind the knee (not that you can see much of this once the mail is in place!)
Photo 2 illustrates Frederick’s upper arm, showing the black spray paint sanded off from the section where his new metal plate will fit, the one seen on the floor below. You can also see the off-white colour of his arming jacket, which was painted on over the matt black primer coat. Finally in
Photo 3, we have a glimpse of the
Vallejo Red Leather ‘boot’ visible under one of his Sabatons. This is only apparent on one of the feet as the other is positioned ‘closed up’, hiding the interior. Both do have the heels and soles painted in the red leather too however.
With this completed, the nightmare begins!
First of all, meet yet another innovative new tool –
Mr Spready! This was so easy to produce – its actually the waste part from a piece of stretched sprue which, I think was probably from the wicker work fencing made up in the Messines diorama. I was using cocktail sticks for this process but after a few goes they were wearing down so this little chap does a much more uniform job of splitting open the previously closed up wire rings to create the ‘joiner’ ring. Maybe I should have called this my Sauron tool (“
One ring to bind them all etc etc”!) The composite
Photo 4 illustrates the process, simply slip the closed ring over the tip, push it down the widening shaft until the ring is forced to open up and then slip it off as in the final shot. It does also require a quick press with the bottom of the aluminium knife handle to flatten it down at the end.
At this point I have to make a confession – although I stated earlier that I had decided on making the ring sections in groups of 3 in 1 (three soldered rings attached to a forth joiner) as the ring production progressed I got better at it!
In the end I went back to the groups of five rings as you can see in
Photo 6. The intention was to begin with the legs, but as I mentioned earlier again, the way these sections of mail are applied, sticking (excuse the pun!) to
just the legs was not possible and so at the same time, I’m also adding some sections to the shoulders and arms whenever the situation demands. The first of the shoulder sections is shown in
Photo 5, as you can see here, this is the 5 group type. Now what
should happen is the soldered and flattened groups as seen in
Photo 6 again should remain pressed together in a solid bunch so that I can gently pick them up on the tip of the tiny varnish holding paintbrush and apply them straight on to the varnish painted area on the model. Note I say
should! What actually happens is that about 50% of them behave themselves and do that, the other half either fold up into a nasty little pile of joined rings as I pick them up, or else allow themselves to be moved to Frederick and
then become a varnish covered ball of rings! Either way, it just means they have to be re-arranged back into the ‘butterfly’ shape and re-flattened (not as easily as the first time with all that sticky varnish on them!) It’s frustrating and time consuming but I haven’t had to waste any ‘fivers’ yet – although one did go AWOL off the worktop after I’d re-worked the darned thing for the third time and out of pure spite I refused to go looking for it!
Photos 7 to
10 illustrates the long, time consuming procedure under way. For example, the difference between
Photos 9 and
10 represents about ten hours of work! The ring groups have to be applied as far away from each other as possible, getting anywhere near a set previously applied before the varnish has dried completely is fatal as I discovered on the other knight used as a test bed for the procedure, an accidental touch with the paintbrush (now covered in rapidly ‘sticky-fying’ varnish is almost guaranteed to pull the first group off again.
The technique therefore was to do a group here, do the next at the opposite end of the leg, do the next on the other leg, turn Frederick over (avoiding all the groups like the plague – didn’t always work though!) and then apply to the other side of the legs, finally sticking a few isolated groups up on the shoulders when all the leg positions were occupied (see
Photo 12).
Photo 11 shows the back of the knee area in more close up illustrating how the eventually joining up groups give the impression of a complete set of mail. I eventually found that the secret to speeding up the process was mass production. Instead of making up a few sets of rings at a time, it was better to put up with the boredom (and the eye strain) and mass produce as many soldered rings as I could. Then I could carry on and make up the fiver groups by the dozen. The pot of ready rings in
Photo 13 was the result of one such forced work session, in actual fact I then went on to treble the amount seen here for a final assault on the leg sections which were finally completed today.
As I’ve been working through this stage I’ve been having strange ‘fluttering’ sensations in my eyes, not painful at all but just annoying. I had a fairly good idea what it was and what was causing it and fortunately I took Mum into the Royal Eye Infirmary for her annual check up on Friday and was able to get a crafty ‘consultation’ from the Optician! As I thought the fluttering sensation was tired eye muscles – nothing at all to worry about, the Optician told me. In a few days I’ll be past the mail completely – my eyes can rest then!
Finally, in
Photo 14 we have the completed leg section (the flags are out!) I now just have the rest of the shoulders and arms to finish, but with the legs done I can also begin to add the metal plates at the bottom of the skirt and start the process of silver leafing the leg armour at last.
In the next instalment, getting on with that leafing!
Until then Happy Modelling to you All!
Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
First wooden ship:
The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second:
Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third:
HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale
Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault
Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
US
