Hello all,
I have a question about 17th century armour production. I'm doing some
research into the quality of two breastplates (one from ca. 1630 and one
from ca. 1650) and I was wondering what is known about the armour
production in that time. Does anyone have references to any book or
article that discusses this matter? Or does anyone know by heart what,
how and why? (or has some good foundations on which an assumption can be
based?)
Specifically I would like to know whether (hot) milling was already in
practice for making plates, or that only (water powered) hammering was
applied to flatten pieces of iron (or steel, but that seems to be out of
(common) use in the seventeenth century). I assume now that the iron
that was used for armour was made in a blast furnace followed by a
finery process, or was bloomiron still more common around 1630-1650? The
breastplates I have are presumably made in Germany and Holland, though
it is likely, especially in the latter case that the iron was produced
elsewhere, and maybe was even delivered as plates of indefinate
thickness to the armourworkshops. I know that the dutch republic was a
very large producing and exporting centre for weapons and arms in the
17th century.
Is anything known about these practises?
I have put some results on my research on a website, for those
interested, also people who can help me with the stylistic dating of the
breastplates, that would be appreciated.
The site: http://www.materials.tudelft.nl/breastplate/index.htm
Thanks,
Sylvia
|