Experiments With Gauntlets
Lord Ranyart Boarsbane

        With all the new fighters in our group gauntlets have become the single most needed piece of armor. Those of us with hockey gloves have been passing them around at fighter practice. The effect of this is a very few very worn hockey gloves that are rapidly becoming unsafe.

        The only pattern I have is one copied from Sir Polidore in 1975. So on the first attempt I followed Polidore's instructions (scanty though they were) and made a mitten gauntlet from 16 ga. steel. By the letter of the pattern - back of hand and fingers were ok, but didn't leave much room for padding. It looked like it might be painful to get hit on the fingers. I also had trouble getting my hand through the bell cuff. The thumb proved to be totally unuseable. The piece over the base of the thumb had to be bigger so I started over from there putting a rider over each knuckle with smaller plates between. Then I put some padding on it and a glove. Lo and behold the wrist motion was atrocious. It was great forward and back but nothing gave side to side. Well, it was a good experiment, but had some drawbacks - the wrist, the thumb and it also weighed about 3.5 pounds!

        Next I decided to use 18 ga. steel to save on weight. I made the finger lames a little wider and graduated the width of each to make the overlap even, unlike Polidore's in which all lames are the same size. This allowed more room for padding and covered the sides of the hand better. I made the back of the hand a bit wider as well so that with padding and glove the edges of the lames will rest on the grip of your weapon. You just touch and not have to pull against the gauntlet to hold the weapon. Now the wrist - I cut slots so the rivets could slide when your wrist moved side to side. This was much better but still bound up at full extension. Then the thumb - the original pattern was used but enlarged to cover more. My first attempt was not safe, so I revamped the pattern entirely. I then made the bell cuff bigger to allow one's hand to be gotten in and out more easily. This came out very well, quite useable, so I passed it on to Mikhail Stanislav. He seems to like it and the weight was much more reasonable, but still a little heavy for my taste.

        Third try - street sign aluminum. I did the fingers the same as previously except the knuckle rider had to be pounded instead of folded. The fold did not work with metal as thick as a street sign. At this point I went to work on the wrist - tried larger with longer slots - no good at all. So I taped the end away from the thumb to allow greater overhand flex - still no good. It dug into the wrist when closed. Then I tried a much smaller tapered piece and it worked. It doesn't bind up anywhere. I made the base of the thumb piece a little bigger (wider) and it worked great and the weight was better still. With straps and gloves it is 2 oz. heavier than my hockey glove. Now that I worked out the other problems, I noticed one more, although it is not severe. Your fingers close into a grip at an angle down and away from the thumb.

        So the next try involved tapering the finger lames away from the thumb which made the articulation more difficult but also made the gauntlet close on the correct axis so it wouldn't pry your little finger off the sword at full extension. This is the final pattern for this type of gauntlet. It works great and it isn't very heavy. So the results have been good. I had to make four gauntlets to get it right and I made them all right handed and have given my prototypes to fighters who needed them. My next will be a pair for me and a couple of left handed gauntlets as we now have three left handed fighters in the group now.

        Well, that's it. I found that construction of one gauntlet from start to finish took about 5 hours, but the time continues to decrease with each one I make. The last only took 2 hrs. and this includes cutting all the pieces (count on one more hour if you cut with a sabre saw). Aluminum seems the best medium for weight and rigidity, although it does make them a little bulkier, but I think the weight difference makes up for it.

Good Luck

Ranyart