More questions

[Jim McCoin]

Greetings, I have seen a couple references to the brass hinges on the shoulders on the Lorica being weak and failing. I believe I read this also was a failing on the original armor.

For those of you who build your own armor, what thickness of brass do you use and what diameter hinge pin do you use.

Hobnails? I have searched the net for longer nails all I can find are 1/2".
I need at least 5/8 or 3/4. Are there any suppliers I missed?

Thanks

Jim McCoin

[Matt Lukes]

Hi Jim,

Real hinges were made from brass about 0.015" thick, and the pins are about 3/16" in diameter- so that's what I use for my hinges.

As for hobnails, the large cone head nails you can get here: [url:1bysumpf]http://www.najecki.com/repro/Shoes.html[/url], even with the 3/8" shank, appear to me to be the most accurate you can get. Actually measuring images of an real caliga sole with its hobnails intact and a close-up of a lone original hobnail, it seems to me that they were only about 6.35mm (1/4") in diameter, 3.3mm (0.15") high (head), with a shank that is about 8.5mm (5/16") long. Now of course it is possible some Roman hobnails were larger, but it can certainly be shown that there were some that were the size of those you can buy on this website. And they're not terribly expensive either...

Matt