New Knight Shop Sparring Gloves

[admin]

Yep. Any steel sparring sword should either have a rolled tip or an added safety tip in my opinion and I enforce that at my classes and events.

[craftyfighter]

A good and sensible solution.

[nathan]

maybe an idea to make it the norm for all tournaments etc?

[Joeli]

A fine idea. I would recommend a washer inside the tip, though. Even though a committed thrust will go through both the washer and the rubber tip, it will resist thrusts a great deal more than the rubber tip alone. That tends to screw up the handling characteristics though. Less so with a rolled tip.

[Thearos]

Forgive the silly question: is there any sense to fitting tips to wooden and nylon wasters ? Or is the idea to make the "point" of the sparring weapon so thick that there is no risk of slipping past glove joints etc. ? (so that a wooden waster does not need a rubber tip; I assume a plastic waster would flex rather than stab through)

[Dangermouse]

And I thought it was just a friendly tournament next weekend... Now I realise we're being used as guinea pigs. Excellent!
See you at the weekend

Ha ha it is still a "friendly" tournament - just going to encourage lots of hand sniping

[Dangermouse]

Do they fit inside the baskets?

They do indeed

[Cutlery Penguin]

Do they fit inside the baskets?

They do indeed

Marvelous!

[Dangermouse]

Hello Chaps

We had the practice tournament on the weekend and put the new gloves through their paces. Many thanks to all involved. There was a good mix of fighters in the event (including tournament winners) and a good mix of styles. The gloves were optional and some people stuck with their own (which did result in a trip to casualty with a broken finger).

In all feedback was good. There were no hand injuries for people wearing the gloves although the results are a little skewed on account of the Velcro on the gloves not proving strong enough for tournament use (although had worked fine during testing). As such we are going to move to buckles which will be much stronger. As a consequence the gauntlets use only lasted as long as the Velcro held out.

Looking forward to testing them at FightCamp once the modifications have been made.

[Dangermouse]

For the last 6 + months we have been researching different types of hand protection from different periods and cultures from around the world. Fortunately hands have not changed much over the last 3,000 years! The weapons may have changed but the concept of protecting the hands from damage has not.

Our research has mainly been conducted with the Royal Armouries and designers that produce protection for the Police and Military.

From the offset we came to the conclusion that there are 3 ways to protect the hands – padded protection, hard shell protection or a combination of both. Currently people favour lacrosse gloves for HEMA use. They are well padded, cheap and readily available. However, the padding is designed to protect from blunt trauma wounds from a rounded lacrosse stick (similar to a baton). The edge of a sword, whether it be steel or plastic is much thinner and the force is transferred to a much smaller area than that of a rounded stick. As such the padding can be compressed to the point where the force is transferred to the hand. Once the force reaches the hand, broken bones or bruising are the result.

Of course more and more padding can be added to combat this but then you end up with an excessively bulky glove. So padding on its own is not the ideal – unless of course you can find a material with magical properties like D30. This material is supposed to be the equivalent of something like 5 times the depth of padding in foam. Works well with batons but is pretty useless with weapons with a small point of contact like swords.

Padded lacrosse type gloves are favoured because of the relative ease of manufacture. It only requires material, some foam and a sewing machinist. As such designs can be changed easily and there is little set up costs. However, in my mind this is offset by the relative lack of protection.

I have always favoured hard shell protection. It gives much better protection but is more expensive to produce (a nice analogy is to look at knights in plate armour and levies etc. in quilted armour). To my mind, rather than try and reinvent the wheel, we looked at what they were using in the day (being the late middle ages to early renaissance). It seemed that from the cheapest (mass produced civil war bridle arms) to some of the finest armours in Europe (in the Royal Armouries collection) that the system of overlapping finger plates was by far the most favoured system of finger protection.

This was our starting point. However, we found that there were two different styles of overlapping plate. 80% of the gauntlets in the Armouries had the plates overlapping from knuckles to fingertips. The remaining 20% overlapped the other way. Was there an advantage with either style? We prototyped both and found with quite little use that the plates in the minority style gloves caught the sword blades when hit and this resulted in plates being ripped from the fingers. So we now knew which configuration we were running with.

Now, having examined original gauntlets (with the original linings and gloves) it was apparent that the plates were riveted to a leather backing and then stitched to the gloves. No padding. The technology was there to add padding but they obviously felt this was not needed. In short, the plates gave sufficient protection on their own. As such we have not added any padding to the fingers on our prototypes.

Now came the back of the hand. Many of the original gauntlets had multiple articulated plates. However, this would prove too expensive to produce (at this stage) so we looked at a solid plate like the ones on the Wisby gauntlets. These have proved more than adequate and provide a high level of protection at what will be a low level of production cost. As the plate spreads the impact of the weapon across its surface the force is dissipated nicely – however, we have added a layer of Deflexion padding to take away the sting of the impact.

The bell style cuffs have also been taken from the Wisby gauntlets and provide a high level of protection with unimpeded movement.

We set out to produce a glove that was:

1) Less bulky than lacrosse gloves
2) Affordable (£50-£75 is less than a decent pair of lacrosse gloves)
3) Available in kit form to drive the price down even further
4) Offer a better level of protection than lacrosse gloves
5) Suitable for steel and synthetic sparring
6) Look good whilst not looking too modern/Space Marine-eque! (originally we were going to cover the gloves in material with embroided branding etc but this would bump the price up and we like them without.)

I am hoping that these prototypes and the finished products tick all of the above boxes.

[Dangermouse]

Protptype Images:



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They will be available with different colour gloves (and available without gloves for those who want to use their own).

The plastic used our own blend of high impact plastic but will also be available in polycarbonate.

[Dangermouse]

Of course questions, suggestions and criticisms are welcome as always

[admin]

Hey Bryan - I'll let others bombard you with comments and questions (I'm especially expecting questions about the sides and ends of the fungers here), but I just have one - Having spent quite a lot of years playing with steel gauntlets of this and similar styles, the common problem seems to be fitting - when this style of gauntlet doesn't fit properly, either because of different fist shapes or sizes, they can be very uncomfortable to wear, and hurt a lot when hit hard. How is that dealt with in this case?

[Dangermouse]

(I'm especially expecting questions about the sides and ends of the fungers here)

Ha ha so am I. Thing I don't get is that these guys were doing this for real. Full intent, sharp weapons, epic scale and yet they did not seem to adapt the tips of the fingers etc. Technology was there to do so. Question is "why did they not feel it was warranted?"

[Dangermouse]

Hey Bryan - I'll let others bombard you with comments and questions (I'm especially expecting questions about the sides and ends of the fungers here), but I just have one - Having spent quite a lot of years playing with steel gauntlets of this and similar styles, the common problem seems to be fitting - when this style of gauntlet doesn't fit properly, either because of different fist shapes or sizes, they can be very uncomfortable to wear, and hurt a lot when hit hard. How is that dealt with in this case?

Our gloves will be available in 3 to 4 different sizes (that is the leather glove and the protection - different numbers of plates on the fingers). As such if you have the right size your knuckles end up in the correct place (was this the case with the steel ones you have used?). There is also a layer of padding under the knuckles to make them even more comfortable.

You do feel the hit through the glove but it is not designed to remove pain completely - more to stop bones being broken/bruised. I have used steel, synthetics and a mallet on them. It hurts yes, but no broken bones I spar in a t-shirt and it can hurt a lot when hit, but this is the level of pain we accept with this sport(?)

[admin]

Thing I don't get is that these guys were doing this for real. Full intent, sharp weapons, epic scale and yet they did not seem to adapt the tips of the fingers etc. Technology was there to do so. Question is "why did they not feel it was warranted?"

Well, that's what mitten gauntlets were for I guess (which was what were used for foot tournaments, pollaxe etc). The fingers on fingered gauntlets have to be light-ish to enable the use of the reins for horse riding, I suppose, and later in the 16thC for using carbines, pistols etc.
But you are right that mittens didn't come along untikl the 15thC - everyone in the 14thC made do with fingered gauntlets, though I would say that the finger plates tend to be more curved than on some modern replicas (see the Black Prince effigy).

[admin]

Our gloves will be available in 3 to 4 different sizes

Aha, that answers my question then thanks.

[Dangermouse]

We did originally try running with mitten type gauntlets as they are easier to manufacture. But the demand was for fingered gauntlets so we have catered for this. The lamellar plates work very well for both protection and mobility. Measurements were taken from originals in the armouries collection.

[KeithFarrell]

A few questions:

1) you say they will be fastened with buckles. Are you meaning buckles like those commonly found on leather belts, or the snap-buckle type found on things like rucksacks?

2) how much protection do the gauntlets give against a heavy direct hit from a steel sword? You say the impact can be felt, but HOW uncomfortable is this? I'm particularly interested in the ability to protect against a direct hit to the wrist, to the back of hand and across the fingers.

3) roughly how much will it cost for a kit?

4) I will bite: how do the gloves protect against strikes to the tips and sides of fingers?


On the whole though, they look very sleek and professional, and I am looking forward to seeing them in person at FightCamp!

[Dangermouse]

A few questions:
1) you say they will be fastened with buckles. Are you meaning buckles like those commonly found on leather belts, or the snap-buckle type found on things like rucksacks?

Steel buckles found on armour. I am pretty sure quick release buckles would smash on contact with a sword. Of course there are alternatives that have not been looked into yet (buckles are not the easisest things to do up once the gauntlets are on) but we keep coming back to the original tried an tested designs.

2) how much protection do the gauntlets give against a heavy direct hit from a steel sword? You say the impact can be felt, but HOW uncomfortable is this? I'm particularly interested in the ability to protect against a direct hit to the wrist, to the back of hand and across the fingers.

Hard question to answer. There is the question of how uncomfortable and also ability to protect. I have every confidence in their ability to protect (against broken bones) although you can never say never. However, as with any impact, it is going to hurt. I can say that they provide better protection than my £100 lacrosse gloves and the impact is felt less. The gloves are still work in progress and we can easily add more high density foam under the plates if people find the impact too painful.

3) roughly how much will it cost for a kit?

Parts are cheap (injection moulded), labour for assembly is not (unless we move it to China/India which I don't want to do). Kits should come in at around half the cost of the finished gloves. Also, purchasing the assembled gauntlets without the leather gloves will be cheaper.

4) I will bite: how do the gloves protect against strikes to the tips and sides of fingers?

.........as well as the originals. Yet to take a full blow to the finger tip in sparring whilst wearing them. I imagine they are better than lacrosse gloves though.

On the whole though, they look very sleek and professional, and I am looking forward to seeing them in person at FightCamp!

I think they are getting there but will benefit from more feedback