To Study Armor

[Deleted]

Hi Tousando users. Recently, I've been reading into alot of armor restoration websites, Japanese and non Japanese. I had noticed a re-occuring theme; most of the apprentices to Japanese professional armor restorers are mostly American; including our late Lord Effingham. This has made me curious to the point of asking many people about this, including a few people here on Tousando who may have been in contact with Mr. Bryant.

I have never been involved with the SCA, nor have I had the interest to, due to registration fees and the money involved in the armor and weapon upkeep. I have been involved with the foam combat societies Dagorhir and Belegarth; societies which a good few of you may be familliar with. Anyway, back to the message, I recently have found that going to great lengths to make armor just to use it for the sake of having armor seems to be unrewarding for me anymore. I have burned with passion for Japanese armor ever since I discovered the Sengoku Daimyo webage, and that passion has multiplied many fold since.

Straight to the point then: I have felt the calling to pursue proffessional Japanese armor restoration, but I don't know where to begin. I was wondering if anyone could give me and inch of help that might assist me on this path here at Tousando. Thank you.

[tanuki]

I've noticed for some reason it seems this member isn't here anymore, but it's a good question.

Honestly, in my experience starting on forums such as this or others that may even specialize in armour restoration such as nihon-no-katchu.proboards.com is a great start. That and open ears and taking good notes.

I'm not a restorer, or even yet a collector of original pieces. I'm an experimental archeologist with little budget lol. But I try to make things the way they were made back then to then test them out.

For example, I doubt anyone would actually like to test the effectiveness of an o'yoroi against a 12th century tachi. Both are priceless. So I make replicas... and test them.

And in that, to toot my own horn a bit. If one enjoys history, scientific method, archeology, cultures both past and present... take a class at your local community college or university in anthropology. It's a blast. And it's also great fun to show people, emphasis on show, just how effective 20+ layers of linen is against a period weapon

[worldantiques]

Apr 16, 2014 0:39:17 GMT -5 yamashita said:

Hi Tousando users. Recently, I've been reading into alot of armor restoration websites, Japanese and non Japanese. I had noticed a re-occuring theme; most of the apprentices to Japanese professional armor restorers are mostly American; including our late Lord Effingham. This has made me curious to the point of asking many people about this, including a few people here on Tousando who may have been in contact with Mr. Bryant.

I have never been involved with the SCA, nor have I had the interest to, due to registration fees and the money involved in the armor and weapon upkeep. I have been involved with the foam combat societies Dagorhir and Belegarth; societies which a good few of you may be familliar with. Anyway, back to the message, I recently have found that going to great lengths to make armor just to use it for the sake of having armor seems to be unrewarding for me anymore. I have burned with passion for Japanese armor ever since I discovered the Sengoku Daimyo webage, and that passion has multiplied many fold since.

Straight to the point then: I have felt the calling to pursue proffessional Japanese armor restoration, but I don't know where to begin. I was wondering if anyone could give me and inch of help that might assist me on this path here at Tousando. Thank you.

Yamashita, you will need to contact someone who actually restores antique Japanese armor. While many forum members here are quite knowledgable on making Japanese armor for SCA etc there is a huge difference between that and restoring a real Japanese armor from the samurai era. Dave Thatcher (http://katchu.co.uk/) actually does this as well as Robert Soanes (http://katchushi.com/), Ian Bottomley while not a restorer is very knowledgable on many aspects of restoring and shares his knowledge. There are a few others who are not based in Japan but they are not very public. I would go to the samurai armor forum (http://nihon-no-katchu.proboards.com/) and read through the posts there, you will find a lot of valuable info on Lacquering and lacing etc, here is one example by Dave Thatcher on how to lace hishinui

nihon-no-katchu.proboards.com/thread/1010/lace-hishi-nui-style?page=1&scrollTo=12992