“One more buckle, straps and it’s done, you can go to battle,” says Petr Brožek, showing the roughly “exploded” and unsightly shape of the tin hat. In a workshop near Český Brod, he restores and manufactures various parts of plate armor. It also uses original ancient techniques. And despite modern times, today this craft is more demanding than it was centuries ago.
Petr Brožek became attached to knights and history already in his youth, in the nineties he worked with swordsmen. His friend from the group was already making his own armor in an apartment on Prague’s Žižkov – of course, without a hot furnace – and he taught Petr Brožek how to forge sheet metal into the shape of a bowl. The former CTU student first tried “banging” the armor in his father’s garage. At that time, he made it for himself and friends, but after obtaining an engineering degree, he started full-time in the plate-making trade.
At first glance, the unsightly shape of the tin hat is actually almost finished. Just attach the buckles and straps. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
“Let’s go bang then, shall we? Alright,” he says without waiting for an answer, already lighting the blacksmith’s furnace inside his workshop. As he warms up, the smith explains how long it takes to forge the armor. “Maybe this tin hat will explode in a day. He takes in his hand an at first glance unsightly piece of sheet metal. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost finished and functional. “Seriously, all you have to do is attach the buckles, straps and hooray for battle,” says Brožek.
However, the production of the back plate of the cuirass (protective hull cover, editor’s note) takes two days. “And we’re only talking about forging the shape. This makes up only fifteen percent of the total time required to produce this part of the armor,” he reminds. Before long, they say, we will calculate how many professions were needed in the past for the production of sheet armor.
Meanwhile, heat begins to radiate from the oven. “The dark red color of the fire is around seven hundred degrees, while the temperatures required for forging range from nine hundred to about thirteen hundred degrees Celsius, when the color is already light yellow. We are currently going to nine hundred, the heat is already orange.”
After a while, he puts a piece of sheet metal into the oven, which in a short time begins to acquire a light color. “Sometimes someone thinks that it is also possible to weld armor. In blacksmithing, yes, but this applies to thick material. In the case of two-millimeter sheet metal, this is not possible. For welding, you need to have an upper forging limit so that the material is riveted together. However, the sheet metal will never last until I take it out of the furnace, put it on the anvil, and start pounding on it, it will have cooled down a long time. You just can’t weld it that way. But it’s very rare for armor to happen.” explains Brožek.
People often confuse armor with armor
Platnéř shows the basic principle of helmet production, a technique called hollowing. He places the tin on a wooden block that has a hole hollowed out in it. He bangs on the tin with a hammer around the perimeter, but in a few moments he has to reheat it in the furnace. Gradually, however, with loud pounding, the material is deepened into the shape of a bowl, the center itself begins to deepen with a spiral movement to the end. At the same time, he must be careful not to tear the thin sheet with a hammer.
“Some of my colleagues have a hundred different hammers. I’ve found that a couple of them are enough for me, but this one is the most popular because every part of it has a purpose. I’ve also come up with a special method of making armor – it’s all about pounding on it and I pound until it’s done,” he says sarcastically. “A layman sees only a simple banging, but in reality each blow has its own idea and is guided as the craftsman intends,” explains Petr Brožek, adding that plate makers also have their own guild in the Czech Republic. Even with Brožek, there are six masters in it. And although Petr Brožek is a recluse, he does not reject apprentices.
“What if the sheet size doesn’t fit?” I’m asking. “It doesn’t matter at all, it happens to everyone and it’s common on historical armor. It’s important for the layman to know that it’s not welded in a silversmith’s shop.” As Brožek adds, in this case an extra sheet is added and the two pieces are riveted together. After all, riveting seems like a universal solution for many difficulties associated with production.
Petr Brožek devoted himself to his craft even a whole publication called Platnéřství, which he wrote with his colleague Jan Syka. In the book, they focus, among other things, on the historical development and on the production of individual parts of plate armor using original techniques.
Record player Petr Brožek in his workshop. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
“Be careful, it’s not armor,” laughs Petr Brožek, when he draws attention to the frequent mistake in terminology. “Although we cannot reverse language development, it is properly called armor, in this case plate armor,” he explains. According to Brožek, Brníř produces ring armor.
Despite the conveniences of modern times, armor still takes as long to make as it did centuries ago. “Often it takes even longer. I have to deal with things that were once done by individual craftsmen. To make a piece of armor, a platemaker, a harness maker, a buckler, a sander (grinder) and a passier (decorator) were needed. Other craftsmen could also work on Renaissance armor – goldsmiths, engravers, chiselers and etchers. Of course I have to be able to do it all myself.”
He also got his hands on a helmet for restoration Filippa Negroliho, one of the most famous record players in history. It was a burgonet with a hammered lion pattern. According to Petr Brožek, antique motifs were typical for the half of the 16th century in Italy.
The golden age of platemaking
If Petr Brožek had to name what he likes to make the most, it would clearly be helmets. On the contrary, it is used the most in the production of plate shoes, so-called sabatons. “The shoes must go together with the calf, but this is terribly difficult, because the movement when the shoe meets the shaving plate on the instep pushes the person in question or causes them to get stuck. In the past, they obviously did not deal with this, and in thirty years of practice I have not yet come up with an ideal solution ,” explains.
Next to the punk, one collectible armor also shines. “I am currently restoring this for a client from Finland. Half of my customers are collectors, the rest are museums and other institutions,” he explains, showing individual parts of the armor from the end of the 15th century. “This German glove is made to fit perfectly on the hand, which is why it seems so small. The Germans at this time had a passion for armor, it basically symbolized a second skin, that’s why it fit so close to the body.” In terms of aesthetics, anatomy and function, Brožek considers German Gothic at the end of the 15th century to be the golden age of plate making.
Of course, Petr Brožek also observes how armor looks in films. He considers the one from the Hussite trilogy Jan Hus, Jan Žižka and Against all from the 1950s by director Otakar Vávra to be successful.
“Today’s films like Žižka need the cheapest possible equipment. You can’t say that such sheets are sloppy, it’s based on the assignment. Even I can spend a day instead of a month on some parts, but I can’t do it. But I have nothing against serial production, after all, my I’ve had clients for a long time, so I don’t care,” he says. “I only have a problem with the fact that someone passes off a film as historically accurate and it is full of flaws,” adds the player.
He also enjoys the fantasy genre very much. “No one can fault the creators. Even if the armor looks very modified, it often comes from history, because even fantasy is limited by what we can invent.”
2024-03-11 10:55:49
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