FedEx and USPS Painting Interruptions

As I am off on Fridays, I was fortunate to be at home when the door bell rang not once, but twice this morning - first from FedEx and not long afterwards from the USPS. The first package was a padded hood, and the other Hourglass Gauntlets. Both were picked up off of ebay a couple of weeks ago. I was about to start on the three remaining Black Tree Design HYW foot knights, but had to try out both armor items.

Here is the padded aventail sitting under the mail which fits perfectly once I did some modifications to it. I still need to sew the front upper portion onto the chin opening of the mail. The padded coif was cut off and then the caped portion was reversed as the mail hangs lower at the front, and the padded hood was shorter at the front. Anyway, the image below shows how it now fits.

Here's the coif cut away from the cape portion. Straps were also cut off as they weren't needed. The padded coif can now be used with a Sugarloaf helm I also have.

And here are the hourglass gauntlets. There are also made in India and retailed from a supplier in Georgia. I tried them on and the fingers and thumb are well articulated for movement. The leather gloves are attached to the gauntlets. They feel great and make a nice metal thud when punched together.

They are made similar to the ones the Black Prince had, with the inside of the cuff open. I was able to press down on them to make the width a little smaller.

I don't know where I'm going with all of this, but so far all of these reproduction pieces have exceeded my expectations of quality and fit - not to mention the relatively inexpensive costs. Who knows, the Feds may start imposing some higher import taxes someday, so better get them now.