The Armour Archive

Avadon

Took a few quick pics of my set up. As I mentioned before I'd do a few things differently. But it currently opens by the foot treadle and closes by spring tension so it does the job. Notice the steel shield on the burner pipe. This has eliminated combustion concerns but is a bit of a space hog. htt...

Avadon

I have a lining of kaowool coated with about 1" of castable refractory. I'm not a fan of bare kaowool and I like the durability of the refractory cement. I wind up using this forge for general bar forging if I don't want to heat up the big forge, so it takes a beating. -Adair So you line the forge ...

Avadon

Just had another question.. does the fresh air inlet need to be away from the burner for any reason? I've seen most just have the fresh air inlet ontop of the burner while Eric had his inlet on a pipe elbow and the inlet looked like it was out of the heating area. All I can think of is that he was ...

Avadon

The reason to have the fresh air intake not directly above the forge or to deflect its exhausts is, as you suspect, in thermodynamics: Hot gas extends, thus has a lower density and thus moves upwards. The hot gas coming out of the forge consists of mainly the burned products and nitrogen, some rest...

Avadon

Just had another question.. does the fresh air inlet need to be away from the burner for any reason? I've seen most just have the fresh air inlet ontop of the burner while Eric had his inlet on a pipe elbow and the inlet looked like it was out of the heating area. All I can think of is that he was w...

Avadon

I found a lot of different mechanisms used online to open and close the mouth of a Thing forge before I build mine. The screw method shown in the original was not very practical to use with hot metal in your hands. Not completely happy with mine but I built it out of what I had around at the time. ...

Avadon

The best pictures of construction I can come up with is the original essay on its construction on Anvilfire: http://www.anvilfire.com/plans/ething_forge/sheet_metal_forge.htm Yes I read that article several times. It's pretty good for starters. But he mentions several upgrades that one can do but I...

Avadon

In my experience the forge chamber is necessary to burn all of the gas injected by the burner. For that reason the forge chamber is efficient only when it is kept up to temperature. Therefore I can't imagine cutting fuel to the burner at regular intervals, or igniting it only when I need heat. Addi...

Avadon

Hi all, I just threw down a few hundred bucks to start creation of an Eric Thing style forge this spring. I've got lots of pictures of Eric Thing Forges but can't seem to find any good pics of the foot-spring mechanism that many are talking about. I'm hoping someone has pics from their personal forg...

Avadon

Biggest part of this problem is that any glue you use to hold the steel together will at time of heat off-gass some very toxic fumes to the person welding. I know, been there, done that. Welded several things that had various glues on them and got very sick afterwards. And that was even with very go...

Avadon

Excellent.. thank you all for the great information. I especially like the idea of making a few hammers out of bearings. I could see that being quite useful and I have plenty of bearings of various sizes from 1.25 up to 2".

Cheers,
Av

Avadon

Mallets for what? I use a 2 pound dead blow for most forming (got it from an auto parts store). Others use leather mallets (the metal-wrapped ones -- brettun's village sells 'em). Is there something in particular you want to use the plastic mallet for? Mostly I thought they would be good for planis...

Avadon

Are these types of mallets heavy duty enough to work most armour? http://www.ebay.com/itm/371249470951 I emailed the guy and he said 18guage is about what they're meant for. Is that going to be to light? are there better mallets or am I just wasting my time with mallets altogether? Would love some g...

Avadon

Avadon, The effectiveness of this style of forge for making armour depends on having different combustion chambers to change out. This allows one to customize the heated area. Perhaps the principal merit of this style of forge is that it is dirt cheap to make if you have the tools and skills. The o...

Avadon

I mean like as far as this style forge .. is this the most popular way of heating up sheet for making armour? And has there been any noteworthy advancements I should take into consideration on the design before I start cutting metal?

Avadon

I have used an upside down Eric thing type forge. No base piece, just place the metal on top. One useful factor of Eric's forge is the base piece. The burner heats the refractory up,which takes time but once you put a piece of metal in the refractory gives up heat making a faster heat cycle. Andrew...

Avadon

Hello Avadon, The drawing is from a forge I built several years ago. I took what I learned from Eric Thing and built my own version. It was built from what I could scrounge and it is a serviceable little forge. It's amazing what lingers out there on the internet; I don't think I even have that draw...

Avadon

Go to google. Type in: eric thing forge You will find lots of references to the original design, videos, etc. At the moment, that seems to be the most normal propane armour forge in use. Several people who post here have and use variations of this. Including the original designer. Wade Thank you Wa...

Avadon

Does anyone have any pics of gas forges they've designed that work very well for creating armour? I've seen design notes of burners inside of a cone that are operate by a foot pedal. Has anyone made one of these? Or what designs do people prefer the most when it comes to gas/propane forges?

Avadon

I tried to make a link to mine and then tried to upload a picture.. both were failing for some reason.. but anyway if anyone really wants to see just go to the Death Industries facebook page, click album, and then click shop pics. and you can see my bandsaw and anvils and assorted tools and machiner...

Avadon

Thanks for the great replies all. Interesting to hear your insight. Sounds like i'll stick to my bandsaw. I think you all saved me from a $600.00 needless purchase. True there is power and noise with the bandsaw but the speed is pretty impressive by which you can cut things. As for the jumping, some...

Avadon

Does anyone have or have used both? How well do they work with cutting out sheetmetal for armour? Which is better and/or what are their pro's/con's. I have a large upgright metal cutting bandsaw. 14" throat, can easily cut sheet metal to large barstock but afterwards you have to clean up the edges. ...

Avadon

Yah I started with a hair dryer brake drum forge so I don't know the agony of bellowing for your air but I can imagine. I usually run the hair dryer on low but if I kick it up to high i'm at high forge welding temp in just a few moments. It's an impressive amount of heat. http://c3.ac-images.myspace...

Avadon

We need to get halberds tools into a search engine. The other day I searched "halberds tools" and couldn't even get a google hit. Might want to register halberds section on google and a few other sites. I tried a few other keywords and nada, couldn't come up with anything. Would be cool to see him n...

Avadon

Oh you can also try wire wheels. They have fine and course. I would put the course at about 150-200grit and the fine closer to 300 or so. Thats just a guess on my part though. I've used wire wheels for years on my 1HP JET Buffer and I stand behind wire wheels. They are excellent at removing mill sca...

Avadon

I've never liked flap discs, especially the finer ones. They seem to load up and or get burned in and then you have this wheel you just paid $6-7.00 for which is now fail. :shock: That said I prefer the going up to 120grit using just the hard backed sand paper discs meant for right angle grinders av...

Avadon

You've got a lot of excellent detail there. If your not already on your way to doing it, I would suggest some kind of patina, wash or the like to get that detail to really come out. That way your high spots will be brighter then the low spots and it will really make those images pop. Excellent Work!...

Avadon

Mig is definitely versatile and a lot cheaper and quicker to pick up so a lot of guys go that route. That said most artists, engineers and fabricators of precision equipment (Aerospace, scientific, engineering, etc) will soley use TIG as it has an incredible controllability and customization. I have...

Avadon

What do you guys prefer, the axe or the sword. Is one better then the other?

Avadon

I have watched some of episodes, but in my defense it was after drinking. I really recommend the drinking if you are going to watch this I think the writers were. In the test they did the pirate's flint lock pistol did not penetrate the breast plate, the blunderbuss did penetrate but only after mis...

Avadon

Yah pirate vs ninja is a better match up. Anyone in armor with good mobility and a sharp weapon is going to own either of these two warriors. I would be surprised if a lead ball is going through armor to begin with, even more suprised if after it was that slowed down you caused a lethal shot. They m...

Avadon

Did anyone see Pirates Vs Knights tonight on Spike TV. On this show they study the weapons of two different types of historical warriors as well as their combat styles and then run them through a computer to see the results. Well they figured that the pirate would win over a medieval knight. It was ...

Avadon

Black oxide if I remember correctly is a little like plating in that it's laying down a coat. If there is a scratch you wish to remove I'm not sure you can just re-dip to oxide into that cratch, that would be something to find out depnding on which blackening process your doing. Patina's can do this...

Avadon

I'll be interested to see how long that paint lasts. In my experience paint on metal is usually pretty bad in high wear environments unless it's primed, powercoated or commercially coated with tons of coats. I think it was a good idea you didn't put the paint on high polish steel, anything remotely ...

Avadon

Historic armor was just left with millscale wasn't it? Isn't that why it's depicted as dark or black in color, because they took it from the forge and sent it right to battle and used the millscale and carbon from the forge as a rust inhibitor.

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Eric Thing style forge construction - Help needed

Re: Gluing steel

Re: Plastic mallets?

Re: Plastic mallets?

Plastic mallets?

Re: Armour Forge Design Gas Propane Forge

Re: Armour Forge Design Gas Propane Forge

Re: Armour Forge Design Gas Propane Forge

Re: Armour Forge Design Gas Propane Forge

Re: Armour Forge Design Gas Propane Forge

Armour Forge Design Gas Propane Forge

Re: Beverly Shear vs Bandsaw

Re: Beverly Shear vs Bandsaw

Beverly Shear vs Bandsaw

Pirates vs Knights