The Armour Archive

Hew

Konstantin the Red wrote:What does it do? Laquer leather?

It's for hazing the noobs at feasts. It's essential that you call it by a different name each time, for continued hilarity.

Hew

I've been occupied with kite building this past year, and one of the things I've come across is a "bead tensioner", used to bow the horizontal spars on some kites. It looks like this: http://www.kitebuilder.com/catalog/images/tensioner.jpg The line comes in from the left, goes up the first hole, dow...

Hew

Actually, Clan tartans didn't appear until about 1810, long after the middle ages. There's no (reliable) evidence for them being worn in the middle ages. My understanding was that you might see a lot of similar patterns in a region because the weavers, spinners, and dyers had ready access to the sa...

Hew

Griffin de Stockport wrote:The issue of the Order of the Laurel wanting them for their own devices just smacks of "resume heraldry" which I really don't like.

I agree.

Besides, is there not also the possibility that one might be, I dunno, cast out of the Order of [X]? What do you do for a personal device then?

Hew

Gerhard's pattern works pretty good, just make it out of stouter leather. Saddle-skirting is the way to go. http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/leatherhelm_gerhard/ I think the good baron was prescient with this design... A guy in my household made one of these for light and heavy rapier (before ...

Hew

I'm not sure who's this is (even though I took the photo), and it was taken in 2004, well before the C&T experiment, but this modified (Indian-made?) burgonet looks like it would do. http://www.northernelectric.ca/medieval/lyndwarcamp_2004/rap3576.jpg I'd love to have a modified Anglo/Scottish Burgo...

Hew

Or of course simple old stencilling, really common across a range of substrates, walls, cloth, panels etc. Use a water proof stencil, either varnished paper or other modern alternative, use a sponge to dab the colour on. Yeah. I'd go with simple stencilling for something like what Rannulf is planni...

Hew

How did you make the buttons? If you want to cheat you can buy two-part cover button kits in various sizes, like these - http://www.ascuteasabutton.com/covered_button_kits.html - at any respectacle fabric store. http://www.ascuteasabutton.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/DSC_0099A.jpg There's a fron...

Hew

Ah. It came out today. Front page, top left, a thumbnail photo of me standing in the middle, with the caption: Crop Circles? A Middle Sackville man has turned his lawn into something of an art form. - Page 5 The big story with photo on the front page "above the fold" was of a dead right whale that h...

Hew

If made out of a rich fabric, it's much less likely that a reasonable person will take it for something other than a very interesting sort of hat. Something like this sort of hat? http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/31100.jpg (too big to display inline) Not exactly, of course, but that ...

Hew

Adjustability - this hanger could be pulled "off the rack" and adjusted to fit a wide variety of people, even if it were only to ever hold one specific sword in it's entire service life. ... Such as for a sword that is the regalia of a Shire/Baronial Rapier Champion, and passed from person to perso...

Hew

I have seen one done with small stones but someone kept moving them, so this is probably a better idea! That was the thing. I didn't want to make any permanent paths, such as you might get with inset patio stones or bricks; nor anything like gravel over landscaping fabric (that prevents plant growt...

Hew

Something I look forward to is having fencing practise at my house, and doing a labyrinth version of a bridge battle. Should be fun.

Hew

Oooooh! Aaaaah! So coolâ€¦ one of the famous looking helms. We all call it the Frog Mouthâ€¦ That's the name I'm familiar with. I'm always remined of that helm whenever I see one of those Proctor-Silex electric tea kettles. [img]http://newworldmarketinginfo.com/Proctor-Silex-Cordless-Electric-Kettle...

Hew

I used to do lithography (the kind with Solnhofn limestone, leather inking rollers, hand-cranked press etc.) and I had printed one of my key images on a teeshirt with black litho ink. It came out fine, and lasted through hundreds of washings. That ink has very high viscosity and uses linseed oil as ...

Hew

I suppose this just barely qualifies as "Interpretive Re-creation", but there goes... I have this featureless lawn. I'm too cheap/lazy/undecided to put in a lot of flower beds, terraces, shrubbery, etc. so I started considering reproducing a crop circle. Then I came across the notion of turf mazes a...

Hew

I get a lot of use out of a 5 pound cast iron dumbbell from WalMart, held in a bench vice. It took some grinding, power-sanding, and polishing to make it usable as a mushroom stake, but they're real cheap. Under $10, brand new.

Hew

I wonder if one of the metallic polymer modeling clays, by Fimo or Sculpey would do the job? This stuff is like plasticene, but a bit stiffer. You bake it in an oven and it hardens. I gather the metallic-look versions are somewhat more expensive than the regular colours, but they've been used to mak...

Hew

The sepia tone and scratchy celluloid effects certainly gives it that medievaloid appearance.

Hew

Destichado wrote:TL;DR

The point was... what?

I would guess that if you are using these chemicals to treat surfaces or in cleaning, then be very, very careful.

Hew

I needed some rust-proof rivets for my stainless steel buckler (Rapier Combat, so they don't have to deal with too much stress) and I just bought a three-foot long 1/8" diameter brass rod and cut them to length as needed. (first two are clickable thumbnail images) http://www.northernelectric.ca/medi...

Hew

Maeglin Oronar wrote:... you might want to try roofing nails instead of pop rivets next time...

They certainly look like pop rivets from the outside, but I don't see the shank that usually sticks out, on the inside shots.

Did they get hammered down?

Hew

My mom used to make bagpipe covers, (along with kilts, pipers jackets, dancing outfits, glengarries, tams, etc.) and I recall numerous people making jokes about the jacket for a mutant dachshund.

Hew

Anything you can grab from your cubicle:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oCsLITgWzTI

Hew

Jason Grimes wrote:Oops, after a bit more research, it looks like egg tempra was first used around 600AD and it supplanted the Roman use of some kind of hot wax paint. ??

That sounds like "encaustic" painting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encaustic

Hew

Go to the store and pick up a pile of posterboard. Try cutting out the pieces one at a time. Draw cut put it on you then modify and make another one till you get it right. That's what I do, even if it's a ready-made pattern. Try it out in posterboard to see if I need to tweak anything. You can even...

Hew

Yeah, a few closeups on the stakes would be nice. The videos make it look easy ... too easy. (Jealousy talking)

The "wokka-chikka-wokka-chikka" music (Beastie Boys?) for the "Tassets" video 1 is a good choice for armour porn videos.

Hew

Certainly looks much better than my buckler, which was my first-ever armour project.

Is it for Rattan or Rapier combat, or just a fashion accessory?

Is that edge simply flared forward, or is it a thin roll? Rolling edges on a buckler are the toughest part for me.

Hew

I'll see what I can do to have a rivet set made from a center punch by a friend over at the engineering shop on the lathe. I have access to lathe at my workplace, so I fabricated a half-assed rivet set out of 4 inches of 7/16" diameter bar that I found in the scrap box. No clue as to what type of s...

Hew

After each pass I'd use 220 grit sandpaper, just a few quick swipes to show me the low spots. And here I thought I had invented what's essentially that same trick. :cry: I use a drafting lamp mounted to the back of the bench so I can swing it around to wherever I want it. I'll scuff the surface lig...

Hew

We will probably be offering the visor itself fitted monolitically to the visor bill in the future-and with more of a bib at the bottom to cover the space over the adams's apple more completely. "More of a bib" by extending the perf visor further down and behind the cheek plates, maybe flaring forw...

Hew

Tthere is a small slot in the visor bill, and the grill has a hook that meets it. The bill is pulled down and the strap then pulls the grille in tight over the cheek plates. I'd be worried about where the perf meets the bill at either side of the slot. Does the lower edge of the ... whaddayacallit....

Hew

I would roll the whole thing, then try to beat it flat. With 19g, you probably could work it hot with just the plumbers torch, if only bit by bit. I was trying it by heating to a bright orangey-red about 45 degrees (around the edge) at a time, in an attempt just to anneal it, sorta. By the time I t...

Hew

So, what do people do for the rolled edged on a buckler? I've been back and forth with a 13" disk of 19 ga. stainless, first getting the edge bent up about 80-90 degrees (got a nice pizza pan so far), then bashing the inner part again with a deadblow hammer on a wide flat stump to make it not-like-a...

Hew

Ooh... Lots of questions. I don't quite understand how it all fits together. When you say "the visor catches the cheek plates", do you mean just the tops above the hinges? Are those working cheek plate hinges? How does the perf face attach to the visor? If it is detachable (like the one shown in fen...

"Mini-Chartres" labyrinth on my lawn

Re: details