The Armour Archive

matthijs

IMO, tend design is more important than sealant if you want to make a waterproof tent. As long as the roof is steep enough, without horizontal seams, you shouldn't have too many problems, even without sealant.

matthijs

Water quench. I get the best results by quenching from a red to low orange heat. If you quench from a fully austenitic temperature, you will only get tiny sparks (very hot, but too small to be useful) At a lower heat, you've got a mix of martensite (for hardness) and ferrite (big sparks). That's my ...

matthijs

Roelipilami at flickr. Look at the rest of his collection as well. I'm not a fan of the concept of court armour. Knights did not walk around in armour all day. Try it on a hot day and you'll find out why. An especially rich nobleman might have a suit of armour especially for parade and perhaps cere...

matthijs

Brass and other copper alloys are generally heavier (some 10%) than steel and have a lower yield strength (the amount of force needed to permanently deform a specimen of given size). Add to that that Iron ore is much more common than copper and e.g. tin. The primary goal of armour is protection. Tha...

matthijs

Thanks atli and Guran, and my apologies for the late reply. Here's a picture of the vessel, I'll make some better ones this afternoon. http://www.flickr.com/photos/12636421@N05/5692822500/sizes/l/in/photostream/ The sail is on the wrong side of the mast because the wind kept changing direction. The ...

matthijs

There is a 19th century curators report on armour in the santa madonna della grazie, that describes boiling off of paint remnants of the armour, as every curator knows should be done. (horror) Most pictures of it's collection that i have seen are 15th and 16th century. I don't know if they have anyt...

matthijs

Baron Alcy, I'm having to disagree with you on this one. Mild steel refers to the compostion, annealed to the heat treatment. Annealing (in the case of mild steel heating to a red heat or orange heat and aircooling) is done to revert the work hardening (hardening by deformation) caused by cold rolli...

matthijs

Hi all,

I've got access to a 10' square rigged sailing boat and I need some pointers on how to use it. I have sailed a decent amount in modern small sailboats but am not sure what goes where and how to use it on square rigged affairs. Some diagrams would also be immensely helpful.

matthijs

I like the quality of most of kevin's work.

He is, however, very hard to contact, and can be rather slow. I've been waiting for my greaves now since 2006 IIRC. Not too happy about that.

matthijs

Thomas Powers wrote:No not "throughout the medieval period" Early medieval was still flat stones. cf "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel"

Thomas

I stand corrected.

matthijs

plunging it repeatedly into and out of a rather dirt encrusted serf might work. There are some practical problems with that. -Plunging it in the serf may slightly polish the surface, but will not sharpen the axe, the serf being too soft. -Any positive effects will be negated by rust. Blood will cau...

matthijs

400x can give some really nice pictures. The main problem you are going to have is polishing. You want the surface of your sample _really_ smooth and flat. Even the tiniest scratch will show up. At university we ground from 60 to 2200 grit IIRC and then followed with a diamond paste upto 1 micron. Y...

matthijs

When using hide glue as a base for the gesso, a paintbrush dipped in hot water smooths things out very easily if done directly after application. Scraping and burnishing are not the same thing. Scraping removes a sliver of material. Burnishing, which is used for pottery and metal, among others, plas...

matthijs

I've done some casting with a mixture of clay and horse manure. Wool should work fine. The basic idea is that small inclusions relieve stress that would otherwise cause big cracks. Thousands of tiny cracks are much less of a problem than one or two big ones. What are you casting?

matthijs

It works. Nice work.

Welcome to the archive.

matthijs

I use a mixture of hide glue and gypsum powder as a gesso for my jousting shields. It provides a really hard, smooth, off-white base for painting. The fabric is sized first with pure hide glue. I've heard people using pva or other modern glue mixed with gypsum. There are also a number of commercial,...

matthijs

whoa!

matthijs

I've seen two chapels de fer with indications of forge welding. One was a picture of one of the really angular ones someone posted here a while back where corrosion pattern changed rather dramatically in a line parallel to a crease. Just a place where a weld would be practical. The other is in a dut...

matthijs

The guy on the bottom right of this painting has something roughly similar. There are more examples on the same painting. E.g here . I've been told the kneeling figure here has a similar backplate, but it is very hard to make out with the cape. I'll try to get some better pictures if i'm ever in th...

matthijs

Wouter and I usually joust on a 60m (200')field with a tilt barrier of about 20m. (66') The tilt consists of 3 posts of about 1.8m (6') high stuck into pieces of box tubing hammered into the ground with a rope between them.

matthijs

Oh, I'd definately like patterns for Demi Moore. I imagine there's a lot of raising involved for those curves. Or welding.

matthijs

Demi-what? Gauntlets, greaves, ....

matthijs

There are a few objects on the ground in the background that appear to be flat. They might be patterns.

source

matthijs

The pennon in this movie was sized with hide glue, gessoed, painted (acrylic this time, I used oil paint for the one before, the difference is hardly noticable) and varnished (?) with walnut oil. As you can see it is flexible enough to be lifted by a slow canter or a breeze. http://www.flickr.com/ph...

matthijs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/willyf/1808287456/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/archeon/45 ... otostream/

matthijs

When annealed it is quite soft, but work hardening is rather extreme and it is prone to tearing.

matthijs

Koops wrote: No real historical reference, just sort of a feel.

Why not? You've clearly got the skills to make really nice armour. Challenge yourself (even more) by making really nice replica's. For resources search for roelipilami or thoog in flickr.

matthijs

Here's another picture of the system (different armour). I think the mannequin the Sigismunt armour sits on is rather bad, hiding details like this really nifty catchpin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipilam ... 211510771/

matthijs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipilami/2042929781/in/set-72157603211510771/ My guess would be that the leather strap was attatched to the arming doublet rather than the bevor. The Glasgow armour pouldrons have two holes in the top lame parallel to the edge. presumably for lacing to the arming dou...

matthijs

The stresses on the narrow bit between a knee/elbow cop and the wing are quite large. On some german armour there is fluting to stiffen it, but on most milanese the section seems to be flat. How was this section made strong enough to withstand the forces acting upon it? I can imagine leaving it thic...

matthijs

Like

matthijs

You could use a pantograph.

matthijs

Here's one in Dijon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12636421@N05/3084497987/

And another one on the effegy of John the Fearless:http://www.flickr.com/photos/12636421@N ... otostream/

matthijs

The edge in the first picture seems rather wrinkled. This way your piece seems to be a lot deeper than it actually is. Flatten them every once in a while. Judging from the second picture, you need more depth. I would suggest annealing the piece (a charcoal bbq blown with a hairdrier works if you've ...

matthijs

I once saw someone who had planished a lorica segmentata on a really old, scratchy anvil. Combined with some grime and oil this gave a very nice old finish. It was done in steel, but I think the same technique should work on aluminium as well.

Re: Water proofing canvas

Re: Hardening steel questions ( fire striker )

Re: Building a 15th c kit from ground up

Re: Why is brass/bronze armour virtually nonexistant?

Re: Viking sailing, pointers needed. (cap'n Atli?)

Re: painted helm in Italy yes or no

Re: Steel

Viking sailing, pointers needed. (cap'n Atli?)

Re: Plessis armouries?

Re: Medieval sword sharpening tools?

Re: Medieval sword sharpening tools?

Re: Will I see any structure at 400x?

Re: Painting a shield, how much diffirence does gesso make?

Re: bronze casting: Beeswax and clay

Re: elbows

Re: Painting a shield, how much diffirence does gesso make?

Re: AMAZING 15th 3D gown site...."The Morners of Isabella"

Re: Historic evidence for raising bascinet from a welded con

Re: Hinged Wings On Spaulders (you gotta see this)

Re: 2nd attempt at legs

The narrow bit between a knee/elbow-cop and the wing