The Armour Archive

hrolf

They say it gives off dangerous fumes. Plenty of restaurants use it their fryers. I've never heard of this before. It's been shown to be dangerous. I agree, breathing hot oil into your lungs is generally a bad move, as many a medieval siege engineer can attest to. Burney aspiration pneumonia sucks,...

hrolf

i quench in peanut oil. Nice finish, plus it smells delicious.

hrolf

1. Your armor and your padding are seperate things. They should not be permanently attached to each other (with the possible unavoidable exception of helmet padding), and they should be stored in different bags.

2. Wash your under padding and garments.

Done.

hrolf

One question I had? Maybe you guys can help and I know this might be for a different forum. Would the religous aspects of the religous orders during the crusades (crosses) conflict with SCA rules or "fealings". I know as long as I dont go around preaching and I reenact them in good taste ...

hrolf

The only local supplier i know is, um, in boston. I scrounge most of my knife stock from things like suspension coil springs, anyway, but that stock's usefulness to knifemaking presumes that you have a forge set up -- not useful if you're doing stock removal. It also assumes you're OK with using spe...

hrolf

i look around a lot. how else am i going to know where the rest of mine line is and what they're up to?

hrolf

1) Would it be illegal to attempt such on purpose, as a technique? My understand is that the helm is an ineffectual target to a spear thrust, but not an illegal one (as opposed to shooting at someone's shins or hands, which are illegal targets). So I don't see that this would be illegal, but I want...

hrolf

goes alright in shortbread, too.

I'm not a big fan of the taste, though.

hrolf

middle english.

anglo-saxon is a whole other bag.

hrolf

The expensive solution that is very time efficient: find yourself a reputable personal trainer, give the nice man more money than you think you should, and do everything he tells you. Repeat for, oh, 6 months or so. i bought 6 hour long sessions which I used to develop a circuit training routine whi...

hrolf

i don't think they're protective enough to be safe.

i LIKE my thumbs.

hrolf

hey man, i'm an urban fighter!

hrolf

I use lanolin, myself.

hrolf

Apollonian wrote:
The aketon under the red tunic of the man on the right almost looks like scale arm defenses.

looks like a moving blanket to me

hrolf

but, every time you touch the fume hood, your hands will smell funny for a few days.

(that's the main reason i hate galvy, actually..)

hrolf

A) In the spirit of complying with HIPPA law ... none of us are health care workers directly involved in these people's care or treatment. So HIPPA has no weight or bearing. Worker's comp disclosure is an interesting point, but, uh, if you blow yourself up playing at stuff, and then try to claim wo...

hrolf

Greenshield wrote:To make that shield legal you're gonna need to add some kind of 'flap' to cover the inside of the hand/wrist like they are doing on the Round shields. I don't like it but . . . .

Tell that cat to fix it for you.

or wear a demi.

hrolf

losthelm wrote:Depending on your budget it's usualy cheaper to save up for the riveted stuff insead of investing the time/materials to construct something you will replace later.

listen to the smart man.

hrolf

You will look excellent with the neck protection under the surcote, and a linen tunic over the arm protection. Looking good otherwise, though~! loaner gorget. mine nuked itself about 10 minutes before this photo was taken. Keeping the bazus until i order some spring stainless cops, make splinted va...

hrolf

My gear at pennsic. Tasha-surcotte! mail hauberk! aww yeah.

hrolf

That comment about axes... they used to make them by inserting a steel bit into wraugt iron that way the edge could be made a lot sharper while the rest could suffer the blows... I have both tool steel and wrought iron available to me. One day I will steel myself a bearded axe, and that will be a g...

hrolf

i usually wind up screaming "helpful suggestions" as a cry.

like "kill 'em and keep moving!" and "spears, damnit, work together!"

hrolf

There was an instance just recently of a well known blacksmith who was killed by the stuff. 2005, Jim "paw paw" Wilson. There was a confluence of factors that contributed to that death, and metal fume fever was only part of it. Still. The shop I work in is really well ventilated, and i ha...

hrolf

Clearly, hard-but-brittle is suboptimal if you want to make a tool that lasts. Well, if we're nitpicking, then it really depends on the tool. Yeah. And a stonemason is going to want something a lot harder than, say, a carpenter will. I'm willing to bet the spine of your straight razor is differenti...

hrolf

Thomas Powers wrote:One common way to use a magnet is to support it hanging in the air on a wire and then you can just hold the hot piece near it and see if it wants to deflect.

just added a new trick to MY toolbox...

thanks!

hrolf

Magents are used during harending, not during tempering. I thought you tempered something to harden it. Am I using the wrong term? pardon me whilst i drift off into linguistic semantics. Hopefully i won't also drift into being a snide bastard, because i don't mean to be. heat treating has three maj...

hrolf

You use a magnet as a rough test of whether or not the steel has passed the Curie Temperature . If it has, it's approximately hot enough that you can stuff it into a bucket of ash (or whatever) and let it anneal. If it hasn't, keep heating. You know you're there when the work doesn't stick to the ma...

hrolf

Rivets, Does he have any recourse to get his card back? I am unfamiliar with the process of appeal (if any) after a marshall's court. Can the BoD get involved if asked? I would usually dislike going the corporate route, but I don't know of an actual violation in this case. Ruining two participant's...

hrolf

If i'm clear, and get gakked, i put the butt of my spear on the top of my head, the tip on the ground, hold it with one hand, and walk away with the other hand raised. if i get taken down in the scrum, well.. that's what armor is for. i don't fall down, i get taken down. I salute and take a knee in ...

hrolf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka#Flavoring it's pretty common. Good vodka is worth drinking straight -- and, for example, my girlfriend's family does NOT understand vodka cocktails -- but bad vodka? man. you put some veggies in that and suddenly it doesn't taste nearly quite so horrible. smoked f...

hrolf

my girlfriend's family recpie calls for mushrooms, celery, carrots, black pepper, horseradish, and a few other things. You let it age in grain neutral spirit, then dilute down to 90 proof or so.

It's, um. Reviving.

hrolf

Beverage preparation is one of those Holy War topics. The number of times i've gotten into a milk firstian or milk lastian argument about tea(provided, of course, the other party thinks that milk belongs in tea at all...) Milk in Tea? If we had a proper working government, perverts like you would b...

hrolf

Careful who you ask about this, as different people defend their method religiously, compared to others. I have heard once, three and seven times for the "almost" boil (the more times, the more the grounds settle). Shouldn't be too hard to find a turkish coffee pot. The cone shape lets it...

hrolf

I'm pretty sure making coffee in a pot is called cowboy coffee. Add some chickory root for extra authenticity! for turkish coffee, ibriks are the way to go simply because their shape is designed to help with the boiling over problem. They're also cheap; i got a plain metal one for ~$8 at my local mi...

hrolf

i fully expect my arms to be completely numb after wearing these guys under maille and over padding.

i'm okay with this. I will calibrate accordingly.