The Armour Archive

Derian le Breton

Breaking guild rules was a serious crime in many times and places. Guild members who broke them face large fines, banishment, mutilation, or even execution. Non members faced similar penalties, though often even more severe.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

freiman the minstrel wrote:For the real bikers in the world, is this possible?

Yup.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Not at all.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

I've seen people fit their entire suit of armor (cup included) into their helmet. It's doable, if that's your goal.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Actually, a pair of cloisonnÃ© bits would look very nice and would probably stand up well enough for that application. I'd talk to <A HREF="http://www.fineartisanry.com/">Alison Fine</A> (AKA Mistress Fjorlief in Haga.)

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

http://pewterersguild.org

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

If you're going to do more than one project, start carving in wood (instead of linoleum) ASAP. It's a bit of a perspective shift, but it's very worth it.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Freeze distillation = higher concentration of methanol in the final stuff = possibly dangerous (depending on how much and how frequently you drink the stuff.) One of the basic goals of proper distillation is to avoid methanol, and other bad stuff, in the final product. Theoretically, you can get a l...

Derian le Breton

Just for kicks, here's my first piece:

<A HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/derianlebreton/2463728986/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3263/2463728986_de3cac0fc6.jpg"></A>.

It's about two inches long, I think? 20 gauge copper.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

The difference with engraving is that you remove material when you cut. This is not done with chasing or repousse, which just shape the metal without removing any.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Pine based pitch doesn't smell bad at all, and it's not carcinogenic like jewelers pitch is. I wouldn't want to breathe the fumes for long, but it's a great alternative. Northwest pitch works is supposedly the best stuff out there, and their prices are very fair. I've only used their pitch, so I can...

Derian le Breton

Pulling the piece out of the pitch and changing sides a few times is perfectly normal.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

1 - It helps to bend the corners of your piece down, and just heat the piece when putting into the warm pitch. This will keep it more stable, and you don't want to get your pitch too hot (the fumes are toxic.) 2 - Definitely put some pitch inside your piece before you work it from the outside. It do...

Derian le Breton

Cold raising works if you're patient, but beware of work hardening.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Great stuff!

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

The riveted blades had a problem with the rivets shearing according to several scholars I have read, who whave found examples of a riveted hilt divorced from it's blade in somewhat close proximity to each other while excavating battlefield sites. They were designed as a thrusting weapon, and the sc...

Derian le Breton

A brass faceplate with no steel behind it is also a no-go.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

The discussion is there, but it's briefer than I remembered. However, narrow tangs and riveted pommels did exist in the bronze age, contemperous with swords of this type. Some swords of this type exist with large pommels, but Oakeshott does not reveal if they are riveted on. An alternate question mi...

Derian le Breton

I believe Oakeshott's <u>Archeology of Weapons</u> has a discussion of the move to a tanged hilt... I'll check it out.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Remember to clean the piece thoroughly when moving to a finer grade - grit contamination can ruin a tool.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Use an abrasive. Start somewhat coarse, work your way to fine. Eventually move on to a cloth wheel with buffing compound. There are multiple grades of buffing compound too, if you're feeling nuts.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Carving soapstone is super easy, if you buy quality stone (which isn't really that much more expensive.) Using good stone it's almost as easy as, well, soap.

You can do it! Don't be afraid of period technology!

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Maille.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

What a great group project! So cool!

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Easy way to make blanks from pewter / silver is to cut the right amount of material from your ingot. Place this on a refractory brick touch it with enough heat to make it blob, dump it straight in water to anneal (don;t bother with pewter). Take your blob, place it in a blank faced set of dies, wha...

Derian le Breton

Properly hardened punches shouldn't deform at all when used on steel dies... I make my punches out of music wire or W1 tool steel, and harden them with a propane torch. And yeah, striking coins is loads of fun. Except possibly when you have to do over a thousand for a single project in just a coupl...

Derian le Breton

If they are, I don't know about it. I've got just about all the knowledge and inspiration I need from my captain and his library; he's the one who made the die for the Leo V's I sent Baron Alejandro, and still has ~12 more coin dies in our shop in the basement. I dunno what it is about striking coi...

Derian le Breton

Sorry I didn't answer sooner. I was wanting to make 100-200. But perhaps I need to find a better way to make the coin blanks. At first I had some pewter ingots and flattened it which kinda looked crappy. How did you do it? The key with hammering pewter into a sheet is to go slowly, and focus on the...

Derian le Breton

But perhaps I need to find a better way to make the coin blanks From what I read on the link someone posted above, one way blanks were made was by casting them in clay molds. <img src="http://livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/grunalmoneta/blob_moulds.jpg"> For the middle ages, the vast majority of docu...

Derian le Breton

Baron Alejandro wrote:The Argent Company down in Meridies has some excellent dies that they use to strike coins. Young Mr. the Bastard sent me a few.

Meridies has/had a moneyer's guild...

http://newmarch.org/mmg/

I'm not sure if they're active these days. They haven't been posting on sca_moneyer.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

FWIW, I struck 120 coins today by hand, by myself. The entire process, from an ingot of pewter to final coins took under three hours, and I got 106 good strikes.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Cedri wrote:d. Method of Bronze trim construction - cast or hammered to shape

Almost certainly hammered into shape. 99.9% probability.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Are you using <i>lead</i> solder? Leadless solder is pewter - it's a 95% tin 5% antimony alloy, and it will work fine for casting. Generally, if you aren't getting good casts there are a few things you can do: 1 - get the metal hotter 2 - heat up the mold 3 - increase ventilation #3 is more or less ...

Derian le Breton

I'm not a numismatist, but a friend of mine has extant and replica coins by Dave in his pouch, and most of the coins you can only tell apart by the wear. But then again, I'm not well read into this subject. It's just like armour, a helmet looks like a helmet until you do some reading... I'm interes...

Derian le Breton

There are plenty of other moneyers are out there that sell both dies and coin blanks, such as myself. Some of Dave's work is pretty nice, but much of it is rather off, judging from what he has on his website. As always, if you're interested in a particular coin, compare his work to an extant origina...