The Armour Archive

RalphS

Otto and Ingrid, thank you very much for your kind offers!
I intend to stay at a hotel over the conference, and after that would love to come visit you for a day or two each. My flight back is on the 25th.
A friend of mine is accompanying me, would you have place for 2 people?

RalphS

Special ARS rates are: The Palmer House Hilton @ $149.00 (1 mile from the venue, across the street from the museum) The Holiday Inn @ $149.00 (right across the street from the venue) There will be contact info shortly. Could you repost the contact info? I know I'm a bit late with the reservations, ...

RalphS

Brian, good news: I've just had confirmed that one more person will be attending the conference. Membership, conference ticket and 6 raffle tickets have been ordered!

RalphS

RalphS

Relax, steel is still amazingly cheap, considering what you get for your money. When I sell armour or daggers I rarely bother about the price of the steel. Other consumables are much more expensive (gas, coal, abrasives), and above all: my time I'd like to get paid for. The equivalent of one hour of...

RalphS

I'll be visiting Chicago and the ARS conference on the 22nd of October, and since I'm flying over all the way from Europe, I'd like to stay about a week longer and do some sightseeing and perhaps visit some people in the area. So, to get to the point, here's my request: Can anyone consider inviting ...

RalphS

Hej Olle!

IIRC, Jason has taken his gallery offline due to copyright issues, and will only put up pictures with permission from now on.

Check out the following previous thread:
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=39248

A more or less appropriate picture:
http://www.khm.at/cgi-bin/karl5.system?nr=35

RalphS

I'm sure nobody would mind this specific pic. And what's the use of a teaser if it gives anything away? That's what it's supposed NOT to do!

Anyway, the helmet-to-be is right there in the fire!

RalphS

PM sent

RalphS

I'm starting to feel like buying an additional set of tickets. Any update on the helmet progress? If Patrick is going to mess this one up I might reconsider. (Just kiddin'!

I've seen his work up close, and he's GREAT!)

RalphS

Actually, that's about what I meant!

Ah, the joy of regional differences in names, indicating the same thing, and differences in objects, given the same name!

Something along these lines (bottom picture) should do fine for explosive cerebral evacuation: http://www.burg-eltz.de/e_burgf_waffenkammer.html

RalphS

Shifty wrote:Now if you'll excuse me M'Lud, I'll just go and blow my brains out before I turn into one of these madmen...

With nothing less than an arquebus, I hope?

RalphS

Patrick Thaden sells them:
http://www.thadenarmory.com/sell/misc/miscellaneous.htm

RalphS

In principle, yes. Though the lasercutting people may not be happy with shiny material in their machine. Don't rule out water cutting. I've had 1/4 inch plate cut with very good results. The smallest radius that machine could handle was 0.7 mm, which would give 1.4 mm wide holes, small enough for an...

RalphS

Just get a lifetime membership, and get free invitations for all upcoming conferences

RalphS

I've seen what it looks like!!!! And I'm sworn to secrecy and silence... But we had a LOT of fun. We (mostly me I guess) will be working on a paper for the next Journal of the Armour Research Society to document some of the things we did. But boy was it hot over there in Texas, and even more so in t...

RalphS

OK, found something here, in an old encyclopedia, where computers were still called "mathematical machines" and showed pictures of huge rooms with people dressed in white lab coats. The oldest european reference to cast iron is in "Das Feuerwerksbuch" from 1420, apparantly still available in facsimi...

RalphS

Puddling was very late, and IIRC done through indirect heating. We were trying to use something which is known as the osmud process, not that different from the Wallon process, but older. Things didn't work fully the way we wanted, but we managed to make some forgable iron anyway. We created a puddl...

RalphS

"Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" states that the first blast furnace was in operation before 1350 in Lapphytten, Sweeden. By 1400 blast furnaces were in operation in Styria, the Rhine vally and near Liege. Last week i was at Nya Lapphyttan, a reconstruction of the Lapphyttan site, complete with bla...

RalphS

I didn't know he was making a second one. The ARS helmet will be mine! Ah! It shouldn't be too hard to convince him to make another one, now would it? Only one way to find out, right? I was actually hoping to have some mediaeval style steel with me, not the modern 19th c wrought iron stuff, no, mad...

RalphS

Tomorrow I'm off to the US to visit Patrick, and make sure he doesn't mess upp the helmet I'm going to win. And of course for a private fitting, to make sure it fits me properly! All kidding aside, I'm way thrilled to be able to give a hand with this helmet! Patrick you're the man Thanks!!! Brian, a...

RalphS

CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected as the winner in our ARMOUR ARCHIVE SALLET & BEVOR lottery/competition. Please provide your bank account information or send us a blank check so that we can charge you a symbolical amount for shipping and handling, and you'll receive your sallet and bevor in d...

RalphS

Wonderful extrapolation! Not historically correct AFAIK, but looks great. How about fluting to accentuate some of the lines, as in German gothic? About the breastplate I'd also suggest to go with the monoboob, and a very gentle ridge all over the centre front. The femininity can be caught with the c...

RalphS

Work it hot instead?

RalphS

Don't worry about it, it's supposed to do that. Many foods contain acids which more or less instantly etch the blade. As long as you clean it afterwards, there's nothing to worry about. Keep it lightly oiled when not in use, clean and dry right after use, and it should last you a lifetime. During us...

RalphS

m [img]http://www.medeltidsskeppen.se/images/kajen1.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.medeltidsskeppen.se/images/kajen2.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.medeltidsskeppen.se/images/kajen3.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.medeltidsskeppen.se/images/kajen4.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.medeltidsskeppen.se/images/kajen5.jpg[/img...

RalphS

Ah, the joy of beltgrinders and dremel sanding drums!

RalphS

That's the cleanest shop I've ever seen! Nice airhammer there in the background.

RalphS

Cool! Anyone ever ate lobster or crab? That's what I'd use as a design starting point.

RalphS

Nah, that's just experience. My first guess was that took 8 hours, but 5-6 is perfectly believable too. Lots of heavy drawing on the sides, that shows. What boggles me is the surface texture on the outside, it's too smooth somehow. Worked from the inside in a dishing form? Or ground with a worn out ...

RalphS

It's the other end Hal was pointing at. Instead of a hammer, a punch with the right shape can also be very helpful. It also avoids hammermarks if you're not too steady with your hammer. Other than that, patience and practice will get you a long way too. Take things slow when rolling edges. Annealing...

RalphS

Horradrick wrote:I bought the HF punch, and now I have a probelm. I attempted to use it on 16 or 14 gauge stainless (scrap, so I only know it's in that range, and now it CAN'T punch completely through- the little punch thingy can't come down enough. Any ideas how to fix it?

Tighten/raise the bottom die some more.

RalphS

Because Hal is a Good Guy and wants to support the ARS with his contribution. He does so despite the fact that I already bought the winning ticket.

And I'm gonna make my own helmet too! So there!

Still lotsa tickets left I guess!

RalphS

Includes 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 4.5mm, 5.5mm, 6mm and 7mm punch and dies, and a handy storage case. So odd. Metric sizes sold in the US, and over here in Europe I bought an equivalent punch with sizes in inches, they had no metric ones. Works very nicely, though someone managed to break one of the thinner ...

RalphS

You're all a bunch of foreigners, and foreign stuff is never as good as locally produced. Oh, wait, I'm also a foreigner. Never mind...

(BTW, I also do daggers, even for foreigners

)

Visiting ARS conference, looking for contacts