The Armour Archive

RalphS

Definitely staff to keep it cleaned. And a cabinet of holding (lika a bag of holding, but bigger).

RalphS

Why do I have to be such a smartass sometimes? There are those obvious things, which I know one should or shouldn't do. For instance: Fire up the kiln, 850 C (nice orange heat). Insert raised 1050 kettlehat, complete with extra bar so I can handle it without bending it. After some time, the hat is n...

RalphS

How about this one?

RalphS

Another tip: once you have that severe burn everyone is warning about, make sure you have an aloe vera plant nearby, so you can cut off a piece and soothe the burn. There's nothing like it, takes away the pain and minimises the effects of the burn. I know from experience... BTW, welding gloves (with...

RalphS

Eh.... right.
I think that helmet will not pass inspection.
May I suggest http://www.galls.com/style.html?assort= ... 12&cat=594 ?

And one more thing: it makes you look kind of fat....

RalphS

Good point. I was blindly assuming that the wielder of the hammer and chisel have full control over them, but that may not be the case for beginners. Yep, the scrap piece is a good idea. But I'd like to stress once more: don't cut all the way through the metal. It will deform the metal needlessly, t...

RalphS

All the replies above are right on! That said, one shouldn't dismiss the simplest of metal cutting tools, the chisel. You have an anvil already. I assume you have a hammer too. Now you only need to get a short-edged cold chisel, and you can cut a lot of stuff where shears won't go. Chisels are under...

RalphS

chef de chambre wrote:The bevors of that size and shape are distinctly Spanish

Which is the distinguishing feature? They seem very similar to late 15th c german bevors, with the exception of the "neckline", for lack of a better word.

RalphS

Anders Helseth wrote:What thickness/alloy did you use?

Regular mild steel, 2 mm. A tad too thin for my taste, but this helmet will not be ground. The customer will get it black from the hammer, and paint it himself.

RalphS

Looking good!

While we're bragging, here's one of my latest ones:

RalphS

OK, here's some medium advanced heat-treating info. Simple carbon steel as used in the middel ages contains very little alloying elements (other than iron and carbon). Modern equivalents like 1050 are similar in carbon content, but often contain significant amounts of manganese, which affects the he...

RalphS

Go ahead and make a test piece of very thin material, but make sure to get all the fluting right, with crisp edges. You'll be amazed how much this does to stiffen up the gauntlet! Now if you add to this the strength given by properly hardened steel, you'll get an idea of the protection these gauntle...

RalphS

Planishing stake for helmet halves and such.

RalphS

Sure! Here's what I would do. 1) find out from the steel supplier which austenisation (hardening) temperature and quench medium is recommended. If you can't find anything, go for 800 C and light oil 2) Cut a bunch of scrap pieces of the plate, and heat a few to the recommended temperature. Quench on...

RalphS

I'm about to finish a helmet, there still a bit of planishing left to do, folding the edge, and the slit(s) for the eyes. Up to now, I've more or less had in mind to make double slits, with raised edges. Does anyone have any better ideas, or any suggestions/remarks at all? The design is just somethi...

RalphS

Nope, but this one is: m It handles up to 3.5 mm mild (which is about 9-10 gauge, depending on which conversion you look at) But thanks for the tip, I'll look at Makita too, if it's available in 240 V 50 Hz. Mad Matt, what exactly broke, and how? If it was something during regular operation, I doubt...

RalphS

the shear is a Makita JS1600, electric throatless shears, same model I have at home so I know what he's feeling if it broke. I would be seriously pissed if mine failed. This thing will zip through 16ga mild as if it was butter and handles 14ga with no problem (that I found) m Rated to 16 gauge mild...

RalphS

This one is from around 1500, in the armymuseum in Delft, the Netherlands. I missed buying one of these models a few months ago at an online marketplace, someone else beat me to it The top picture shows Gotscha getting ready for the ceremonial finishing touch, before a new armour of his was taken up...

RalphS

If you're making a dedicated stump/stand, you could put a reinforcing band around it, and give the stand a nice flared shape. Here are some pictures which show the reinforced stands, though I'm pretty sure that both anvils are mounted into the stand, as opposed to onto it.

RalphS

Some years ago I ran into a beaten up and worn out anvil, perhaps 200-250 pounds, at a local auction. I got it for the equivalent of about US$80. After rounding off the broken horn, it was just perfect for armouring and hot raising. The surface is so uneven that I can find nearly any curvature I wan...

RalphS

Thanks for the feedback everybody. I have successfully used a polarising filter to get rid of the glare on the glass. It works best without flash, and positioned to get any reflections in the glass at very roughly 45 degrees incidence. Then the filter should be aligned to get minimum reflection. Thi...

RalphS

Let's get right to the point: what does it take to make stunning pictures of shiny armour, in a controled light environment? I know all the basics about cameras, exposure, depth of focus, etc. What I want to know is how to fix the lighting to get great pictures. The other day I read a description on...

RalphS

Agincourt, I was just having some fun with physics. Your 35 pounds of hammer on 300 pounds of anvil would have the same effect as the 4 pound on the 36 pounds. Bolting it down is exactly the thing to do in your case. But not if you want to have your anvil mobile It all explains the bouncing around, ...

RalphS

Greaves are tricky, because they are curved all over and in various directions. And they are made in one piece. This means that you first have to learn or decide how you will shape a flat piece into something curved. Will you dish it? Will you raise it? Will you stretch one part or compress another?...

RalphS

The anvil doesn't jump around if it's heavy enough, compared to the hammer you're using. During a blow, there is conservation of momentum, which is the speed times the mass of the objects. For a fully elastic blow, with perfect bounce, there is also conservation of energy. This is normally not the c...

RalphS

Just a few more options, a bit more high-tech:
http://www.leica-geosystems.com/metrolo ... s_1806.htm
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/content/mr ... eletal.htm
http://www.vialux.de/egc1.htm

The big advantage is that you cut down on mail costs, since you can e-mail the scans to the armourer. The disadvantage is that the equipment is perhaps a bit more expensive than plaster.

RalphS

I'll be there from Wednesday afternoon till some time on Sunday. So far I have not received any "yes-I-will-be-there" answers, so it doesn't look like we'll be a big crowd. Ambrogio, do you work evenings as well, or have other committments then? Otherwise you could just drop in after work, still man...

RalphS

Many names of small towns are not unique, which means that certain additions are needed to specify which town is meant. Typical is a very coarse geographical location: Norra (northern), ÃƒÂ¶stra (eastern), sÃƒÂ¶dra (southern), vÃƒÂ¤stra (western), followed by the town name. Also the province may be ...

RalphS

Not too much visible progress this time, mostly improvements of fit of the front and back plate to eachother, and curving of the backplate. Small changes which make a huge difference in the look of the back plate, but it doesn't show much on the pictures yet. We wanted to get more of an S-shape (the...

RalphS

Before blackening with oil, get rid off anything which will fall off by itself or with the help of a wirebrush (rust, heavy firescale, sand, other dirt). If you happen to have clean metal, give it a good but quick heat to dull red, so that you get a thin dark oxide layer. This is already more than h...

RalphS

Way to go! I wish I had a permint place I could put the 450 Nimba, but I need to be able to move my anvil around, so the anvil is still for sale. One way to solve this problem is to make a stand with wheels. I've used anvils which were mounted on welded plate stands, with two wheels and two legs, fi...

RalphS

Uhhh, for which reason? How about Ãƒâ€¦sum, that's the town where I live, small enough not to have a decent namesign along the road. Now if you want to be able to pronounce it too....

RalphS

I've gotten permission to hold a hammer-in at a LARP event 4-8 May. The hammer-in will be devoted to hot-raising, read more (in Swedish) at:
http://www.rustning.se/modules/newbb/vi ... 67&forum=5

RalphS

Not at all a strange helm!

RalphS

Simply looking at the numbers, a generic carbon steel will be more impact resistant the softer the temper is. With impact resistance, it is meant the amount of enery to break a (notched) bar of hardened/tempered steel. A hard piece of steel will snap easily. A soft piece of steel will need a stronge...

The obvious

Kettlehat / sallet (new pics)

Photographing armour?

Re: Shop setup progress Very LONG