The Armour Archive

RalphS

Problem 1: you'll get coarse grain, which means the piece gets fragile, even when tempered properly. Solution: normalise (preferably a few times), and start over. Problem 2: you may lose carbon in the surface layers, which means lower hardness. Solution: recarburise in strongly reducing atmosphere (...

RalphS

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... andeg.html

Fun with physics! Or with your grinder

RalphS

Still waiting for surgery. Let me guess, your friend is in Sweden too? A silversmith who taught me some basics many years ago showed up one day with his hand all mangled. Buffer and chain. Could have torn his fingers off. Perhaps that's also why dresscode on the workfloor is not the same as in the m...

RalphS

Try "Helmschmied" and "Helmschmid" as well, same for "Lorenz" and "Lorentz". Spelling wasn't that strict in the old days.

While you're at it, try "Colman" / "Kolman" too.

RalphS

Sofar I've been spared exploding disks. Make sure the guard is on the grinder, it's not there just for catching sparks! Also: don't grind with cutting disks! There are grinding disks which are made to take the axial load. I've had plenty of scotch-brite pads fly off the velcro though. But they just ...

RalphS

X-rays and microwaves are not at all the same thing. To shield X-rays, you want a lot of nuclear material inbetween, thus the lead. To shield microwaves (with much longer wavelength and much less energy per photon), you'd want a conductor with holes smaller than the wavelength (see your average micr...

RalphS

Cold raising works, but make sure to anneal when you feel it's needed. I've done a helmet that way. It's much easier to work hot though.

RalphS

Basically, what you want for the microwave smelting is something which readily absorbs microwave radiation, both at low and high temperature, and stays solid at high temperature. On one side of this material you'll have your melt, on the other side you'll need some supporting and thermally insulatin...

RalphS

Having a degree in astrophysics and another one in experimental physics, I can tell you that this method makes sense. All appropriate footnotes apply. IMHO, this is about as safe as taking a pile of burning coal, taking a reversed vacuum cleaner to get the heat up even more, sticking an unknown piec...

RalphS

Hey, anyone with iron-willed determination, endless patience, brainsurgeon-like hand-eye coordination, a good feel for metal, a fair bit of work-out, and a couple of hammers and stakes can make a nice interpretation of existing armours. But you add a whole extra dimension to it! Development of eye-p...

RalphS

I meant more the dimensions and general shapes than the exact patterns, but you've got me, those are the shapes for a lot of work. It depends quite a lot on your raising style. Depending on material thickness, heat, hammer weight, blow placement, blow strength, and a hundred more things, you can ma...

RalphS

Pretty!
I can only second Anders' remark.

Any chances of getting pictures of the inside?

RalphS

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:My first pair of legs!

Now that's the way to do a "first"!

Not counting mail, I made a winged couter as my first armouring project. No pictures of it.

RalphS

Arne = Ambrogio on the archive
Do not confuse with Uddeholm Arne steel, which is about the same as O-1 steel

For most of you guys, shipping cost may become a killer, since both Arne and I are located in Sweden...

RalphS

I'd heard of temper embrittlement before, but never looked up exactly what it is. The guy at Uddeholm steel didn't know what it was when I asked him. Anyway, I looked it up now ( m ). Interesting! Typically a feature of modern steels. The mediaeval steels with very low manganese and phosphor content...

RalphS

The test pieces are fully tempered now, two times 3 hours, just to be on the sure side. No noticable difference between the 3 holding times and water quench, perhaps the longest holding time was a bit more brittle. The oil quenched piece is just a tad softer than the water quenched ones, and bent ju...

RalphS

Do not follow the advice above for sodium and potassium! But that would be a pretty odd choice for armour metal anyways. One reason why it wouldn't work is if you get some kind of non-conductive or non-reactive coating on the metal. Some metals may form such a coating in contact with air or water I ...

RalphS

Why? My coal fired fan-blown forge gets hot enough to forgeweld in, which is about as hot as you want to go normally. Why complicate things ?

RalphS

I've done a few more tests for hardening the steel. Sample thickness 2 mm thick, approx 8 mm wide, notched. Austenisation temperature 825 C for all tests. Hardness tested by breaking off a notched part. Grain size through inspection by eye of the fracture. Quenched in water after: 6 minutes: Nearly ...

RalphS

The steel is labeled "C45", 0.45 % carbon, I'll check with the guy I bought it from what the exact specs are. Anyway, I know I can get the piece of steel to harden properly, I've hardened steel for over a decade, so that's not the problem. Some simple tests show that the grain structure of the hot-w...

RalphS

I'll have to double-check, it's either .45 or .6 %

I'll do some test runs first with the pieces I cut off, to make sure I get the right quench and temper, this is new steel to me.

It takes a good water quench without cracking, that much I've checked. Might work fine in oil too.

RalphS

I'm about to harden a helmet for the first time. It's a kettlehat. I know all the ins and outs of hardening, but have only experience with knives and tools. I figure I'll have to use some kind of support to lift the helmet by when it's hot. Does anyone have practical experience with hardening helmet...

RalphS

Jeff J: PM sent!

RalphS

Not the same, but similar:
http://www.gotscha.nl/uk-spangenhelm.htm

RalphS

Very impressive piece of work!

Did the dishing leave any telltale marks on the piece, which could be used to check whether a similar technique was used on the original?

It's probably easier to use presence rather than absence of marks to make a point.

RalphS

A while ago I did an experiment to test such a hypothesis. Instead of raising a helmet from relatively thin material, I hammer raised it from thick material. The pictures show an early stage in the forming process, with marks on the inside of the helmet which are very similar to those seen on the in...

RalphS

I guess this is the original you're referring to?
http://www.astro.lu.se/~ralph/pics/tmp_ ... VE0011.JPG

RalphS

Very nice side profile Anders! But somehow the top view of the brim feels it's out of style with the rest of the helmet. Too round in a way, perhaps a gentle point would bring it in line with the rest of the helmet. Just my own personal taste, which I know differs from yours How did you solve te top...

RalphS

Organic chin with a hint of teeth...Hummmmmmm..... That'd do a lot I think. Perhaps you could increase the contrast between the helm and skull part somehow. Either by polishing, etching, or perhaps some high contrast trim, maybe roped polished brass or so? Especially along the cheekplates. I like h...

RalphS

In Swedish:

konst = art
konstnÃƒÂ¤r = artist
konstig = strange

Swedish is a wonderful language!

I think I'll stick to craftsmanship...

RalphS

I had a similar question a while back, check out the answers in this thread:
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=37990

RalphS

It depends a lot on the size of the torch, and on whether you can close in the cop in insulating material (which stands the heat of course). A very low-tech way would be just a stack of charcoal beneath and around the piece to be annealed. With some extra forced air (hot air gun works great, or comp...

RalphS

Personally, I don't see jousting armor as a seperate entity, but I could be wrong. Some of the stuff defintely is, check out something like this: m or m Good for just one thing, and not much else. I can't help with any patterns though, but generic gothic could easily be modfied into a nice jousting...

RalphS

Good description Alexander! Personally I'd go a little faster with the grits (roughly factors of 2), but that's a matter of taste. It's only the first step which could take much time, all successive grits should go pretty fast. If you're (re)-polishing your hammers, you may as well adjust the shape ...

RalphS

Alright. I just set up my new shop, and ASSUMED that it would be fairly dry. It was not. My shop is unheated, and where I live temperature swings are common, and humidity is high. So it often happens that the big chunks of metal are still cold, while the temperature is warm and humid, so I get cond...

Hardening a helmet - looking for tips

Re: Hammer Questions