The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

"swarovsk crystal" is coloured glass *not* gemstones!

Thomas Powers

Well you can have all posts vetted before they are allowed on the threads---takes someone full time.

As for what colour they are the colour of EVIL!

Thomas Powers

old blacksmithing trick: make a bunch of them pick the ones that look the closest.

Of course it works better for making 20 5 minute scrolls than for making items that take *hours*...

Thomas Powers

the druids...who were really Earth Mother worshipers that the Romans covered up when they reported on the Druids...

Thomas Powers

"Lets see....Sailed to India with pirates, get a madu from india, and then get kidnapped by mongols and sail to japan for the katana..."

Sails back to Europe and is killed and buried in a bog.....

Thomas Powers

Well if it's a red oak it's leak like a sieve. there is a reason that white oak and not red oak was used for wet cooperage over here!

Thomas Powers

You can "dish by thinning" as the extra has to go somewhere. If I need to thing the rim I usually us an anvil or one of the stake anvils I made. As this was going to end up as a cooking pot I wanted to keep appreciable thickness in it to increase lifespan when used over an open fire. I'm too old to ...

Thomas Powers

note too that if you want to go pre jewelers saw you can make a very nice kit of *small* chisels of various shapes and sizes from masonry nails. Again the files are mandatory; but you do a surprisingly good job with small chisels with practice and chisels will last years whereas jewelry saw blades h...

Thomas Powers

Unfortunately there should be a plethora of stumps available along the north eastern seaboard soon.

Thomas Powers

Note on Vladimir's example the place for a crossbar, very handy for poking critters that don't know they are dead and try to run up the blade at you. I'm currently reading a book on hunting weapons that mentions them in detail. IIRC there is some armour shown in "Dogs of the Conquest" a book on the ...

Thomas Powers

I was dishing some 1/8" steel on Saturday using a very light dishing hammer made from a railroad bolt---nice flattish domed head (nb: *bolt* not spike!) Didn't have any problems, of course it was glowing red while being worked in a tank bottom dishing form. Used real charcoal, (bought at Wally world...

Thomas Powers

Note that if you don't want to use lead you can buy tin by the pound from rotometals.com and use that in place of the lead. The blacksmith schoolnear here (for NM values of near) uses tin blocks for their repousee class.

Thomas Powers

Good point, the SCA usually concentrates on the top 10% of the medieval social scale; how many of us have that sort of income today?

Thomas Powers

With rare and unusual resources how do you know they *had* enough to make a large number of tries with it? Not to mention what happens when *you* tell your boss you are going to stop working on your current work and start doing something that make take you a year or two to succeed at---with no guara...

Thomas Powers

Well know any smiths? Scale is magnetite ore as is the black sand of gold panners. BE VERY SURE THEY DIDN'T DO A MERCURY EXTRACTION ON THE BLACK SAND! Bog Ore is a bit trickier to source if it is not local to your area Hmmm; Googling Bog Iron Washington state got 2 good hits top of the first page in...

Thomas Powers

Here in America you can get WI from http://www.oldglobewood.com/real-wrought-iron.html They were recently having a sale where the larger sized stuff was down to US$1 a pound as I recall---what it's been selling for at Quad-State for over a decade. The availability issue is why I tend to get it whene...

Thomas Powers

Remember "Nature Abhors you!"

and of course the classic
http://frumheretic.blogspot.com/2008/11 ... acred.html

Thomas Powers

He probably means *bloomery* wrought iron rather than "modern" indirect process wrought iron or even (shudder) Byers process wrought iron... Bloomery process wrought iron is amazingly more common now than 20 years ago; however most folks making it are going for higher carbon contents as knifemaking ...

Thomas Powers

Going to go with some high phosphorous bloom? I've read of a harpsichord maker wanting some wire like that too.

Thomas Powers

Informational assets were sometimes taken as loot or sneaked out. In one of the History of Western Technology (MIT Press) I have, I remember the red metal turners guild of Nuremberg forbidding a member to leave the city due to his knowledge of "trade secrets". But also look at how the Royal Armory a...

Thomas Powers

I have a friend who owned a screwpress originally used to emboss metal ceiling "tiles" about 100+ years ago---had about a 2' sq die on it...

Thomas Powers

Defraction grating anyone?

Thomas Powers

Had a camel show up on craigslist out here...probably less problems with your neighbors than if you got peacocks! (Which a Medieval/Renaissance cooking laurel has been sourcing for our meals at Battlemoor the last couple of years...)

Thomas Powers

As noted: try using "soft" forms and hammers to "pop" the dent out rather than hammer the metal thinner in an area already stressed!

Thomas Powers

I have a friend who teaches welding at a community college, his business card is two razorblades butt welded together using TIG The higher carbon higher alloy steels require preheat and post heat to prevent auto quenching in the HAZ. Un-tempered martensite in the HAZ is a *BAD* idea! As for carbon m...

Thomas Powers

Plague's easy; we generally get several cases a year here in NM. Not a big problem; you show up at the Dr's; he says "looks like you've got the plague" puts you on tetracycline and Bob's your Uncle! Problem is when visitors come down with it and go to their Dr who *doesn't* know you have been campin...

Thomas Powers

Bran was one of the "common waste byproducts" of grain milling and so like tow---a common waste byproduct of flax preparation, lots of differing uses were devised to make use of a cheap and readily available resource

Thomas Powers

So: items that are illegal on today's market like rhino horns, ivory vs items that are difficult/dangerous/expensive to find like fire gilding or Negroli level medium carbon steel repousse work. If you want a hand spun hand woven garment made to extreme levels of accuracy they can be sourced but may...

Thomas Powers

Wonder if he has really baggy pants...

got his tailgate down for less wind resistance and is laying on the whip---he has a 21st century street racer persona!

Thomas Powers

Dryer motors are usually fairly wimpy and use large pulleys on the tub to make it work generally very open too---see motor + grinding grit above.

If you are doing serious grinding you need a "real" motor not a light duty "toy".
A couple of HP and a 36 grit Blue Belt can make serious inroads on D2!

Thomas Powers

Theophilus, Biringuccio, Agricola, the Negrolis, Helmschmied...

(Sir John Fastolf (1380–1459)---I've stayed a night at his place in Castle Combe.)

Thomas Powers

Is that cart driver wearing his *backwards*?

Thomas Powers

I think you're right about them being tassets and what I saw as possible hilt tops are the straps. I was blinded by my recent reading of a history of hunting weapons at the breakfast table...

As Death is "common" to all death might be a commoner?

Thomas Powers

Might check with a motor shop; I've had good luck buying motors they fixed but were never picked up. Reasonable prices and often a warranty. That and scrounging from an industrial scrapyard---but they are often 3 phase.

Thomas Powers

Is that a hunting trousseau (set of knives for butchering and carving up game) that death is carrying?

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