The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

Looks like you will need a truck to transport it; good looking forge and postvise, how big was that anvil? I'd say that as "new" equipment $500 is cheap, look at the prices in the centaur forge catalog! However you can find all the stuff well used fairly cheap with searching, (we were paying $20-$50...

Thomas Powers

I have wrought iron with a higher carbon content than some "mild steels" the names are not real specific at times when you approach the cross over. It dates back to the bessemer process producing "steel" even with a neglible carbon content vs puddling to produce wrought iron which can result in "nat...

Thomas Powers

Cat if you really want wrought iron for making a helmet I left a ton or so of wrought iron plate in columbus OH when I moved out to NM and I can get you in touch with the folks who have it. Note you will need to work it hot and you will need to know how to raise a help from mild steel before you wor...

Thomas Powers

Over at the Sword Forum, ancient armour forum a fellow was wanting to make "celtic armour" from the 14th-? centuries. He said that celtic stuff and japanese stuff were the big sellers at the Faire he merchanted at...

I tried to tell hime that *fantasy* stuff was what was selling.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

But *everyone* was pagan---they just hid it! My great thanks to the research on the crypto-jews in Spain for pointing out that hiding a religion for 400 years doesn't seem to work very well, so 1000 years is rather right out!

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Go to a good jewlers and look through the *thousands* of rings available in their catalogues, order the one you want and have the diamonds reset *professionally*.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Not what you were asking about; but Boris Gudonov had a shirt that looks exactly like it was made from large flat washers, course each one has a motto stamped in it too. Ran across it in "Treasures from the Krimlin" IIRC dated late 16th century

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Hematite would just plate out iron if you managed it. You would not get the hematite look.

A good gunsmith could hot blue a steel helm to a very shiny dark black. It will need maintenance and will need to be renewed after a span of time depending on the care you take of it.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Do you want them round in crossection?

Thomas

Thomas Powers

I was looking through an auction catalogue once ands they had a helmet that had been converted into a cooking pot and used for some time as such. They had "restored" it for sale...

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Tom, the 16 gauge rule is not arbitrary, it came up after years of SCA fighting established a baseline of what was the minimum for safety. (And I date back to freon can helms) If your other group has combat identical to the SCA you may want to rethink using a helm that the SCA might consider unsafe ...

Thomas Powers

I'll have to make a couple to get a price on them. Unfortunately I don't have any 1/4" stock in WI so I will have to forge some down. I will say that I support efforts of people to do things in a more authentic way so if this is a documentable project we can probably work things out. On Horse Tack: ...

Thomas Powers

I can do them from wrought iron and they will deform before they will break.

How many and how soon? What type of finish---rough from the forge---highly polished.

What's ther budget?

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Giles a campfire is a medieval source of light for a camp as such is counts as a replacement for Tiki torches. It may not be what you want but it is an authentic alternative, you can read of fires built around camps to serve as a border and light what may be sneaking towards them. I have seen portab...

Thomas Powers

If possible get your wood well air dried rather than kiln dried---it tends to be less brittle.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Owne, are you sure those pics depict a spherical earth and not the spherical heavens? I think you need an orrey more than those items.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

I'll try to get Ragnar to comment here, he ran the last one IIRC and we built the fearing at his place.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Say hi to Patrick Nowak for me! In fact tell him you had heard that he was going to quit smithing and only work in polymer clay and would be shipping all of his equipment to some crazy fellow in NM.

Thomas (who put a hammer in his hand when he was at college)

Thomas Powers

Lets hope you are never tempted to spend any of the money on medicine for a very sick baby! Life can be very cruel to the under capitilized small business person. Most of the people I know who have gotten into trouble didn't have the necessary cushion of money in the bank to cover things like person...

Thomas Powers

Campfires, pine knots, cressets burning pitch soaked tow, grease lamps, oil lamps, what are you trying to reproduce? Or to phrase it another way---are you trying to find a medieval solution to a modern problem? In general people camping probably used the campfire for light with maybe a tallow dip or...

Thomas Powers

How thick of stock; do you want real wrought iron, how much weight will these carry?

Thomas---the shop is due to be finished *Friday* and so my smithing equipment will soon be available again.

Thomas Powers

Real Viking 1 was really nice even with moist weathe. It was basically a "doing" event: we carved some soapstone oil lamps, ran a Y1K forge (firepit, charcoal, 2 single action bellows, "lump" anvil...), forged a burning iron and made some benches on-site since the ground was damp, all cooking was op...

Thomas Powers

A visit to the Medieval Criminal Justice Museum in Rothenburg ODT seems to be in your future to see some originals Baring that the museum does have a book "Criminal Justice Through the Ages" with pictures of some of their displays. abebooks.com lists about 20 copies at $10 or less! A good local smit...

Thomas Powers

Yellow Pages, look under Gold & Silver bullion dealers, etc. I buy mine from a coin shop. Have bought it from pawn shops before too. Call around and ask the price, a good shop will give you the price as "spot + X" spot being what the market price is at that moment and X is their comission on the dea...

Thomas Powers

Don't forget that in the SCA heraldry is not mandatory. In fact you can actually get quite high awards without having a registered name and device. I too worried about it for a while and then realized that what I was interested in protraying would *not* have had heraldry and so relaxed and forgot ab...

Thomas Powers

I was thinking "hollywood" myself and a "medieval" suit of armour with a reserve under $300???

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Buffers are *evil*! They like to grab stuff and like fools we tense up and let them pull us into their evil lair. I worked with a professional sword smith who used an *under*powered buffer just so he could stall it out if something went wrong. Took a lot longer to polish blades but he's still using ...

Thomas Powers

Broadway---not if they are sensitive to nickel!

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Pure Ti is pretty innocuous, It's used in the body for repair plates, joints, etc.

Ti oxide is used as a whitening material in many food products---yes your coffee creamer may be *titanium* *powered*.

The alloys are *BAD*, don't heat&beat or grind without proper protection!!!!!

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Read the part at the bottom about "heat treat" Precipitation hardening is basically heating it to a high temp and allowing various things to precipatate out along the grain boundries making it harder. Some Al alloys can be hardened this way too. (*much* lower temps though) Note the temps and soak ti...

Thomas Powers

As a source you might check out some high end upholstry shops they may get in old furnature to repair or re-do that has horse hair cushioning in it.

As I understand it's not just the straight hair you want to "set" it to be more like springs.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Konrad are the screw threads on the dies imperial or metric?

Thomas

Thomas Powers

ISTR one at the Cloisters Museum in NYC. You might check their catalogues.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

I have not tried armour with Ti but in forging CP Ti into tongs, penannular brooches, etc I have found it very much softer than steel under the hammer---when it's *hot*.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Talk to a smith, one method of making such a set is to take a *steel* rivit (or even better, normalize a ball bearing and weld it to the end of a piece of round stock) and file/grind it to the shape you want the rivit to form to. Then you heat up the stock for your set to as high a forging temp as i...