The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

You mean besides the recently refurbished armour hall at the Cleveland museum or Art, Right? Ask at the local SCA group when the next road trip to it will be. As for early period designs look at reproductions of the various early helm finds in England Look at designs from Sutton Hoo, look at metalwo...

Thomas Powers

I got a picture of my wife, the spinster, standing in a field of hemp being grown at the open air museum at Bad Windsheim in Germany. Didn't bring any home though we did pick up several stricks of flax while we were over there. (and another spinning wheel)

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Will this be focused on military, crafts, a specific "incident"?

I'm probably too far to the west (NM); but I'd need to know a lot more before I said I was interested and so would guess that others would too.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Atli this is an *interior* door, make it too thick and you can't fire the cannon through it effectively! Crossing the grain was a typical method but I recall many examples that used just two layers and not three. Interior doors tended more towards a single layer with battens I just love it when the ...

Thomas Powers

Several famous renaissance artists designed decorative effects for armour and their drawings can sometimes be found in through overviews of their works. Also look for the drawings that master armourers like Jacob Topf did of plans for a suit of armour. Perhaps a good idea is to visit museums and ske...

Thomas Powers

As to that remember that the typical "anvil" shape we are used to dates to the early 1800's.

And they did a lot of their work hot.

Thomas (I won't mention that mild steel became commercially available after the American Civil War)

Thomas Powers

Ahhh sedimentation---they *have* drunk the water at Pennsic!

There are several "simultaneous" cultural trends in the SCA varrying quite a lot from place to place over time as well. It would be interesting to see an evaluation of such trends in a scholarly setting...

Thomas

Thomas Powers

By "real deal" are you looking for one froged from wrought iron and wrought iron derrived steels; or are you looking for one forged from modern steels?

Thomas

Thomas Powers

One advantage with the hand forged single hinge was that it can be quite wide where it "hits". An ornate hinge could have a 6-8" width and 3/8" thickness and so could take more stress than an 1/8" thick 4" wide "common" hinge. 2" is quite thick for interior doors when they were solid wood. Thomas

Thomas Powers

I used to work 2nd shift in an un-airconditioned factory in Arkansas---open plan and I was on a second floor over the foam ovens. I remember listening to my daughter complain about how unbearably hot her room was---while I was looking for a sweater! You can work up you heat tolerances quite a bit; b...

Thomas Powers

May I suggest that you have a couple of your maple boards resawn and then planed down to 3/8" and laminate them onto a piece of good quality plywood on both sides. A properly designed hand forged hinge will have no problem with the weight. A simple "lift latch" could be designed to work off a centra...

Thomas Powers

Cat, they laid off all the craft demonstrators at Ohio Village just in time for Ohio's 200th birthday. The smith was Paul Ailing, he's currently president of the MOB...meetings are generally the third saturday of the month I can put you in touch with the group if you send me an e-mail at thomaspower...

Thomas Powers

I think the old museum had more stuff out than the new one, looked to me like the new one was designed to put more people through it in a shorter ammount of time. Did you visit the Nunnery and see their kitchen? I was impressed at it's design, one large corner was basically a chimney with a raised c...

Thomas Powers

One aspect of horn use is how they were treated *before* you bought them. In some places they throw the horns out in a big pile and basically let them rot until they come free of the core. This does not sound like something I would suggest using without some sort of treatment. I used to get my horns...

Thomas Powers

Cat have you hooked up with the Mid Ohio Blacksmiths yet? (AKA the MOB) Building forges for new smiths is a common occurance at their meetings. (There is a heavy overlap between the MOB, SCA, Regia, ILHS too.) Ohio is a particularly rich area to find smithing equipment so if you can't get this there...

Thomas Powers

ISTR an article in Scientific American that traced the distribution of white cats to the distribution of Norse settlements. The said that there were several genetic problems that tended to go with the white cat (deafness was one IIRC) and so that there had to be a reason for them to have done so wel...

Thomas Powers

How very odd, any other examples? It's easy to get the two confused---look at Elizabety Barber's work on textiles where she mentions the problems she had with a piece until she understood that it was rotated 90 deg. (20,000 Years of Woment's Work, The Mummies of Uremchi (sp?)...)

Thomas

Thomas Powers

This also indicates that the anvil was made in England as American and most other foreign anvils did not use the old CWT system.

Any maker's name above the weight? Mousehole came to mind looking at it (M&H Armitage).

Thomas

Thomas Powers

I've put together a complete smithing set up for under $25 (Forge, blower, anvil, tongs) and you can forge with chunk charcoal---I used to make my own when I lived in the city. If you want to generate *profit* fast I would skip knives as there is a learning curve to be able to do good ones and work ...

Thomas Powers

Oppi Utrect's "Metalworking Techniques for Craftsmen" covers stuff that Tim's never even heard of---bidri work anyone?---but is a bit expensive to buy these days.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Over on the research and authenticity forum there is a thread that includes a link to a place that makes correctly styled strikers from various historic time periods, they do use modern steels to make them from; but for most uses that is quite acceptable.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Wrought iron and wrought iron derrived steels- like the "natural" steels (formed during the smelting or refining processes) and blister steels are *COMPOSITE* materials. Therefor a modern alloy having the same composition would be about as accurate as a piece of glass and a puddle of resin would be ...

Thomas Powers

Are you referring to Alan William's "Knight and the Blast Furnace" or one of his other works?

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Owen, can you post some cites to the metallography of roman swords instead of "steel existed so they must have been made from it"? Purposeful heat treating of carbon steels seems to be very late roman---even the celtic pattern welded blades had problems with both carbon content and heat treating (Th...

Thomas Powers

Owen, the metal in the roman swords would *not* be better than that in the templers. Classical roman weapons were pretty much straight wrought iron. The use of heat treated carbon steels postdates that time *but* predates that of the templers. I bet on the romans for logistical reasons. BTW I see so...

Thomas Powers

Yes I see a difference in what was actually used and what just "looks like it". I have no problem with using substitutes as lone as one is clear about them being a substitute and doesn't mislead others. Are you sure the originals work quite as well as ones made from modern steels? Does this make a d...

Thomas Powers

I believe that the *warp* would be linen and the *weft* cotton as cotton is the "weaker" material. (Just like it the early days of machine spinning there were regulattions that all warp had to be hand spun and the weft could be machine spun because the machine made stuff wasn't as well done as the h...

Thomas Powers

Krag, that sure sounds a lot harder to me than popping a piece in the gasser, winding it hot, hotcutting on an anngle to get overlap and forgewelding and a final true-up heat. Probably depends on what folks are most comfortable with. I'd have bid on this one in real wrought iron if my shop was in th...

Thomas Powers

By an odd bit of synchronicity the first box of books I unpacked had the book I said I would hunt down: "Inquisition---A bilingual Guide to the exhibition of Torture Instruments from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Era Presented in Various European Cities" ISBN 88-85035-07-8 Not the oddest book to...

Thomas Powers

Very nicely done, though to be completely accurate these are correct in design; but not made out of the same material as the originals. Of course carb urizing wrought iron or finding a high carbon section of a bloom iwould greatly add to the ammount of effort to make them and so the price for "corre...

Thomas Powers

Cotton has an absurdly short "staple length" compared to linen---or even wool. It is a celulose based fiber though. Egyptians did have linen as that is what mummy wrappings were made from. They also did some of the shearest linens around by not spinning the fibers together but rather *knotting* the ...

Thomas Powers

Marshal, I hope your dreams are taken over by a musical production of "Bored of the Rings" done by the teletubbies for that Brie comment"

Thomas

Thomas Powers

A good flanged mace and a broken laptop can result in your co-workers giving you more space for a while---of course if you run "a buck a bash for charity"---that makes it OK.

Thomas

Thomas Powers

it was disturbing...

The museum in Rothenburg was not; well laid out, good lighting, the items were clearly labled. I've been several times now.

There was very good documentation on how gypsies were viewed in renaissance Germany---it was not in a positive light!

Thomas

Thomas Powers

Ahhh blue cheese eaten by the crumb with good strong flavoured apples, real french bread, and a good strong red wine!

Thomas