The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

Looks to me like a kitchen scene with a bed that's put away during the daytime.

Thomas Powers

Ah; a Bohemian nose unclogger! (to go with your ear spoon...)

Thomas Powers

Cheaper castings tend to be heavier and have poorer surface finish than high end castings. To me the real problem is documenting the use of cast iron pots in period times. Some of the ones in the 1600's show evidence of experience in making them that should push them before 1601; it's just finding t...

Thomas Powers

Yes I am not talking about mixing metallic zinc with metallic copper; please Google it and the dates associated with various smelting processes. I think you may be surprised. (and then even more surprised at how much latten was used using such crude methods---I blame the golden colour for it's popul...

Thomas Powers

Yes the recipe I mention is renaissance, Pirotechnia. For a method of smelting zinc ore to get metallic zinc may I commend to your attention "Metal Techniques in Medieval India" Syed Jafar Mahmud, where they smelted the ore in alembics and directed the zinc gas into a cooler reducing atmosphere to l...

Thomas Powers

The Sachsenspiegel had a picture of people holding Seaxes (to show that they were Saxons) IIRC

Thomas Powers

The problem with brass is that it's fairly recent as the smelting of zinc took quite some time to work out. So it was made by mixing zinc ore into copper and letting some of the zinc "trade up". Biringuccio has a chapter on "colouring copper" in the Pirotechnia that describes the practice in the ren...

Thomas Powers

The best place to find them is right over there!!!!! Not knowing what country you are in makes it hard to pinpoint places for you---unless you are OK with paying international shipping??? May I suggest you visit iforgeiron.com and search on TPAAAT for a methodology for finding anvils much cheaper th...

Thomas Powers

Only 50? Not nearly enough for the Pennsic great field battle or does use against armoured targets void the warranty under the" Metal target" clause?

el bumpo

Thomas Powers

See what working Ti does to you?

I have a smithing friend who refuses to eat chicken says it tastes "just like snake..."

Thomas Powers

Is it bored or is there a breech block?

Thomas Powers

I've often had to give up listening to a bardic revel that I was enjoying as the drums move in and take over the sonic space; While I enjoy falling asleep to the sound of drums (or waking up to them---my old pennsic camp was situated so that I could see into the Middle Eastern Studies tent from my b...

Thomas Powers

First commandment should be "Kill the drummers"

Thomas Powers

Wax was rather expensive compared to say linseed oil...a by product of flax production where wax often involved killing off your hive to retrieve it

Thomas Powers

Some people just *deserve* a real pat on the back!

Thomas Powers

What about the rumours that he is a creation of the lottery commission as every time he posts new work people all over the world go out and buy a lottery ticket?

Thomas Powers

Yes they should be cut to suit your size, your methods and what you will be making on them eg if you will be working sitting down then the height is different that if you are working standing up Either way make them such that you don't bend over to work on them but can keep your back straight. Also ...

Thomas Powers

The strip of woolen cloth, some sifted wood ash and a bit of spit method is suggested by Theophilis in Divers Arts circa 1120---though he forgot the spit...

Thomas Powers

Be careful the moon waxing towards full and I hear Ugo starts speaking in renaissance Italian and only answers to Filippo on those nights...something about the details of the rent to own contract on his soul....

Thomas Powers

I assume you will source the source rather relying on hearsay....but "The Byzantines" and so probably an upscale trade item.

Thomas Powers

"They also make goblets of purple or light blue" Theophilus "Divers Arts" pg 60 in my Dover CSS Smith translation circa 1120 AD

Thomas Powers

Country you are in or is international shipping free?

Thomas Powers

Sounds more like you need a section of forklift tine. Mine weights 180# and has sharper edges than you would ever want on a using anvil---they cause cold shuts and mark up your work. I tell folks if they need sharp edges make a hardy tool! Also mine was free...but dragging it out of the woods from a...

Thomas Powers

So if you have been over at iforgeiron.com you have probably seen my name. Some comments: You need bigger air holes, You need to use real charcoal and not briquettes. When is this larp set? double lunged bellows came into blacksmithing after first being used by goldsmiths; as such they are more of a...

Thomas Powers

A striker might very well be an example of white smithing, (filed after forged) but it should at least show the filing marks.

Thomas Powers

Went wandering through some of the other stuff linked to that one and ran across a "Canvas Tee-Pee" described as "190-denier polyester shell

Ah yes the old shell game..."

Thomas Powers

Call Alexander Nevsky!

Thomas Powers

Roman military camp chairs? (folding metal X chairs with leather seat...)

Thomas Powers

What is "too modern about it" Basic C shape strikers go back centuries before Y1K and are found through the 1820's so a good 1000 year run on the design.

Thomas Powers

lacking hellfire missiles though...

Thomas Powers

How about Filth = wealth: indigo vat dyed cloth---you dissolve the indigo in stale urine and dye cloth with it feces/urine used in tanning leather Making blackpowder from old cattle dung and urine, (I always liked the line about "pour rainwater through the stuff until it no longer tastes bitter to y...

Thomas Powers

If you look at knife tangs during the medieval period you find that many of them are quite short "whittle tangs" and so stick into the handles rather than go all the way through. (Knives and Scabbards, MOL; also Theophilus has instructions for fixing a broken knife tang using molten sulfur...)

Thomas Powers

I must comment on the 6 board chests: Make them to fit your transport then you have storage, seating, end tables, working surfaces, ...I have them for garb, tools, food, feast gear, cooking gear, scrap metal,... I've even seen them lined with Styrofoam and used as coolers. They don't have to be fanc...

Thomas Powers

yup from my Socorro house it's about 100 miles each way...

Thomas Powers

I was thinking "salt shaker helm" till you said the top was flat and not slightly domed.

Re: Beds

Re: Made a new toy today

Re: Cast Iron Kettles? Sources?

Re: Brass?

Re: Brass?

Re: Seax handles

Re: Brass?

Re: Anvils

Re: Hurlbats

Re: Anyone heard of an armourer called "Ugo"?

Re: New weapon

Re: A bardic rant

Re: A bardic rant

Re: Re-hardening cuir bouilli leather?

Re: Any want to be a Moche nobleman?

Re: Anyone heard of an armourer called "Ugo"?

Re: dishing stump.

Re: How to polish this antler handle?

Re: Anyone heard of an armourer called "Ugo"?

Re: Blue-tinted glass

Re: Blue-tinted glass

Re: Anyone need any ductile iron dishing forms? Order by 7/1

Re: WTB a used anvil

Re: A Forge.

Re: Steel Flint Strikers, Strike-a-Lights & Fire Steels

Re: one last attempt, cheap canvas tent

Re: Trouble finding info on Teutonic knights

Re: Camp seating. Benches. Breakdown.

Re: Steel Flint Strikers, Strike-a-Lights & Fire Steels

Re: when drones attack the wild west

Re: List of SCA Arts & Sciences?

Re: Birch bark as a knife handle

Re: Camp seating. Benches. Breakdown.

Re: La Tene Celtic belts

Re: Can someone help find out if this is documentable