The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

An anvil is truly a "generation tool" and should be expected to be passed down until they have trouble remembering your name! As such there is a massive pool of old ones still out there good for a hundred or two more years of use. The rigid/Phaus is a superb tool but I have bought working powerhamme...

Thomas Powers

I am truly amazed that you are metalworking in a location with no-one within *miles* of your set up. You will have to go out and capture some poor wandering person; drag them back to your shop and then tie them to a pole and ask them "does this set of sparks look like this known sample?" If you feed...

Thomas Powers

Well the basic shape and burstiness will tell you a lot.

Thomas Powers

"The Viking" Bertil Almgren (AKA the prune people viking book) has a nice picture of an extant original There were some interesting ones at the Viking Exhibit at the Smithsonian and so may be in the accompanying book: Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, William F. Fitzhugh (Editor), Elisabeth Ward (Ed...

Thomas Powers

Wilhelm has a good point---when did they brainwash up to believe that "one size fits all" with tools? Many of my students find it hard to grasp that what they buy from the store is *not* the best tool design; but the cheapest to make that will sell the most. One of the old definitions of being human...

Thomas Powers

That's the Scappi illustration, 1570, I've been working on reproducing a lot of it Including the spit rack, (I tenoned the spit holders) and the "trivets" with the skewer holders, forge welded the ring and legs, riveted the skewer holders---Note to get them to work they look more like a set of bull ...

Thomas Powers

Largest I have seen was made from a VERY LARGE industrial ball valve where instead of a complete ball they had a domed section---it was 2' across as I recall. My largest ball is a headache ball that fits neatly in a metal milk crate. The 6 100 pound cast iron balls I bought at the scrapyard last yea...

Thomas Powers

Well we do have the oseberg tripod; the question is why would you want to sink a LOT of metal into a tripod and haul it with you when you could use 3 saplings cut on the spot??? Legged pots, spiders, the 3 legged cauldron holder from the Bayeaux tapis all come to mind too. A bit late but The Opera o...

Thomas Powers

Sounds like my school papers!

Thomas Powers

"Encyclopedia of Spanish Period Furniture Design" A washout doesn't go early enough

Neither does "Antique Spanish Furniture"

Didn't have time to dig in our books on Spanish Museums yet.

Thomas Powers

Tong clips so you don't have to grip the tongs strongly and then foam padding to make the grip a good size for your hand and "easy" to hold. You want your grip to be as loose as possible; but you may already have RSI and so get used to sleeping wearing warm gloves---it helps and working your hands i...

Thomas Powers

rotometals is where I buy my tin, they have pewter alloys by the 1 pound ingot too. My old apprentice is supposed to show up at my shop Saturday, wants to borrow my honking big screwpress and strike 500 brass coins for mercs at estrella. I have warned him not to blow out his shoulder right before th...

Thomas Powers

Well having a background in possible languages provides a lot of context. Hard to catch variations if you don't know the base.

Thomas Powers

Atli I thought Halvgrimr wanted to do a fancier piece and not a plane jane chest like that...(It's Friday; I hope to be back in the USA by early afternoon and on my way to see my wife by evening!) I have a book on Spanish Historical Furniture; I'll take a look to see if any of the early pieces are c...

Thomas Powers

Presses my precious!

Thomas Powers

hmmm Trunk Monkey in full plate with such a hammer would be *sweet*!

Thomas Powers

Well for folks who are late on their payments I prefer to arc weld them closed---while being worn of course...very secure

Thomas Powers

Give the soft hammers to the kids and just make some out of good steel; much cheaper than trying to polish a fewmet!

Thomas Powers

And going about it in a rational manner too!

Thomas Powers

Note that the Autentizing temperature of almost all steels is WAY BELOW WHITE HOT; For plain carbon steels it's pretty well aligned with the curie temperature which is where steel becomes non-magnetic---hang a magnet on a string near your set up and wave the hot steel near it and when it stops defle...

Thomas Powers

The HC railroad spikes top out at 30 points carbon---I have the official spec on them + some test results... 30 points carbon is the boundary between Low Carbon and Medium Carbon (they are only higher carbon compared to the old spikes) Not even enough carbon to make a good hammer in my opinion. Jack...

Thomas Powers

We used to make then out of nickle silver in halves using hard rock maple as the forms and then grind the edges flat and silver solder them together.

Thomas Powers

Totally excuse problems with jargon; not doing your research first and throwing away your time and money is what I would object to. A cheap source of hardenable steel is automotive springs, both coil and leaf. PLEASE read up on how to work them BEFORE you try so you don't make a hazardous object the...

Thomas Powers

Especially for munition armours I could see having the apprentices being set to making "preforms" during slow periods. High end armours might start with preforms too but then have a lot more work on them and a lot more precise adjustments. Do we have any extant pieces of stock fresh from the batterm...

Thomas Powers

Looks like some sort of a headache ball to me too.

Thomas Powers

As it's a molten process (as can be told by the "pucks" still extant from archeological sources) and the results are the same I would go with the modern theories over the often Victorian ones. BTW have you read Dr Feuerbach's "Crucible Steel in Central Asia" Where she goes into great detail about th...

Thomas Powers

Ahh that definition of the making of wootz is not correct according to modern research on it. May I commend to your attention Verhoeven and Pendray's much more recent research and PRODUCTION of wootz!

Thomas Powers

As I said I think that is the grandson of the fellow I knew...

Thomas Powers

My screpress is an H frame manual one; stands about 7' tall and has a 42" cast iron toroid for the oomph part.

If that isn't enough I have a friend who coins with knuckle press and motor driven H frame screw press that I could introduce you to (it's a business for him though)

Thomas Powers

Since I have a whopping big screwpress I always wanted to help someone do this...

Thomas Powers

When I wrapping grips with a professional swordmaker (steel, sharp!), we wrapped them using stainless wire under 50 pounds of pressure---I was out in the field with a spring scale and a "tow bar" walking it in as needed. He had built a heavily geared down turning jig with a foot switch. We started m...

Thomas Powers

Well it's been a long while since I was there; but when I was the Fabrica de Espadas Zamorano were still forging blades by hand (well with the assistance of a power hammer) from 5160, a decent sword alloy, I've been told by another that now the grandson? of the fellow I spent an afternoon with is no...

Thomas Powers

What country are you in?

Thomas Powers

some have overpaid and don't want to admit that they were taken...others are after the fast buck; some are just totally without clue.

Tool makers look at things at the fleamarket junkstore and scrapyard seeing not what they are but what they can be!

Thomas Powers

Oh yes; mill balls are pretty much designed to be hammered on; preheat and stainless rod for welding and a slow cool suggested. It's just that their price is bad as "cannon balls" At a local fleamarket a fellow was selling mill balls for US$1 a piece; an aisle over another guy was selling the same o...

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