The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

You are not planning to have the burner mounted in the bottom of the bucket so all the detritus of heating metal can drop down into it are you?

Thomas Powers

With the 310 knives shown in Knives and Scabbards it can be easy to document a blade---or very hard if it's not listed...

I have a student working on a blade and I asked him to document it first! So backwards to many peoples process...

Thomas Powers

In general *and* historically; most "multi tools" have not been as useful as having the separate individual tools

Thomas Powers

Preferred method: plasma cutting My shop method: I have a honking big old Milwaulkee angle grinder with 7-9" cut off wheels Don't "balance it"!!!!! It needs to be rigidly fastened down to cut it safely and effectively. two C clamps on a picnic bench and an anvil on the "inside edge" will work. An O-...

Thomas Powers

Ahhh I have spenat a LOT more time rebuilding HF tools that were brand new trying to get them to work, (100 mile each way to trade it in...), than I have ever had to do with used stuff. Of course I check the basics before buying used items...

Thomas Powers

That was a joke. I did a wide range of things when younger before deciding to concentrate on blacksmithing. I still have some wood drying, it's about 10 years per inch of thickness save for the 40 years per inch and one at 100 years per inch of thickness .

Thomas Powers

Yup Paw Paw had several strikes against him. Talk with a bunch of old weldors and you will probably hear the whole gamut of response. Everyone has a different tolerance, (the fellow who went bankrupt was 19 and a non-smoker), I've met a bunch of folks who have never had an issue and have cast brass ...

Thomas Powers

I tend to break down my wood working projects too---and burn them...

Thomas Powers

Well just in my personal acquaintance I had a friend die from complications of metal fume fever and another go bankrupt after he spent a week in the hospital with no insurance with Metal Fume Fever. Another friend had to have his 14 year old nephew drive him home as he was vomiting out his insoles.....

Thomas Powers

Any chance in getting a used drill? I've not been impressed with HF drills and have seen a number of used ones older than I am still doing a great job! (57 years)

Thomas Powers

What is the range in sizes of extant examples. If there are enough of them around you could even get a statistical estimate of the size range that is likely.

Thomas Powers

What alloy of Ti? I may be interested if it's CP 1 or 2; not if it's a beta alloy

Thomas Powers

first thing that came to my mind was cold rolled.

Thomas Powers

Verjuice definitely Verjuice

Thomas Powers

Ha you have never seen me dancing around in the smithy singing "If I had some Minions" to the tune of "If I were a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof! (If that mental image drives you to drink; you can send your thanks, (pounds, euros, dollars accepted), to the Keep Thomas Off the Streets---and far ...

Thomas Powers

I'm not surprised, I'd like to see what type of bellows they are using too.

But you realize that this is all just sour grapes! Very Sour Grapes!

Thomas Powers

I think it would take a lot of effort and experimentation to get it working right for a very limited market indeed! You are probably familar with the McDonald rolling mill designed for billet rolling for knifemakers though it probably would have trouble scaling up to breastplate size---that's truly ...

Thomas Powers

Hmm are they still selling the kevlar insoles the US Army developed to deal with punji sticks in Viet Nam???

Thomas Powers

How about bladesmithing? You would need a group of trained people to do the smelting, a group of trained people to do the mining, a group of trained people as colliers. The necessary people to feed and support them including all the trades necessary for their craft. Then as a blade smith I would nee...

Thomas Powers

Let me just quote from a presentation at the Medieval Technology Conference at Penn-state---about 20 years ago now: "One felt that the middle ages had no technology while the other felt it had too much!" You are very right to point out that with any source you need an idea of what school it comes fr...

Thomas Powers

Wonderful! Though I did get a big laugh about shieldmakers reading Pliny...

Thomas Powers

what no mention of the hurdy-gurdy? I guess the pandemonian is next to be built

Thomas Powers

very common in arc welding as mentioned especially stick welding.

Thomas Powers

Sort of like reading "A world lit only by fire" and "The medieval machine" back to back?

Thomas Powers

Slack belt with a belt grinder. Back when I was young and immortal I used to stick my arm through the inside of the belt to work certain items, (Bader)

Thomas Powers

A little something to make the Negroli stuff look like munition armour?

Thomas Powers

3: buy up previous slots in queue?

I too feel like spending a few years weeping after seeing such things...

wilelm the smith

Thomas Powers

Note that "ductile" is a variety of cast iron, "Spheroidal graphite iron", where the graphite is in sphere form due to adding Mg or Ce. Since regular cast iron comes "pre cracked" with all the graphite flakes in it the ductile form is much stronger. However it's not steel.

Thomas Powers

probably still room for a new grave...can we bury you with a weasel skeleton, a spindle and a bent sword, just to liven up the archeological journals a thousand years hence?

Thomas Powers

I once bought the HF ASO for our smithing club---we made a propane stove from it to use at conferences. Drilling it and cross drilling it and drilling it in the other plane was like drilling black butter. It was dead soft and had so much graphite in it it was unbeliveable! It was an amusing bit of w...

Thomas Powers

NOTE YOU CAN'T CASE HARDEN CAST IRON; it already has over 2% carbon content---much higher than pretty much all steel alloys (save some of the weird ones like D2 that ties everything up in carbides rather than graphite inclusions.) NOTE YOU CAN"T FORGE WELD CAST IRON: It molten at welding temps for s...

Thomas Powers

Bork! Bork! Bork!

Thomas Powers

Extra weight will make you stronger IFF you don't destroy your joints by the extra forces before they have had a chance to adjust.

Thomas Powers

VoTech, 10- gauge: ask to be checked out on their plasma cutter and make templates to cut along!

Thomas Powers

Remember folks that "heat treated" does NOT mean hardened! It could be annealed, normalized, austempered, etc and not knowing the alloy you don't know if it will be as soft as butter or as brittle as glass.

Re: Setting up a burner for doing hot work?

Re: Knife/Dagger handle

Re: Hal's crazy idea # 347.01

Re: A problem...Steel cutting

Re: drill press recommendations

Re: when Im not an armourer....Im a joiner/border/turner

Re: Help with riveted mail

Re: when Im not an armourer....Im a joiner/border/turner

Re: Help with riveted mail

Re: drill press recommendations

Re: What are the "tolerances" for accurate recreations?

Re: SCA -armoring/crafting/making stuff- YARDSALE

Re: Almost Stainless?

Re: Living it. Would you for real?

Re: OH Hive mind, I invoke your power!

Re: Living it. Would you for real?

Re: OH Hive mind, I invoke your power!

Re: Fun with sheet metal

Re: Living it. Would you for real?

Re: History of Private Life, ed. Aries & Duby?

Re: Crafting An (Mostly) Historical Heater Shield

Re: Instrument Lovers

Re: Steel Question

Re: History of Private Life, ed. Aries & Duby?

Re: What's everyone using to grind awkward shapes?

Re: Ugo's super secret project sneak peak...

Re: Ugo's super secret project sneak peak...

Re: Quick (or not so quick) ASO question

Re: Online Searchable database - Birka graves

Re: Quick (or not so quick) ASO question

Re: Quick (or not so quick) ASO question

Re: Online Searchable database - Birka graves

Re: help with cutting metal

Re: help with cutting metal

Re: help with cutting metal