The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

Well the shop is a good 50' from the house and since we have lots of goatheads out here every house door has a metal grating in front of it to scrub your soles against. Also blacksmithing doesn't seem to produce as many small sharp items---now all my shoes tend to have burn marks on their soles... i...

Thomas Powers

looks LotR movie elvish to me

Thomas Powers

Remember too that junkyard steel charts are "suggestions" not laws. For example Machinerys Handbook lists S7 as a great steel for jackhammer bits and so many junkyard steel charts show jackhammer bits to be S7. Well a fellow who had a decades long business reforging jackhammer bits told us that of t...

Thomas Powers

Remember too that junkyard steel charts are "suggestions" not laws. For example Machinerys Handbook lists S7 as a great steel for jackhammer bits and so many junkyard steel charts show jackhammer bits to be S7. Well a fellow who had a decades long business reforging jackhammer bits told us that of t...

Thomas Powers

Since I'm primarily a blacksmith I've been needing stuff that will cut heavier sheet instead of the B1 I have. (Hey it was $35...)

Thomas Powers

shoot I'd double your money and pay for shipping and take it *rusty*!

Thomas Powers

Good for living history: What is your socio-economic level and where is your portrayal from?

Thomas Powers

I thought hot dip platinum was still a top rust preventive

Thomas Powers

That was my thought as well; old enough for the feet damage; but new enough for the Cristobol Colon pic to be in the history books.

Thomas Powers

Yes that should anneal it. Does the contractor know what brand of bits they use? If so contact the maker and find out what steel it is. As mentioned gun barrels are usually not made from "hard and crunchy" steels but soft and gooey ones; but, being warned, you have the right to your own folly. I ass...

Thomas Powers

Looks like a depiction of Christopher Columbus; I would greatly doubt that the wood carver of the 1500's would be familiar with those privately owned oil paintings...

Thomas Powers

Any alloy is available in sheet form *iff* you are willing to *pay* for it!

Thomas Powers

We have few enough good sources on ferrous metals that anyone interested in the field can amass many of them in english even! It's finding the oddball ones that make life *interesting* So: Theophilus, Divers Arts, c 1120 Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, c 1540 Agricola, De Re Metallica, c 1556 della Porta,...

Thomas Powers

The expense and difficulties of working these alloys generally make them not cost effective; they would, if treated correctly, make fine armour.

Thomas Powers

Knifemakers buff horns with generally a light coloured compound---save for water buffalo which a dark compound helps.

You really need to make sure it wasn't covered with some sort of coating first though.

Thomas Powers

I assume you made it to fit a particular fireplace? One will sleep soundly knowing that a "pop" can't start a fire while they are abed!

Thomas Powers

No harm, no foul! I've done my share of oops posts over the years. It could be a thread on it's own about things that medieval folks confused/thought were related to other things, (barnacle geese, kupfernickel, colouring copper with zinc ore, or all the various explinations on how iron becomes steel...

Thomas Powers

The "english" pencils of the time were graphite from the mines in Wales IIRC and the context of charcoal turning to plumbago was definitely referring to graphite and not real lead, Pb. It's a good read and Cyril Stanley Smith is a respected scholar in the history of technology fields especially in m...

Thomas Powers

So the black lead for stoves 100 years ago wasn't called lead---Guess I had better sand it off the antique can! I saw dozens of references to plumbago in "Sources for the History of the Science of Steel" when they were referring to graphite in the 1700's, e.g: "It is no longer pure charcoal, but it ...

Thomas Powers

and we haven't even mentioned doing it HOT

Thomas Powers

Graphite sometimes used to be called "lead" as in pencil leads

Thomas Powers

DIvers Arts mentioning blackening copper by smearing it with linseed oil and heating it over coals, repeat as necessary---sound like anything folks have done lately?

Also file (iron) smooth and heat it and rub it with oxhorn or goose feathers to provide a black coating

Thomas Powers

Soldering is very viable if you have the socket and the end very close in size. You can use a low temp silver bearing solder like staybright or a high temp silver solder If you do try to cast in place, make sure there is a mechanical joint as well as the adherence of casting. Cu loves to absorb O2 m...

Thomas Powers

Shoot I took a forge to the local A&S night yesterday

Thomas Powers

Anything in the Boke of Natural Magick? I remember a long list of very odd suggests for quenching liquids that was abstracted from it.

Thomas Powers

I've transferred fingerprints using petrobond sand. If it's a design without undercuts or lots of very fine detail an oilsand cast will have you done before the lost wax gets started good. I once did a bunch of skull studs for a knight's belt using tuna cans for the cope and drag. We would ram up th...

Thomas Powers

Long enough to be used as a garrote!

Thomas Powers

Linseed oil blackening is mentioned in Divers Arts; pretty much pre plate armour though

Thomas Powers

treadle hammer!

Thomas Powers

Have you looked at Theophilus' Divers Arts where he blackens some small items of ironwork?

Thomas Powers

Didn't you issue them any boarding cutlasses?

Thomas Powers

Classes and displays are not what one would expect at a deed of arms; gaming, storytelling, dancing and other pursuits of gentlefolks in their "off" time might be expected. Perhaps a tavern set up?

Thomas Powers

I think that should really read "cheap" vinegar.

Thomas Powers

Theophilus doesn't mention the water so when I first tried it I got a nasty gummy mess. As Theophilus is generally spot on when how to do things (save for cutting crystal...) I sat back and cogitated on what would have been such a common thing that nobody needed to mention it when describing the "re...

Thomas Powers

Theophilus' method of polishing bone using sifted wood ashes and a strip of woolen cloth does a surprizingly good job *IFF* you add a bit of water to make a mild abrasive slurry, the lye helps degressing the bone as you shoeshine it.

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Re: Latest score: B3 for $95, need rust removal advice.

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Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

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Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

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Re: How do you prepair bone handles?

Re: How do you prepair bone handles?