The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

I've been posting on ring-bashing for upwards of a year now -- and I haven't commented on this before now, but I'm inclined to think a hydraulic or arbor press would be even slower than a hammer. With a hand hammer, I'd take an informed guess that I spend about 7 seconds per 3/8" link in the flatten...

Konstantin the Red

And to do it, you type in bump between two colons, so -- :....:, and it comes out like this:

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Evil, bumpy denizen -- burp burp, ribbet.

[This message has been edited by Konstantin the Red (edited 05-10-2003).]

Konstantin the Red

Make a leather band that goes around the bottom edge of the helm, or up at sweatband level for later types of headgear like sallets and barbutes, and attach the suspension-web components to that band. The band is attached to the helm with rivets.

Konstantin the Red

This post is not to advance any position or argument in this thread; it is merely to see if I come up as an "evil denizen" too [img]http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/rolleyes.gif[/img] .

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"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

Konstantin the Red

It's a big night for armourcake, no?

Konstantin the Red

Armourcake, sheerest armourcake. It is good to see so scholarly an effort come to fruition. Thanks. Thanks also for the semiperiodic updates discussing and showing various stages of production -- you guys have taught me everything I know about how to really do brig. Three cheers! ------------------ ...

Konstantin the Red

Clin, if you get no other book on armor making, get Price's TOMAR. Rob Valentine also did an armoring book, but it is so much less comprehensive than Price that one could characterize it as the skeleton of an armoring book rather than a complete work. I went for Amazon's twofer deal on both, and TOM...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by RictherBelmont: <B>Ive been making Alot of chain Mail in small sections(6x6). . . I want to run it with the red arrow paralell to the verticle, however the pattern on the blade...

Konstantin the Red

Now, look -- the only thing an edge beveler is going to do is to knock that corner off. An edge beveler is not going to turn a square edge of a piece of leather into something of semicircular cross-section. With a large edge beveler and very thick leather you could, I suppose, make three passes down...

Konstantin the Red

Fenix, you have tried hooking up with the local Society for Creative Anachronism, haven't you? Many an armorer has learned his first armoring and done his first armor project building armor for SCA fighting. There always seems to be somebody hammering something out in his garage. http://www.sca.org ...

Konstantin the Red

7 ounce for lightly loaded stuff, 9 ounce for the heavy duty. I prefer 9 ounce for straps that I buckle and unbuckle a lot, width about 3/4" to 1".

Konstantin the Red

Well, that would be 6061 aluminum alloy, T6 temper. You can either get these things premade, or get the sheet metal and find somebody who has a big enough sliproller to get it bent to about 3 to 4 inches depth, or round yourself up a couple of logs and a large deadblow hammer and spend the afternoon...

Konstantin the Red

The Roper-Whitney #7, #7.5, and #8 are the great big boys, which can be bench-mounted. They also command a pretty big price. The Roper-Whitney #5 Junior punch, with dies, will run you about 65 Euros, plus shipping for something about one kilo's mass. http://12.2.185.72/punching/punching.asp http://2...

Konstantin the Red

I second the notion on Blair Atholl, which is just a bit south of the pass of Killiecrankie, of James Claverhouse/Bonnie Dundee fame, and sundry other brawls as well, as Killiecrankie is the path into central Scotland from the south. I've been to Blair Atholl, and its armoury is a wappinshaw on wall...

Konstantin the Red

Patrick, that would be a harness of bands...
I think you've just reinvented the Anime -- in German!

Konstantin the Red

What color and shape of sparks does it throw from a grinding wheel? Long orange sparks are mild steel; short yellow sparks that spit little sparklies too are a clue the steel is high carbon. For that matter, what color is the metal? You know mild steel's gray color; is this stuff whiter? What does i...

Konstantin the Red

As long as the dishing hole is bigger than the hammer face, it will work for breastplates. You just move the breast around putting whatever part you need to round on the hole and whup on it some with a large hammer, preferably with a somewhat more rounded face than most sledge hammers now come with....

Konstantin the Red

I wonder if Adler des Berges of the Barony of Tir Ysgithr, Kingdom of Atenvelt, still has that black, reinforced freon-can loaner helmet -- you couldn't tell if it had started out ugly or not, it was so battered. This was A.S. Nine or Ten, thereabouts. They also had a retired barrelhelm (don't remem...

Konstantin the Red

I've tried them, and I do not like them. Such nonarticulating knees are completely unsuited for SCA fighting because if you go down on your knees, the part of the greave that's covering your knees as you stand erect is now sticking out ahead of your kneecaps and your weight is now riding on those gr...

Konstantin the Red

Kronos, an edge beveler will work just fine -- a sole bend is just vegetable tanned leather anyway. A regular sized edge slicker won't work on leather that thick, because it's simply too narrow -- but one could find a nylon pulley wheel for clothesline or some such that would be big enough to answer...

Konstantin the Red

Wedgies on brayettes-de-mailles... hardcore.

Konstantin the Red

Armourcake.

Konstantin the Red

Egfroth, you've gotten your steel and your copper mixed up.

Konstantin the Red

Wot Mage sed -- and ye gods, Matt! Small links are the pencil stoppers. E8:1 is also twice the weight of e4:1 -- it doesn't get used if it's too durn heavy to wear, and if it doesn't get used, it doesn't protect. There's also the consideration that 8:1 weave is extremely slooooow and fiddly to const...

Konstantin the Red

It's a heater, really. They got decorative with the top line of the whole thing, essentially planing the upper corners off the shield, lowering them. For sword & board, this actually makes the shield less effective at shielding you; the great bulk of your sword blocking is done with the corners of a...

Konstantin the Red

Armourcake.

Konstantin the Red

Go for about two extra inches. I made the lining first as a sort of muslin, then basted it together and made adjustments. Then I cut out all the rest of the material. All my fabric and cotton batting was preshrunk before sewing together. Fabric shrinks more in height than in width.

Konstantin the Red

The other thing to remember is they are all first half of the 14th century. The state of the armoring art had moved beyond the CoP by the latter half, though the people who couldn't get state of the art stuff kept it in use for another generation or two.

Konstantin the Red

This is one of various extant examples of "secrets" or "iron hats" that have come down to us. The idea was to have a hat with a little something extra hiding in it.

Konstantin the Red

A mailshirt is likely to take you months, especially on a spare-time basis. I'm just finishing one, and I started it late last November. The thing's coming out heavier than I wanted -- I think there was some confusion about what 14 gauge really was... Small links like 1/4" i.d. will go slower, while...

Konstantin the Red

I scatter the expansion rings throughout the row -- count off every so many, put in an expansion ring, count, insert exp-ring, repeat as needed. My usual method is to count the number of links in the outer row, factor it, take the smaller factor as the interval between rings and insert the larger nu...

Konstantin the Red

No, a nail gun is just a nail gun, whether powered by compressed air or electricity. An air hammer is that noisy thing you hear in the back room of the tire & alignment places, taking the tire lugnuts off and putting them back on. Those things that make that hissing "squurp squuuurp!" noise. -------...

Konstantin the Red

The nice thing about air tools like grinders and such (Bert, you were close: "air hammer" is the English word) is that they don't heat up as you use them. In fact, they get cooler from the compressed air's adiabatic expansion, and the air is usually vented to blow away filings and grinding grit. You...

Konstantin the Red

The leather for your camail strap should be about the weight of a rather light belt -- 6 to 7 ounce. You can go lighter if you make it double-wide and fold it over your mail and stitch it down. Depending on the exact line/shape of your camail strap, you will likely need to remember to put a couple o...

Konstantin the Red

There are three basic ways to build mailshirt shoulders: barrel-and-straps, some variant on the 45-degree approach (either straight raglan type sleeves or quite a collection of triangles joined together on 45 degree joins), or the mantle-top, which is to build the whole shoulder area in the fashion ...