The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Learn metal shaping on mild steel. It's cheap, welds well, and is highly workable. When you can shape mild steel well, then start playing with the six-to-twenty-times-more-expensive high-carbon stuff, which is trickier to work and to weld, as it workhardens rapidly and severely and is more inclined ...

Konstantin the Red

Hear, hear! 'Tis armourcake. I third the notion about adorning the unicorn orbed and langued gules' collar with fleurs-de-lis.

Yes, I speak French.

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

Konstantin the Red

Merlin, go looking for this on Amazon. I paid fifty-three bux for mine.

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

Konstantin the Red

Forum Moderator, I'd suggest locking this topic -- it's getting flamey and in any case it's been beaten to death!

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

Konstantin the Red

Faith and Begorrah (that's a scrubby and anonymous intersection in downtown Londonderry)! It's the skull of a kinky S&M cartoon jackalope!

Konstantin the Red

Or else get the big hammer and lightly dish something by putting it on softish dirt and pounding a shallow dishing into it. Control's probably not super, but for shallow dishing it sounds like it'd work -- I don't have the kind of scruffy-looking back yard that I could try that in... http://www.armo...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Ritari: Oh no! There's more! Here's one! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2810213266 <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, her smile says, "I'm being a good s...

Konstantin the Red

EIGHTEENTH century?? You are right on with the WW1 usage, though; it was tried as protection against hot shrapnel bouncing around inside of WW1 tanks. It was not successful enough to long stay in use, though. The great military age in mail was from the Dark Ages through the 13th century -- the era o...

Konstantin the Red

The sand- or shot-bag seems to work best for sheet metal that's too light for armoring but fine for auto-body applications.

Konstantin the Red

C-Salad, tell us what tools you do have, and advise us of your age, whether you still live with your parents, whether your house has a garage (suitable place for messy jobs like banging, cutting, and filing metal) or a back yard. With this, those of us with experience can suggest specific things you...

Konstantin the Red

Get the hammers, then get the practice. You will find that the first practice piece recommended is a set of spaudlers -- c. 1380-era shoulder protection featuring a dished cop over the shoulder point and a few lames down the upper arm. It teaches all the basic skills you need to build plate armor wi...

Konstantin the Red

That would be the Chinese Beverley B2 copy sold by Harbour Freight -- and the things are extremely erratic, quality wise, by all accounts. Some have gotten good commie-built Central Forge shears (that's the brand), and others have tried theirs for one day and sent it back. It would be worth your whi...

Konstantin the Red

Fit forming ribs made of a sandwich of 2x4 between two layers of plywood. Something like this: |0|. The ribs are two feet long and five inches deep, and have a smooth circular arc from five inches down to about a quarter inch at the ends. This will give a nice even curve to the shield, and three suc...

Konstantin the Red

Folcric, I'd go 3/8" for 14ga.

Konstantin the Red

The simplest shoulder is going to be the shoulder strap type: two rectangles of mail up and over the shoulders, a neck's width apart in front and a neck's width plus three inches in back, to accommodate your arms' greater swing forward than rearward. An idea I picked up from Firestryker living histo...

Konstantin the Red

I ain't young; I'm 46 going on 47 and live down here in nice warm southern California, where we get earthquake reports with the weather. Evanr, for quick and powerful link cutting, nothing in my experience beats mini bolt cutters, 8" handles, which cost about like a pair of good pliers, say ten buck...

Konstantin the Red

Heating stainless in coals will gray it, as will playing a torch upon the stuff. The result looks a lot nearer to carbon steel.

Konstantin the Red

You might consider using rings from the large end of the size range. I have a mailshirt that went a little too far in that direction, with half inch rings, and the thing's 108 rings around. It has a lot of expansion and collapse, through an absolutely huge range. A lot of rings and make 'em largeish...

Konstantin the Red

Yes indeed, Mike -- a 3/8" link shrunk down to a 5/16" ID link will do ya just fine! Proceed in full confidence. For link overlapping I've used two methods: the "roll links on a mandrel under the pressure of a board" that I've described above, also a "keep your hands busy while vegged out in front o...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Joaquin: If you're only half Dan, what about the rest of you? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> To be sure, the rest o' him is Fred... but alas, neither Dan nor Fred are Norse names...

Konstantin the Red

That shoulder cop is plenty okay, really, and there's nothing whatever wrong with putting a lame above the shoulder cop as well! Speaking of lames, may I suggest that you follow the expert line on this and dish each lame, possibly excepting the bottom one, very slightly? They'll fit and function smo...

Konstantin the Red

I covered the face of my aluminum shield with leather and am very pleased with the results. I got chrometanned scrap from Leather Factory's (the Oakland CA store) dollar-a-pound scrap bin, dumpster-diving through it until I found enough of a supply of leather in my colors -- or near enough to do -- ...

Konstantin the Red

I'd go with straps and buckles myself, attaching each strap to the mail with lacing. I think a laced closure would be a slowpoke, PIA way to close up such a collar. Mail standards fit close about the neck, and pics of combatants so equipped (15th-c. men in armor with their helmets off, mainly) also ...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Lynxicanus: Presently what I am working with is 16 ga. bright common (mild steel) coiled with a 3/8 internal dia. I have made a few links by both overlapping the rings after...

Konstantin the Red

Lu-shan, a metal brake puts creases in metal by folding it, with leverage. This other tool would have to be something else. If it were having the sheet metal going back and forth and side to side between a couple of metal rollers, well, that would be an English Wheel -- which works much better on mu...

Konstantin the Red

And the Ospreys seem to have it right -- check Scottish tomb slabs/incised slabs and brasses. These show either vertical quilting or a chevron layout off a vertical center seam.

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

Konstantin the Red

I think the groovy rail thing is a swedge, to use with a fuller.

Konstantin the Red

A good idea; it should probably be broken first into the various groups' weapons: SCA is very different from ARMA, and then there are the various boffer/LARP outfits. From there you could spread out into various materials and construction techniques, and even perhaps discuss some obsoleted ones -- t...

Konstantin the Red

Azommin, that French "other way" will come out sounding to Anglophones like "flom-behrzh," equal stress. Jason, I'd thought the German term was derived, rather remotely, from the Italian "celata," possibly by way of the French "salade." Nor is the helmet type exclusively German. One style of sallet ...

Konstantin the Red

I second Cet's motion -- and I bookmarked your index!

Konstantin the Red

It's " sal -ett." My Webster's traces it through Middle English sallet, salet , from Middle French sallade, probably from Old Italian celata. At no point in its history does the word have a French form that would rhyme it with "chalet." I don't hold with unnecessary Frenchifications of English armor...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mykaru: . . . won't be able to use it for another year. It would be a shame if it were put to use in your shop in the meantime. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I suppose here we shoul...

Konstantin the Red

Hawks, I can only offer a wave in the general direction for you to look: I remember somebody in the Archive finding a ref to cotton-stuffed aketons from the earlier Crusades, just in your area of interest. The context of the reference seems to have been that this was the Crusaders' first experience ...

Konstantin the Red

And Jim, if your patience runs out before your cloth does, there's always doing the machine stitching on unseen seams only. One hint with hand-stitching a straight seam: don't pull the whole thread through each stitch as you make it, but put the needle through three or four complete stitches in the ...

Konstantin the Red

Rick, if it's SCA you're contemplating using this scanty breast-and-back for, fill in the sides with more plates. Hinge or strap them in. Don't use mail. Most SCA hits land upon your silhouette, not in your centerline.

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