The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Caleb, I'm not sure Nydus is anywhere where he can get an Osage-orange tree log.

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

Konstantin the Red

Oh, yeah, that. Thought it sounded familiar. In a weird kind of way, I sort of like the mantle-type idea. The reason I think "Darkover" when I imagine this is Marion Zimmer Bradley's describing a native-made cloak as "odd." Large dags, too, even... hmm. Strictly auxiliary, though. And still quite ma...

Konstantin the Red

I'd vote for spaudlers for a first project, as step one for an arm harness. The dishing/raising is there, but it is not as deep as an elbow couter would be. So I think you'd make better elbows with the additional experience. Go ahead and make simple small four-piece spauds, shoulder cop and three fa...

Konstantin the Red

Torum, Brian Price details a raising method for making visor ocularia.

Sasha, thanks for that welding-bead hint. It'll be a long while before I'm doing torch work, but I'll file that away...

Konstantin the Red

Thanks, Marshal; I have no personal experience with wearing spring-steel mail. Good to know, and to assess just where the limits are.

Konstantin the Red

A contraction is just an expansion turned upside down. Trevor's site shows that. Personally, I still think making a cloak of mail is utter madness: it combines the weight of three hauberks with the bodily protection of, oh, about a bishop's-mantle. Now if somebody really really really wanted to swan...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by wants to be an armourer: aside from that i cant close the rings correctly anyone got any ideas? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So how are they coming out wrong? The handiest way to o...

Konstantin the Red

Hokay: on to a tool list. You can get started on kinda not much. However, doing really jazzy stuff takes not only experience in bending, cutting, and hammering metal, but also quite a battery of specialized stakes, custom hammers, grinding and polishing gear. A total shop runs to quite a sum. Fortun...

Konstantin the Red

I make a point (heh) of lining up the >< cut link ends face to face, rather than point to point, accepting a slightly out of round link to do that. Less of a concern in heavy gauge wire, especially if you can persuade the points to lie a bit off center as you cut the links. I like to think that make...

Konstantin the Red

Marshal, how much pounding does your shirt have to take? Rattan sticks, rebated steel, what?

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

Konstantin the Red

Positive, ghostie; I've seen it done with screen door springs, bought by the box.

Konstantin the Red

What Hal said. Good first-timer metalwork, and it would suit the SCA market, assuming the rivets are steel. Some few SCA hats have been made that way.

Konstantin the Red

So, Justin, ya gonna sell it and buy hammers or something?

P.S.: No, I don't want it. --KtR

Konstantin the Red

Joaquin overstates the case a bit, but riveted does confer bragging rights -- of the "I've got the longest attention span in this Barony!" kind. It'll be lighter than butted, too. No need for mass and thickness. There are SCAdians who fight in mail, over an arming pourpoint, and with the required ki...

Konstantin the Red

I haven't found any pliers with a cutter in the throat that I would care to use for link cutting. A simple plier isn't powerful enough. I use either large end nippers, known as farriers' nippers, or bolt cutters, of the exact model illustrated above. Use only mini bolties whose jaws' cutting edges m...

Konstantin the Red

Aife, I assure you those are lined, or worn over linen braies. Our forbears may have been rugged, but that doesn't mean they weren't... insensitive.

Or bald anywhere we aren't.

Konstantin the Red

I actually like the thing itself -- for LH Crusader-era historical reenactment work. That's where its real customer base would be -- Second Crusade reenactors.

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Pryrates: Over here (in England), I'm currently paying Â£2.16 per 35m of galvanised 16 guage. I really need to find new supplies... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Quite so -- you are...

Konstantin the Red

I'm busily cutting, too, on a last-for-the-foreseeable-future butted mail project. My plain coils go click click click under my 350mm bolt cutters; my stretched coils have more of a ringing "snap snap snap" sound. I think the stretching out has hardened them a bit more so they ring when I pop them. ...

Konstantin the Red

The SCA requires rigid protection (such as metal elbow cops) on elbows and knees. So they are not just common in the SCA, they are universal. Joints, indeed, need protection more than the middle of a limb does, as your upper arms and forearms are sheathed in muscle and thus have a degree of built-in...

Konstantin the Red

For on your body, plain mild steel is where it's at. Save stainless for later, since the stuff is trickier to work, weld, et cetera. Stainless does perform well -- you're just not at the right place on the learning curve for it -- you're not quite ready yet. You will be once you've done some few pie...

Konstantin the Red

For jigsawing or sabersawing metal, you must invest in C clamps and Vise-Grips, and you must build something to clamp the metal to. Some desperadoes have put metal on an anvil's edge and sheared it with a hammer and cold chisel, cutting right along the anvil's edge, but they report a horribly rough ...

Konstantin the Red

Okay, yeah, now we are reminded of that much. Queen'sThief has posted on other boards, like Chainmaille Board.

Konstantin the Red

MRKS, email sent.

Konstantin the Red

You might try raising such elbow cops from a welded-up cone of metal rather than a flat sheet. To smooth things up, planishing over a stake is what's called for. We can tell more from pics than from a two-word description that it came out "really ugly."

Konstantin the Red

And while we are at it, let us maintain a distinction between "grieves" and "greaves." They may sound the same, but being "greaved deeply" usually means you are on the ground curled up and clutching your naughty-bits... perhaps even being "taunted a second time!" A classic addition of insult to inju...

Konstantin the Red

I'll second the notion of using e4:1 weave for the bulk of your shirt. If you are indeed simply mad for making use of a denser weave, try the next lighter wire gauge (usually about two guage numbers larger, e.g., 16 gauge for most of the shirt, 18 for the 8 in 1 edging), same internal diameter, and ...

Konstantin the Red

Step 0.5, forget you ever heard the phrase "plate mail;" it sets every reasonably serious student of arms and armor's teeth right on edge. An unfortunate coining of Victorian-era writers on arms and armor, it is now chiefly propagated through FRPGs that were written by people not themselves expert o...

Konstantin the Red

Folds when you're standing upright? Are they vertical? That's outside my experience of mailshirts so far, as a too-large mailshirt more goes shapeless than falls into wrinkles. So, to look for a clue, let's check something: what is your chest measurement over your aketon, and what is the shirt's che...

Konstantin the Red

Here now, Cerebus, not to ping on you, sir, but I think you are making excuses you shouldn't. A maille fauld is about the very easiest hip armor that there is, especially if you don't make it overly long. Mail always takes patience, yes, but you can shorten the number of days start to finish if you ...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Sir Oswald: I have noticed that when I put it on and lean forward, there is a fold of mail about a foot long that hangs out. I am pretty sure I know what the problem is: I ...

Konstantin the Red

Well, since bois-d'arc (Englished to "bow-dark" for reasons that make a good deal of logical sense) or osage-orange wood makes good bowstaves, it indeed ought to make good wasters.

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

Konstantin the Red

If anyone's wondering what Sean meant by "clicko" fasteners, he means "Cleco(tm)." Peg-like, temporary rivets, just the thing for getting riveted pieces to exact alignment.

Konstantin the Red

The neatest of these solutions is still the Tandy or Leather Factory Mini and Maxi Punch sets. Locate the punch, hit it with the rawhide mallet (back the leather with something suitably soft like the rubber punching mat) and it will work for you forever. Remember to keep the punch tips honed. I've b...

Konstantin the Red

So, Evil, now is the time for you to find and read a book on welding, or spend a few hours talking to a professional welder. Most welding is done on plate, bar-, and round-stock steel more than 5mm thick. Welding on thinner sheet steel is a more delicate skill, using smaller torch tips (oxy-acetylen...