The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

You put a fuller down the blade with a fuller, which is the tool that makes such grooves -- with the piece red hot. There will be a fullering stake in the hardy hole of the anvil, and an identically configured fuller set on top of the blade, held by a handle (fullers resemble hammers to the untraine...

Konstantin the Red

What, the Known World Handbook isn't around any more?? Does it need more detailed or rigorous supplements?

Konstantin the Red

Good show, Jason! This is armourcake.

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

Konstantin the Red

But for learning how to work with rivets, round-headed, sometimes called "mechanics' rivets" and the flat-headed or "tinners'" rivets will do, and are readily available from RJ Leahy or other suppliers. Flush/countersunk rivets are a bit on the high-tech side, but if you are trying to make a rivet v...

Konstantin the Red

Difficulty in moving about in armor is more a function of whether or not it actually fits than its weight. Anybody in reasonable training [= can run half a mile without walking, collapsing, or barfing] can schlepp 40 pounds of armor, and probably half as much again with a bit more strain. Frankly, t...

Konstantin the Red

Then just use mild steel and cut and grind your throwers. They have to be soft anyway: throwers have an edge that can only be called an edge by courtesy, and it's quite like the sort of thing you'd find on a power mower's blade; throwing knives test out at their hardest between 40 and 45 Rockwell C....

Konstantin the Red

Just make sure the transitions have a radius rather than meeting at an angle -- the sort of thing you can put in a step by finishing it with a round file.

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

Konstantin the Red

From my fragmentary recollections of the Turkish tongue, it's pronounced "SER-cheh Lih-MAN-i" with the last vowel being a high back vowel related to "a" and sounding somwhere between an "a" and a shwa and an umlaut O. That numeral 1 you keep seeing there is not exactly a typo, but a try at reproduci...

Konstantin the Red

Uh, MIG, or TIG, or what? A MIG should work just fine for welding sheet, and deliver an extremely smooth, neat bead, even tidier and with less spatter than Oxy-Acetylene.

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

Konstantin the Red

The hydraulic-press set are taking to using a creasing stake driven down into a suitable hardwood channel that is clad in leather.

Konstantin the Red

It's the unhappy truth that Knoch got really bad grades in English and in Spelling. He means Churburg.

Konstantin the Red

Crusades started with the turn of the 12th century... first century was Jesus' time -- Roman gear and stuff contemporary with that. With the 13th century we saw the rise of the barrel helm. The 14th saw the hundred years it took to make the changeover from mail to complete harness of plate. The 15th...

Konstantin the Red

Roundels on the sides were more of an Italian-sallet thing.

Konstantin the Red

Diana Paxson is still active, IIRC, as Diana Listmaker. Poul Anderson (requiescat in pace) was Sir Bela of Eastmarch. Jerry Pournelle was another member -- don't recall his persona name.

Konstantin the Red

"Munitions grade" is one-size-fits-most, and minus the extras. Medievally, you'd see gear rough-from-the-hammer rather than what they called a "glazed" polish, and frequently painted to boot. Quite a bit of SCA gear is distinctly munitions-grade. Really obvious period munitions gear is mostly found ...

Konstantin the Red

I guess by that you mean the Roper-Whitney #5 Punch -- clean holes in seconds, and about $50.00 US. Lasts a good long time too.Worth every penny.

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

Konstantin the Red

My two rubles: 1) No. Camails hang from bascinets. A whole coif is a different story. If he doesn't want to bear the extra poundage, perhaps a mail mantle on his arming hood/collar. 2) Yes. 3) Either one was in period for your intended span. The reinforced surcoat would be the earlier. -------------...

Konstantin the Red

An early Coat of Plates with ailettes, yes. Seg-breast, no. The two articles were a century apart.

Konstantin the Red

Signo, 0.15% C will not harden. That is mild steel. However, it will work-harden somewhat from being hammered. Hardenable steels start at the high end of medium-carbon: 0.50%, such as 1050. Frankly, mild steel will do most of what you want done, and will teach you how to bend, dish, form and weld st...

Konstantin the Red

You'll have noticed that mail fabric has two dimensions, one of which does not compress or stretch much at all, and one which has a great deal of resilience, compressing or stretching out quite a lot, because of the way the links hook up to each other. That is the dimension you want riding horizonta...

Konstantin the Red

Leave the gloves off, and just scrupulously clean and degrease the blade after you sharpen it on a bench grinder. The reason for no gloves is so you can immediately feel if the blade is getting overly warm -- as in "too hot to hold comfortably in the hand." Then it's time to cool it or let it cool o...

Konstantin the Red

Master Nim, unless you have a lathe already and want to rig some kind of midget circular saw to cut the rings on the winding mandrel chucked into that lathe, the cheap cutter is: ta-daaa! 8 inch bolt cutters, available at at least one hardware store in your area, good for everything up to 1/8" round...

Konstantin the Red

There's a pattern for a cotehardie in The Known World Handbook, Twenty Year Edition pp.46-55, which is the chapter Costumes from constructed patterns. There are starter-type patterns for about every century. Repro/enlarge and use. The Handbook -- whatever edition is current -- is available through t...

Konstantin the Red

For "enviance," read ambience. Sing the Dynas Morn Shield Wall Song at least once before battle -- or at the very least thwack on your shield to accompany it if you can't get the words. Learn and sing The Woad Song if you haven't already. Take a small, cheap boda with you on woods battle or field ba...

Konstantin the Red

Swordwork makes heavy aerobic-type demands, so the running type of in-shape is the sort of thing you'd want. You've already got the horsepower end of things covered. From what I hear around here, certain details of Clements are highly controversial -- you may be better served with the other two. To ...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Stoffel: Although I havent made those arms from that pattern, when I made my own I used sliding rivets. There is only one lame on each side of the coppe, dished deeply for arti...

Konstantin the Red

Churburg 13 has sliding rivets in the vambrace? Boy, is that news! That's the c.1390 half armour with the brass-trimmed seg, right -- p.77 AAotMK?

Konstantin the Red

In Excalibur the armor started off completely goofy -- bet the art/design director was trying too hard -- and then got steadily more 15th-c. accurate, if you ignore Lancelot's stainless-colored but passably configured harness... This was purer Malory than First Knight -- Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'...

Konstantin the Red

I'd make it so the forearm/wrist can rotate inside the vambrace. Lateral sliding rivets of that type weren't seen before the later 16th century anyway.

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

Konstantin the Red

Seventeenth century, when even half-armours were played out and done with. With the seventeenth century's beginning, handheld firearms were really beginning to come into their own, and in Ffoulkes' memorable phrase, armour was not discarded because it couldn't resist bullets, but because it could. T...

Konstantin the Red

I'd say Steve's interesting and valuable post describes the outer limits of stretch and scrunch -- I'm going to file that knowledge away; might be particularly valuable for planning my riveted projects -- the first one's a camail, by the expansion-ring method; then I might do up a set of voiders and...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by horsefriend: Cap'n Atli, I use a #96 Vulcan for light work, and the 1,5,4 (that's 214 lbs for those ignorant of the TRUE way to measure) Peter Wright for heavy work. . . Ala...

Konstantin the Red

Mmmm... delish! SCAdia needs more of this kind of thing, and not just on top of crowned heads!

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

Konstantin the Red

Try this on for size: seeing out of a greathelm is tough -- you have much less field of vision than you do out of a visorless bascinet. This is especially true of the advanced greats like a Pembridge type -- those things are like a bunker for your head. Such greathelms are optimized more for protect...

Konstantin the Red

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Signo: You can find it at amazon.com with a very nice price! I think at "TOMAR" like my bible! Oh! i'm a newbye armourer, i'm italian, and i hope to share our knowledge! (ex...