The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Guess he's busy.

Konstantin the Red

Your birthday anvil will work for soft-hammer/hard-anvil quasi-raising. We're not authoritatively sure if it raises a curvature or not, exactly. Nor do we think it stretches the metal's center out thinner, as in dishing/sinking. Theoretically, a raising technique should thicken the metal slightly ar...

Konstantin the Red

Theo, if you're getting a lot of burr you could try tightening the blade gap. Prevents the shear trying to bend the metal around its lower blade, as would happen if the blade gap is getting close to the metal's thickness. Thinner metal to be cut needs distinctly smaller gap.

Konstantin the Red

As you see, you have options for various budgets. The Harbour Freight bench shear, about like a cheap Beverly B-1, is more cheaply built all over so HF can sell it for around a hundred bucks (20%-off coupons help) and you bolt it to bench or stand and take it from there AFTER YOU CHECK ALL BOLTS FOR...

Konstantin the Red

Search-button on "bowling ball basherizer" too. There is discussion, a few pix. The pix are enough to go on to build your own one-man piledriver for larger-radius dishing, for say breasts, backs, and cuisses' finished curvatures, and initial dishing of other things before moving to soft hammer/hard ...

Konstantin the Red

Sean, what Hal has done is lift something from the Bondo #103 Shaping and Bumping Hammer, heavier in the head to deal with thicker-gauge sheet.

http://www.cripedistributing.com/hand-t ... ammer.html

Konstantin the Red

Pit, I can't tell if you were serious, :?: . If you were, likely I can unleash a whole lot of glyptodont and pampatherium stuff your way, if you don't Google 'em up on your own hook. Long long ago, there was a fella name of Florentino Ameghino had a bookstore in South America he called El Glyptodon....

Konstantin the Red

There is an SCA sleeved fighting gambeson, or jacket, that is foolproof if hardly period -- of the SCA Engineered school of armor component design . . . Sir Polidor devised it, and it is in the Known World Handbook in the article "Gambesons, Cloth Armors, and Padding." First published in The Hammer...

Konstantin the Red

When squirrel grows up, he wants to be a glyptodont.

Konstantin the Red

As for crafting skills, I've been sewing since I was a kid, have my own machine, and also do some leatherwork, though mostly it's garmet-quality. I haven't learned blacksmithing or leather armor construction, though both are on my to-do list. I finally got a car last week for the first time in my l...

Konstantin the Red

That part of SCA Armor Standards covering shields is minimal: the essence is don't make it too lightweight, not see-through, and don't have shield edging that mangles rattan. Various means of shield hand coverage seem more to be in the bailiwick of the several Kingdoms' Armor Standards for the speci...

Konstantin the Red

That is more like it.

Konstantin the Red

Carolingia, East Kingdom, is one big Barony and an old one. They should be very amenable to getting a new kid up and swinging. At least we know where she's located, this go-round. Some folks we really have to question!

Konstantin the Red

Which is why it is best used concealed. Like one's groin protection.

Now, CTrumbore, how 'bout you deliver something more constructive, something more useful, than that, hm? We know what it is to be a fighting church mouse.

Konstantin the Red

Suzerain is very knowlegeable about 16th-c. harness -- clear at the opposite end of Period from where you're getting interested. But our go-to man for those things. "Stuffed jacks" as he describes are very efficient and comfortable and cheap for materials, as long as you're putting in the labor to b...

Konstantin the Red

. . . I'm job hunting and do not have a huge amount of money to sink into armour. Right now I'd like to focus on getting armour that protects me for practice. In the long term I'd like to invest in proper 10th century Viking armour, as fits my Shield Maiden persona. Welcome and well come, Vedardott...

Konstantin the Red

Seems sallets and bevors are popular with the equestrian jousters. About all of that circle seem to use a generalist field armour with some pieces of advantage attached where particularly desired. About all of them find the hobby a costly one, and select their basic harness and their extras very ver...

Konstantin the Red

Three weeks on, Rich, what news?

Konstantin the Red

Under "make a stake" there are several simple classics, only some of which need a welding torch. First and simplest, a creasing stake: nothing more than a dulled edge 1" masonry chisel, or brick chisel. These chisels come in several widths up to three or four inches across the edge. The wider ones a...

Konstantin the Red

You can also find a two-brass-tube, two-hose version of James Arlen Gillaspie's burner for propane/oxygen burning using that "can" nozzle to mix the gases for firing. Very hot flame. Also may be set up just to run propane and forced air from a compressor for not quite as hot but hot enough. These wo...

Konstantin the Red

Sean Powell's "heavy horse" is a good one for using a wood saw/circular saw, preferably the circular saw, and ordinary wood drill bits -- easy to organize. A fitting like Keegan's square tube on a plate can come in many forms, like mounting that tube onto a length of steel pipe and a plate on the fl...

Konstantin the Red

On "oxygen propane torch" -- we've written a fair bit. Gas forges and propane torches do enough and are nicely portable as well, particularly the handheld propane burner sorts of thing: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175601 http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic...

Konstantin the Red

Hey, when somebody wants it the hell outta their hair, their life, and their garage, the retail price they get for it is altogether secondary...

Konstantin the Red

Dumbbells in general can make just as good stakes as they do hammers. Over many years and many armourers, a fair bit of trueing up curvatures has been done by clamping the raising, oops, a dishing hammer into a vise, face up, and planishing a piece over that curve.

Konstantin the Red

Relevant to your interests, J. Hillard: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=109938

And that Bondo 103: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=107185

Konstantin the Red

Where can one purchase a good quality raising hammer, along with others meant for armouring? (planishing being another big one) For planishing work any old bodywork "bumping" hammer will do. It will do even better with the face given a good polish to 600-grit wet-or-dry, or to 1000 grit if you want...

Konstantin the Red

Any word, a week along?

Konstantin the Red

Funny story time: Back in the 1970s . . . Some guys (6 or so) chipped in together and bought a pair of his full legs - which they took back to their area, pounded flat , and used to make paper patterns - which they then used to make their own copies of - in SUEDE !! Wonder what on Earth those guys ...

Konstantin the Red

Adding isn't easy for me, I don't weld. I was just thinking about cutting down a crossguard that was too wide. Well, Chris, DIY heroics aside why would it have to be you doing it if you are not presently equipped? Somebody else is, you know. What's more, a lot of those guys have trucks and can come...

Konstantin the Red

Blair is more valuable than Ashdown -- who is a cheaper option in B&N reprints, but of rather less use and considerably older. Research has advanced well beyond his work now.

Konstantin the Red

. . .show well made construction and articulation . . . affordable? To get any sort of armor any how, you either spend quite a bit of money or you spend quite a bit of time. Buying or making. You know well which you can the better afford, and spending that large measure of time is the thing that wi...

Konstantin the Red

Wilkommen and well come! Wear resistance is an excellent property for retaining a knife's fine edge, so M2 or O1, and European equivalent steels, make good hard cutting tools. L6 is a wonderful knife steel by all accounts, especially suited for large knives and short-swords, for instance the Roman g...

Konstantin the Red

Me three... something wrong with the URL I bet.

Konstantin the Red

Frogmouth is a good piece of sporting goods. There is no head or neck mobility in the type, and it hasps or bolts down to the breast and the back for the tilt. It's very good at deflecting a lance coronel away from your eye slit. So long, that is, as the lance arrives angling a little upward, and fr...

Konstantin the Red

Rich, will you be trying for utterly hidden, which is pretty demanding, or just pretty much hidden, where you have some slack? Are you reinforcing an age-of-mail harness or are you building a light-flight-fight rig, and will compactness in stowage be any factor? Fanless steel knees and elbows are I ...

Re: Making hidden armor.

Re: Fantasy Harness by J. Hillard

Re: Throatless shears

Re: Throatless shears

Re: Armouring Stakes

Re: A page from my journal.

Re: Armouring Stakes

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: Armouring Stakes

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: What is this armor called?

Re: Full contact jousting: Helms

Re: Making hidden armor.

Re: Armouring Stakes

Re: Torch for Raising

Re: buy/make a stake holder?

Re: Torch for Raising

Re: Hammers and tools and things

Re: Buying a raising hammer/armouring hammers

Re: Buying armor to learn

Re: Buying a raising hammer/armouring hammers

Re: Need Help With Kidney Belt Patterns

Re: Buying armor to learn

Re: SCA Rapier Blade Regulations

Re: Name of a Book

Re: Buying armor to learn

Re: M2 Steel for Armour, cold worked?

Re: Feather plume on display?

Re: Full contact jousting: Helms

Re: Making hidden armor.