The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Stainless, being modern, is just about always given in thousandths of an inch and never especially mind about gauge anything. Expect something like that to transpire when you go taking a caliper measurement. It should be very useful for many general applications for plates; it's rather too heavy yet...

Konstantin the Red

And the wrinkling of surcoats in art looks a lot like wrinkles in silk or linen, rather than the softer wrinkles of wool.

Konstantin the Red

That's true. They ain't wasted.

Konstantin the Red

I found out about armor being good for falling through hedges and thick stuff one night at fight practice when I did. "Oh god, I'm gonna get all scratched up like the last sixteen times this happened... oh, cool, I'm not getting scratched up... fact is, I didn't even hit the ground, much." Sturdy he...

Konstantin the Red

After all, that does terrible things to his singing voice. If however, you're talking about how you would do a thing, but only talking, and he says more quietly "Why? Whyyy? Whyyyyyy? Don't be an idjit," then you've done it more gooder, and can manage not to be no idjit. In making anything, it's bee...

Konstantin the Red

Something you can use to work with for gaunts: Put your hand, flat, with your thumb out some ways (just moderate) and trace really close all around your hand. Mark the lines of your knuckles too -- where they are, how they curve (you play with this to make mitts work). This will give you sort of an ...

Konstantin the Red

Now you know why to first cut out and bend the pieces in tagboard or cut up cereal box. Cut, try, tape on, snip off. You're trying to do this without pre-fitting some patterns -- and I'm not sure, on your bald description, if you're even trying to measure your hand, if your results are so way wild. ...

Konstantin the Red

It might help if I mentioned those "grand piano plates" meet up tall side to tall side at your spine, sort of like two capital D's back to back, and then the bit of the piano plate that comes around your side being rather like D= altogether. So, the left half of the kidney belt's pieces all march al...

Konstantin the Red

Have been searching various sites, including this one, in an attempt to find a pattern or the methods for making a pattern for a kidney belt. As this piece of armor and a cup are the minimum needed to begin SCA heavy combat it surprised me that it was not listed in the types of armor. Can anyone po...

Konstantin the Red

Form it with a bigger hammer, as it is likely to run stiffer. 300-series stainlesses are nonmagnetic; 400-series, much rarer, are somewhat weakly magnetic, like around half as much as carbon steel. It doesn't do weird freaky memory alloy tricks, it's just harder to push around by cold working, and h...

Konstantin the Red

Graham Ashford wrote:Have fun and bring the biscuits for tea breaks

Graham means, for our American readers, that it will be your responsibility to the Dark Side to bring the cookies.

Konstantin the Red

http://californiathroughmylens.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Cholla-Cactus.jpg Typical Cholla. They look almost fuzzy, but don't you ever believe it. Also remarked on, accurately, in a John Wayne movie (El Dorado?) where Wayne's character is trying to teach another some pistol marksmanship: "Were ...

Konstantin the Red

We usually think it's the helmet that's the temporal definer, the cynosure as it were, of the harness. Pick a favorite century, build that kind of helmet. From there, make harness pieces of that time. Our forebears really only came up with a dozen or so basic kinds of helm and helmet. They had plent...

Konstantin the Red

Ringmesh.com: http://www.ringmesh.com/category_s/54.htm and sundry other pages their site. http://www.ringmesh.com/ChainMail_Shirts_s/37.htm I searched via AZON Corporation, whose name often figures in the background of these various sellers. Ringmesh.com turns out to be a marketing arm of theirs. T...

Konstantin the Red

I'd like to stick in what I think may be a decent workaround for dealing with sheet metal that is too heavy for the shear's rating -- all the more vital for trying to process stainless (at least that stuff is more amenable to being sheared rather than sawn, machined, or filed). It starts with your c...

Konstantin the Red

If that guy ever tried to push his way through a thorn thicket, he'd never make it to the other side. The nice thing about field armor that's all smooth curves is how you can get right through underbrush and oleander hedges. Even rosebushes. Probably not cholla cactus, though. Almost nothing is proo...

Konstantin the Red

Any news, seven days on?

Konstantin the Red

All those. Be a knowledge sponge. Find out when is a good sort of time to pester with questions -- moments when the armorer isn't doing something intricate. Even if this means saving it up until the end of the session. Try not to get too fantastical about the future dealings with him. I'd expect in ...

Konstantin the Red

It's not hard to achieve at all. Linen cloth liner, preferably 100% linen and without blending fibers of other kinds except maybe silk will be just as protective, far cooler in wear, wick sweat off you when you do get hot, and be more genuine -- good for demos to the public. It does take a man-hour ...

Konstantin the Red

Welcome and well come, Jacks_username. May your stay with us be long and profit you much. I wouldn't take Mr. Matthew Cross -- B_________d -- seriously on any subject. From metallurgy he doesn't know, and has proven it. His own worst enemy, and we'd rather avail ourselves of medieval design to build...

Konstantin the Red

Lots of interesting details in this picture. This caught my eye today: Armor Workshop Detail.jpg Today we cut sheet metal to shape and then form it into armor. It's often said "They didn't have sheet metal back then" . . . Did suppliers exist solely to pound-out sheet for these work shops? They did...

Konstantin the Red

KtR - http://digital.wlb-stuttgart.de/filegroups/treiweis_35103336X/max/00000192.jpg Yep; I think the one I used wasn't as big. This one's clickable. J., of course you begin, right off, with your reading, and with whichever tools you've got. Initial capital investment is not large. Initial early-da...

Konstantin the Red

Right then, how many of us are East Kingdom? How many eastern Aethelmearc? At 5'7" and 290, yeah, you are sure going to be building your own. Blackwell is the quickie in mild steel and hardened leather. There are other fast, cheap, and quiet-for-the-neighbors materials that will serve you well, like...

Konstantin the Red

In hammers there really is no One True Hammer Head Shape. Just forge and drift something you think you need. If it isn't something you need, sell it off or remake it into something different; having a forge is nice that way. This usually means a hammer that is distinctly long in the nose. Poster Hal...

Konstantin the Red

You know, this is the first I heard of Varangian guard using extensive bronze pieces. Do we have sources on this, and how good are they?

Konstantin the Red

So, is it 'layme' or 'lah-may'? When I read it, it sounds like the latter but I've heard it pronounced as the former. And I'm speaking of lames, of course. Lame afaik just derives from the normal English word laminate. One of the definitions of laminate is to beat or roll metal into thin plates, fr...

Konstantin the Red

Myself and a friend of mine recently set up a forge and are planning to start making armor. Our goal is to be making all our own stuff but I know once you stay dishing and bending metal the dimensions change. I was hoping somebody with much greater experience could help me out with measurements i.e...

Konstantin the Red

Fifteen ounce leather sounds a lot like overkill for this job.

You can curve/dish a piece of metal with a hard anvil and a soft hammer -- got access to one each? You don't even need a stump or a dish so long as you have the softfaced, heavy hammer.

Konstantin the Red

J., the haute-piece, or hausse, that you see is part of the pauldron and stands well clear of the close-helmet. To tell a close-helmet from an armet, determine how it opens up. A close-helmet has its jugular/chin piece swing up to open on the same pivot as the visor and the ventail, while the armet ...

Konstantin the Red

And the fundamental difference? Tournament armor is sporting goods. Protection is much enhanced at a corresponding reduction in general mobility and a weight that could exceed one hundred pounds with everything. Good terms to Google on are "pieces of advantage" for the add-on or switch-out tournamen...

Konstantin the Red

Since you are starting at the beginning (a very good place to start o/~), for your armoring there are numerous handy resources. From the Net, download Paul Blackwell's basic armouring .pdf for usable if unsophisticated midlevel SCA armor to play in. There are pattern archives here and there, useful ...

Konstantin the Red

Image needs a fixy.

Konstantin the Red

For the specialty of bladesmithing, avail yourself of Jim Hrisoulas' three books. He writes every bit as well as he forges.

Konstantin the Red

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3136/2333623145_2250147418_b.jpg Engraved. Notice how very linear everything is; there's no real background in this composition. Essentially, it's line art. Even the areas that are etching-gray in their tone are finely seeded, where in an etching they would probably be...

Konstantin the Red

Pistoia Silver Altarpiece too. So a start date in the 1370's?

Re: Stainless Steel beginner

Re: Surcoat in the rain - wool or linen

Re: Armour measurements

Re: The Proper Method of Gluing Nickles

Re: How to not piss off a Master Armourer

Re: Armour measurements

Re: Armour measurements

Re: Need Help With Kidney Belt Patterns

Re: Need Help With Kidney Belt Patterns

Re: Stainless Steel beginner

Re: How to not piss off a Master Armourer

Re: The Proper Method of Gluing Nickles

Re: New smith could use some guidance.

Re: Where to get fine chain

Re: B1 shear

Re: The Proper Method of Gluing Nickles

Re: Helm Padding - Adhesive Help

Re: How to not piss off a Master Armourer

Re: Helm Padding - Adhesive Help

Re: Rivet Hole Reinforcement for Thin Plate

Re: Hammers and tools and things

Re: Hammers and tools and things

Re: New smith could use some guidance.

Re: Hammers and tools and things

Re: WTB Varangian Bronze Shoulder Cops

Re: You say bascin-AY, I say bascin-ET

Re: New smith could use some guidance.

Re: CoP help

Re: What's that armour piece?

Re: Plate armour- Battle Vs. Tournament/jousting

Re: Newbie: How do I start jousting

Re: Hinge Wiggle

Re: A young guy with a dream: Apprenticeship

Re: Engraving Plate Armor

Re: Early articulated butt defenses