The Armour Archive

Konstantin the Red

Yep, good ole vinegar. Much easier handling than pool acid (HCl in a certain concentration -- not having a pool, I'm a little vague on just how concentrated). I found some refs to using citric acid the same way, and plenty of discussion about the acids evolving hydrogen bubbles to lift off the scale...

Konstantin the Red

Einar, then you got a good intro. All the more so if you've downloaded the Paul Blackwell PDF, written for the utter novice (really new, like "hold the hammer by the wood part" new). From it you can produce middlin' good SCA armor, various materials, a couple-three different helmets, harness that is...

Konstantin the Red

What's an inside plane of an elbow? I'm not getting this at all. Elbows have planes?

Konstantin the Red

So you're handling strong solutions of acid -- probably HCl? Carbon steels, with an alloy content less than or equal to 6%, are often pickled in hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. Steels with an alloy content greater than 6% must be pickled in two steps and other acids are used, such as phosphoric, nitr...

Konstantin the Red

Welcome and well come, Einarr blod hrafn! Normal person? 8) Guy, you build a good shield -- and look who you're talking to right now: an audience of amateur metal benders who don't, well, restore cars much, don't build R/C flying models and buzz around open fields like steel bees -- and who are into...

Konstantin the Red

Could we see a pic of these uglies? Have you looked over the "Easybake Armor" thread for plastic-heating tips? I'm a persistent advocate of a reinforced gambeson for starter gear, tailored in quarters in the late-Medieval/early-Renaissance style. It is primarily layers of fabric, optimally of linen ...

Konstantin the Red

Could I get 1/8" and 3/16" punch sets ? W.A. Whitney is now American Whitney and they have a No.2 Hand Operated Channel Iron Punch, a bigger-throat edition of their No.2 Standard Punch in CLANG's pics, a/k/a No.2 Standard Tool elsewhere on their website, in production. They no longer make the No.1,...

Konstantin the Red

Let's not forget How does elbow articulation work? from Icepocca. For the nuts and bolts of an articulated elbow. Time was, about everyone built elbow or knee lames just bent over; now we're learning that the lames gap much less if they are also a little bit dished -- they follow your skin better as...

Konstantin the Red

To no one's surprise I had trouble with the faulds. Again. I know it was mentioned they stop around the waist but I don't know if it's too small or not still. You can have them run well down onto the upper thigh. They, plus any mail skirting, be it a hip piece or an entire haburgeon, are the main c...

Konstantin the Red

Pozhalujsta.

Konstantin the Red

16ga should do unless you find you actually want more weight back there to balance a sword.

Konstantin the Red

A link aspect ratio of 4 to 5 is a good choice, butted or riveted. With riveted work you don't have to pay as much attention to link AR. Tighter than this and the links try and lever each other apart under hits; looser and they start to bend open too easily. Shirts have typically run in the range of...

Konstantin the Red

There's another which I think is French. Its arms have elbow cops, with small fans, all covered. Its overall appearance is late sixteenth -- cut like a doublet, with a V waist. I believe I have only ever seen a line drawing of it.

Konstantin the Red

http://www.nigelcarren.co.uk/images/A-A%20003%20Cuirassier%20armour%20Tasset%20and%20Couter%20detail.jpg Okeydokey -- you have two angles on the couters in this pic alone, which should help. What you've got with this is a bridge over the inside of the elbow from one side of the couter to the other....

Konstantin the Red

A haburgeon is the classic general-purpose mailshirt, longer than the vestlike byrnie, shorter than the kneelength hauberk, and without the need for the hauberk's divided skirts, which allowed men in long mail to ride on horses. I don't think anybody is still talking nonsense about "horsemen's slits...

Konstantin the Red

Yeah, some extension down the butt of the whole tace array -- a colet or culet, I believe it's called? -- got done back in the day too. It has directly to do with what kind of saddle the man used: either a high-cantled affair intended to keep him in his seat regardless of anything short of falling o...

Konstantin the Red

Steel mittens all the way. Hockey gloves do not cover everything they ought and frankly you can't grip anything in them so's you'd hang on -- especially on one-handed weapons. Use steel like I believe you already have, don't eff around. How valuable to you are fingers that work, metacarpals without ...

Konstantin the Red

This is a bit more afield, but it has its parallel with another thing artists may do to strengthen their knowledge of anatomy: lifting weights. Do that vigorously enough and two things happen -- muscles you didn't know you personally had but for which you can now find names ( Anatomy For The Artist ...

Konstantin the Red

In benches, worktables and stands -- overbuild like a megalomaniac. If for no other reason than to have them last -- but they will also be seriously strong and very stable. You may consider having some parts unbolt for easy carry when moving house. For that purpose, carriage bolts are the ace! Drill...

Konstantin the Red

Oxy-Propane weedburner/roofing torch and firebrick you can make either a three-sided corner or a bit of an oven, or cave, with to heat in. This one is light on the wallet, and it can be run just propane-air too. Here is a propane-air burner . A cheap propane burner, Harbour Freight. Forced air & pro...

Konstantin the Red

With 2H weapons that happens a lot; they are seductive enough to lead to not maintaining proficiency with other weapons forms.

Play 'em for dessert at fighter practice.

Konstantin the Red

When Cap'n Atli was... a LT(JG)? Copied in full from Christmas Eve '02: Guest Post subject: PostPosted: Tue Dec 24, 2002 9:40 pm Back in '70 or '71 our first big break was discovering a closet full of heavy wire clothes hangers at school. Since they were surplus, and the school had no use for them, ...

Konstantin the Red

Steve S., what became of this bascinet from October 2002 ? And, oo! Oo! A helm-plate bending trick from Halberds that October: I like to put the steel over a 8" dia. pipe and smack the crap out of it with a heavy rawhide hammer. Once I had a really stubborn back sugarloaf piece. It would just not be...

Konstantin the Red

Steingrim(?) Stellari, had it the typical SCA two-foot breadth, or was it cut a bit narrower too, if you recall?

Konstantin the Red

A lot late, are the patterns still available? Welcome and well come, Donny M. May your stay with us be long, and profit and amuse you much. If we've actually got them, they would be in the "pattern index," (archive works too, for searching for it) and you'll right now have to use Google because the...

Konstantin the Red

She'll adorn it well.

Konstantin the Red

The well rounded fighter is well served having poleweapon skills. That'll run from Danish axe to Lucerne hammer and Lochaber axe.

Greatsword is pretty to watch, with its longrange grace.

Konstantin the Red

So, any interesting developments?

I should take a little time to poke around in Instructables -- roll 'em up, shake 'em back and forth and see what shakes out.

Konstantin the Red

Yeah, Glen, that sort of thing seems to have been common, with the essential common note being to get it dry, dry, beyond dry. If they'd had Seal-A-Meal they could have wrapped the result up near bulletproof too. Let's just say this is not unknown with MRE's; kinda wonder what other useful things yo...

Konstantin the Red

Hmm. He Who Is Kinda Neurotic is okay with hooks in walls at least for storage of equipment... just noticed that.

Konstantin the Red

So, you want, like, a shop TV or music system, while you just Zen-zone your way through a plate piece. Would you then recommend doing your primary shaping with a weighted-rawhide mallet like the larger Garland Mfg models to begin smooth and get smoother?

Konstantin the Red

Replaced? Not in the sense of totally totally. The true pavise was a bulky, specialist item. five feet tall or more: a portable, temporary fortification, used by crossbowmen -- perhaps other archers too. Within its limits of mobility, it was cover they could haul around and use for a forward base of...

Konstantin the Red

The deal is to arrange that the heat of oxidation be sucked away as rapidly as it develops.

Combusti-rags apparently have to be heaped up, like compost.

Konstantin the Red

Ways to try and enjoy your hardtack: . . . Many of the soldiers, partly through a slight taste for the business but more from force of circumstances, became in their way and opinion experts in the art of cooking the greatest variety of dishes with the smallest amount of capital. Some of these crumbe...

Konstantin the Red

What I've seen on 19th-c. hardtack, or "hard food," says unleavened, of flour, water, sometimes a very little salt. But other sources tell of a little baking powder used nowadays, dating from the 1850s. There seem, per Wiki, several grades of hardtack, from the especially minimally leavened and clos...

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