The Armour Archive

Sean Powell

I don't like straps in my gauntlets. They interfere with my grip on the weapon. I rivet tabs to the gauntlet and sew the tabs to the gloves. The tabs don't wear out and the gloves can be replaced fairly easily with a curved needle and some nylon thread. I actually have more issue replacing rivets th...

Sean Powell

You might consider 2 pieces of 2x4 about 4' long with a strap hinge at the end to make a giant 'nut-cracker'. Then a V depression in 1 and a piece of bar-stock on the other. It's cheap and will wear out eventually but it should gt the job done and quieter then chiseling them in. I weigh 250ish. It I...

Sean Powell

I've oil blackened metal using the cooking grill with linseed oil. I've also done it with linseed and lampblack and baked it on. Lampblack gave a deeper color, faster. Try some experiments! Lampblack is cheap, from many art supply stores. I've done some nice things with heat bluing and light in-org...

Sean Powell

You may want to talk to Chris Gilman from Global Effects. He does a fair amount of casting to make copies for the movies. As I understand the process you start with a spray or powder release agent and then make a silicone negative. Then you use the silicon to make several plaster positive blanks. Th...

Sean Powell

Signo, Thank you, I had reached pretty much the same conclusion. I believe that "lamp black" is the soot left inside a lamp from a dirty candle wick or oil lamp running too rich. Its a very matte black powder that gets on anything it touches and should have been readily convenient in every household...

Sean Powell

Not yet but apparantly there is an english translation available online so I know I'm going to be busy this evening.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wo4EAA ... &q&f=false

Any other sources anyone can think of?

Sean Powell

From my interpretation, it seems that the questionable visor/brims of the artwork end in a circular feature. Extant side-pivot visors frequently have these at the pivot points. The extant brim above does not have one nor does it need to. I would assume that if the artist drew a circle or even a quat...

Sean Powell

Hello, More then occasionally the Design and Construction section has a discussion on the best way to blacken armor. Everything from modern acid based chemical solutions to weed-burners with WD-40 to rubbing with linseed oil while still hot. Results and quality vary a LOT based on technique as does ...

Sean Powell

The 1st rule of self marketing: If something isn't selling, raise the price. Value is subjective and often attributed to the price-tag on the item. Taste-testers consistantly rate wines with higher price-tags as testing better even when they get poor scores in blind taste testing. Regardless, he did...

Sean Powell

Not to blow your business model but if I wanted to do this I'd have the steel drop-shipped to someone who does laser cutting like Polar-bear forge or Rough-from-the-hammer. Then you wouldn't be limited to pure rectangles and the hoes would be part of the process. You might also look into how profesi...

Sean Powell

Its also a harsher quench. Could make the piece more brittle. IMHO it's not the added temperature shock of sucking heat out fast enough to boil the water, it's that the steam forms layers of insulating air pockets in some areas and not others causing differentials in the quench process that can't b...

Sean Powell

Consider alternating your notches front/back with top/back or maybe even just back. Not certain if that makes sense in english as it does in my head. You have notched the front and back of the steel to fold it over. consider leaving the front face intact and notching the back and top in some places....

Sean Powell

I love stepping into a tidy shop. If I were as disciplined as I sometimes imagine myself to be, I wouldn't leave the shop without putting away everything before leaving. It's a terrific headache to start a new project amidst the chaos of the last undertaking. In the long run it is so worthwhile to ...

Sean Powell

CTrumbore wrote:Three hours of sorting and cleaning, and I got mine to the point of making two new pens today.

Pics or it didn't happen!

Just curious, what type of lathe you use and how you set it up. I'm considering doing some turning myself.

Sean

Sean Powell

WHY!!! Why would you resurect this thread? Couldn't you just create a new one? Should anything this old and contoversial be raised from the dead?

Sean

Sean Powell

I'm in shop envy. My shop is in boxes and crates at the moment.

Please keep posting pics.

Sean

Sean Powell

Hello,

My library is completely boxed up at the moment (Lets see 26 boxes the first trip and 18 boxes the second at 12x12x16 is 55cu feet of books) and I need some quick insipiration for hinges on clap visors. Anyone have any good links they can share?

Thanks in advance,
Sean

Sean Powell

Von Prankh helm from 1330. (pics burried here http://www.liebaart.org/helm/) does not have a pivot but it does have a reinforce plate (6mm thick if I remember correctly) that covers the breaths and the shield side (and hence opposing lance side). Is it possible these are a variarion of a jousting re...

Sean Powell

I'll try to throw down a few sketches when I have access to a scanner at work. Anyone have any good pictures of extant center hinges to work from?

Sean

Sean Powell

Depending on the style of double hinge a leaf-spring could help hold one or both visors up without much difficulty. Sean Sean, D'ya' mean a spring that bears on the hinge knuckles like the way a folding knife works?!?!? That's brilliant! Mac Yeah pretty much except I was thinking a flat spring and ...

Sean Powell

I like ballistoil for my spring-steel gauntlets. My wife hates the smell (licorice and dead fish) and forbids me to use it in the house.

I have used WD40 as well. Honestly it's not just about treating the steel, it also helps to treat the bag that the steel is in.

Luck!
Sean

Sean Powell

I have 0 practical experience but I have a few engineering questions: What exactly are you scared of? A spark igniting the remaining CO-2? Unlikely unless someone put something in there that they shouldn't have. Explosive decompression when you cut? Unlikely if it really is 0 pressure. The possibili...

Sean Powell

I have that HF grinder. It's has lasted me through a number of home projects including cutting bar-grills out of helmets, cutting ends on ballista prods, cutting bar-stock for the forge, rough sanding, grinding out rivets etc. I maybe have 40 hours of use into it and nothing has gone wrong yet... bu...

Sean Powell

Sean, The reinforce, if that's what it is, isn't over the visor with breaths, but beneath it. That would make two perforated plates rather than a solid reinforce over a pierced plate. How would you attach the inner visor: rivet it to the skull, strap it in place, or make a fancy double hinge? I see...

Sean Powell

I dunno. It's early in the evolutionary sense but later suits of armor had reinforce pieces for the joust that attached over other pierced sections of helms. Heck, the earliest I know of is the reinforce for the Von Prankh helm from 1330. (pics burried here http://www.liebaart.org/helm/) is it reall...

Sean Powell

I love home-built tools and belt sanders sepecially. I haven't seen one yet that wouldn't make an OSHA safety engineers head spin like the exorcist. :) Jamie at Polar Bear Forde sells a 'Grinder in a box' that might give you some ideas. Given which side of the pond you are on , the cost of shipping ...

Sean Powell

I have seen some very poorly fit brigs over the years. Took me a long time to understand it. People look at medieval pictures and fail to see the geometry because they are used to photo-realistic images. The style and proportion of a military uniform are very classic. People also want rigid plate ov...

Sean Powell

Yes, but those little suckers get hot. I have a few cheap pliars and vice-grips that I rounded and smoothed the faces of for just that reason. The pliars with a little grip-tape on the face work better for me then the vice-grips but it could be how I smoothed the jaws. I also stand 45 degrees to th...

Sean Powell

That's good to know. One less thing to worry about. But... we aren't allowed to melt and sell? How about melt pennies, then use the metal to make things that you end up selling? From what I have heard it cost the us govt more then $0.01 to make each penny, however even with the elevated cost of cop...

Sean Powell

Shape and flute, check. But what do you do as you don't have any space for fluting. Look at the left rerebrace of the Sigismund armor: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2048/2043858080_99f522bf35.jpg It's almost totally closed, so you can't place a fluting stake in it, but nevertheless it's heavily fl...

Sean Powell

Great video but you will anoy some of the safety purists about sanding with gloves on. I have mixed opinions either way.

Best of luck!
Sean

Sean Powell

It's a slice of maple. Whatever bugs they are they don't crunch and squish with the barest pressure. In the end it probably won't matter. I just obsess over things. I'm going to use power tools to form the dish. I tested the "whack it until it dishes" idea and stopped making any progress after awhi...

Sean Powell

Shape then flute. Hands down 110% of the time if not more. Any serious shaping will take the flute out. If you don't take the flute out with the shaping then you aren't shaping it enough. MAYBE you can mark a location for the flute in the flat with a center-punch or corner of a file so it is easier ...

Sean Powell

Here is a chart of galvanic corrosion http://www.google.com/imgres?sa=X&biw=1536&bih=740&tbm=isch&tbnid=aJhkayrUYKNHhM:&imgrefurl=http://www.corrosionist.com/galvanic_corrosion_chart.htm&docid=1RNNlnKvm-5wxM&imgurl=http://www.corrosionist.com/Corros1.gif&w=813&h=979&ei=YR0WUu6GDMfh4APmuYCgDQ&zoom=1&...

Sean Powell

I have 2 leather tabs at the top of my legs. I hold the leather at different spots until the leg hangs vertically and then punch 2 hold just left and right of my fingers (about 1" apart). They hang from 2 holes in my belt BUT it is important that the loose pieces of cord are tied on the INSIDE of th...

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Looking for pictures of extant hinges for clap visors

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