The Armour Archive

mattmaus

What I thought might work would be to bend the side frame pieces to follow the front edges of the cheek pieces, lay these parts to buttweld to the front edges, and weld them in that way. Setting them atop these edges in a lap-weld would also work and be simpler and swifter. I've done the lap weld. ...

mattmaus

Once upon a time we had a discussion about bars, sheet, and relative strengths, weaknesses etc. We got lucky and had an archiver who was 1> an engineer, and 2> had the tools he needed for the comparison right handy and ready to go at a point in the discussion. I forget who it was, and wish I could r...

mattmaus

FWIW Grills that are welded on to the front tend to help the helmet ring more. Riveted grills ring less. A would guess that this has to do with the continuity of vibrating surfaces, and that one slightly loose rivet is enough to disrupt that. Otherwise, it can really break down into a lot of differe...

mattmaus

Drill "stopper" holes at these two points Forgot this part. But I shouldn't have. It is pretty critical. By pretty critical I mean absolutely. Without holes, the knees have about a 20 minute span before they crack and tear there. With the holes, they'll go for years. The first pair I did ...

mattmaus

All true.

Except for the heat source. You CAN do it cold, but you'll make up for it in cussin.

mattmaus

Chretien le Meunier wrote:I'd guess he just used a square stock. A few armours and fighters, in this area, swear by it.

It is significantly stronger than round bar of the same size.

It is also a bit of a pain to work with.

Very frequently it gives a better look too.

mattmaus

Going to try some ascii art here... |.\ /.| | \/ | | | | | | /\ | |./ \.| Cut your barrel into that kind of shape. Pull the V's on either end together and rivet. If you want to get really fancy, cut discs out of your barrel and use them for wings/fans on the cop. Rivet the ends of the V's to the dis...

mattmaus

kaiÃ¶ wrote:why all these stupid rules?

Doubtless, somebody stupid did something stupid to inspire them.

mattmaus

Hardware store. Piles of hinges. Fancy and plain. That said, despite being a huge PITA, homemeade hinges are better. The barrel on any comercialy available hinge is going to wrap around the pin and then stop. Over time, it will unroll itself. If you make them doubled up like in the Dube video, this ...

mattmaus

Angusm0628 wrote:If you have even the slightest respect for what I say Vermin.. I beg you for the good of your eternal soul, Do not see that movie..

Bastard... if it's rally that bad, now I HAVE to see it.

mattmaus

Phew!

Don't know you personaly, but always enjoyed your wood.

Wood... um... projects and stuff.

I saw all the posts and went "Aw crap... what happened?"

But it's just a garage sale! Yay!

Cary on. Cary on.

mattmaus

Adam at White Mountain.

Black and brass blingtastic stuff.

mattmaus

If you really really felt the need to anhor it in, jest sew it. Poke a needle through the foam and come out in one of the holes in the helmet, pull some artificial sinew through back in, tie a knot. If the padding fits right, inside the helmet and over your head it shouldn't really move that much on...

mattmaus

Also aim to hit the rim of the shank's flat top with those light hammer strokes, not the center. It helps to quickly file the head flat after cutting it to length, if you used some type of cutter instead of a saw. That sharp peak left by a cutter can throw your aim off and make it more difficult th...

mattmaus

Cool beans.

Any special treatment on corners/points for heater style shields?

mattmaus

4 No really... PM replied to, but I'll post here too on account of other people might be wondering. They are about 4" across, from rivet to rivet. They are a bit wider, about 4 1/8" at the metacarpal plate, and a bit narrower 3 7/8" on the finger tip plate. Measuring along the sides,...

mattmaus

Spiff.

What specific measurements would you like?

mattmaus

Started out life as 0.070-ish aluminum of legaly obtained roadsign pedigree. Thumbs are 16g CR steel (and subsequently less shiny) Copper rivets, 3/16" shank for plate joins/articulation, and 1/8" shank for the straps. 1/8" shank steel rivets join the 2 thumb plates. Strapped and most...

mattmaus

Um... yeah. It'll work fine assuming your rivets are big enough, your strap tight and tough enough etc.

It works fine on 4 and 6 pannel helmets, why wouldn't it work on 2?

mattmaus

Otto von Teich wrote:The skill of the maker...

Patience, passion, stuborness, and caring can make up for a lack of skill.

Similarly, a lack of those traits can lessen the art of a skilled craftsman.

mattmaus

It was happy crap, with elbow nudges to the ribs and smiling faces. Not angry crap.

And it does matter when entering A&S... as it should.

But I did take a lot of crap over it.

mattmaus

This:

http://www.armourarchive.org/essays/ess ... mour.shtml

in the essays section goes over about every single thing you might ever think of to bitch about a helmet and then some.

Excepting maybe using store bought washers and buckles, which I got a lot of crap over recently at an A&S event.

mattmaus

I'd say add the bar.

But if welding is not your thing, tuck a slightly smaller rod into your roll. That should beef it up, and may make the roll less frustrating for you too. Be hard to crush it flat like that anyway.

mattmaus

audax wrote:Also boot toppers/puttees for guys who wear modern boots but want to cover them up.

Would you be doing a custom fit on these, the kind like Halberds does with sabatons where the client mails him his shoes?

mattmaus

I have a couple of Cets pre-welded tops too. Top notch and sized to my specs. Seriously, as long as Cet is in buiness there is no reason to ever buy another spun top again. The SCA needs more armourers selling products such as his. Can you tell that I really hate seeing spun tops out there? agreed....

mattmaus

That is exactly what I do in m garage when I get bored. I would never do such a thing. * And I would certainly never cover up a foot wide hole in the sheetrock (stick to knives, axes do too much damage for indoor use) with a bulletin board. * only because the wall space has been since entirely used...

mattmaus

I appreciate all the kind words guys. Whenever I was doing armor full time, and even now on the rare piece that I build as a comission I used to totaly stress the hell out over it. It's always nice to know my anxiety was/is not a wasted part of the process. Unfortunately, I am mostly not building st...

mattmaus

Pitbull Armory wrote: like my personal harem. And yes, try not to read too much into that.

Way too late for that. Allready did.

It was only slightly creepy.... then I remembered the stuffed squirrell.

mattmaus

I skimmed, and only looked at pictures. I saw barrel blue. I do that a lot. But with some creative molding techniques and a heat gun or decent oven, after some careful cutting... There's really no reason you couldn't do the whole thing out of plastic. Done RIGHT, like you have here, it should look p...

mattmaus

This is very cool plastic armor.

mattmaus

Her boobies will be well protected. Which is important. I'd hate for them to get damaged.

Nice job.

mattmaus

Looking very nice.

My ridge former looks a lot like Hal's second one. I have a top die that I beat mine with too. I need to whack the stake shank off and off-set it like his is though.

Anyway, great looking helm. It is damned hard work, but you've done REALLY good work.

mattmaus

got your pm, and replied....

did it not go through?

mattmaus

Mild steel works perfectly fine for weapons, you just designed a piss-poor weapon. I have done this SEVERAL times, just to prove the point that it can be done, and be done well. Mild steel or iron weapons will in general be thicker and shorter than their carbon steel counterparts -just like bronze ...

mattmaus

I also was never very successful at getting a plaster cast out of it, will pewter come out better or shoudl I try to make a new mould? Very possibly. Try it and see. Most of the plaster casting I ever did was in very thin latex molds. If the detail was to fine to get it out of the flimsy floppy lat...

Aluminum (mostly) Gauntlets Sold!