The Armour Archive

mattmaus

I used to think that all the cutting should be done in the flat. It's quite a bit easier to shape something oversized and then cut the edges perfectly the way you want them to be. That applies to wings/fans anything that has a scalloped edge, any shape that sees radical shaping but needs a straight...

mattmaus

Take it to a reasonable weld shop with a TIG welder, Bring along a piece of 14g solid copper wire (buy a couple feet of electrical wire, romex or similar) and strip the sheathing. Take it in and ask them to weld it up. I promise it does work, do it all the time. It's not commonly done though and ma...

mattmaus

The ones I remember weren't black, they were kinda buckskin, but I think it's the same glove. They were too heavy to really be a tig glove, but they fit closer than most welding gloves. The palm, and sides of the fingers had almost no lining, just a thin cotton flannel looking layer. The back side h...

mattmaus

If those black stallion gloves are the one's I'm thinking of, they should work pretty good. We got some when I was working a job and they were shit for what we were doing because they were just too thin. We were doing some really heavy welding. But I remember trying the first pair on and thinking, &...

mattmaus

You might want to contact Adam Berry, since he made the helm. I bet he would fix it for you. Not to sound like a jack-ass, but I really think this should have been the first thing that should have happened. Most of the really good armorers got that way by having a reputation. By all accounts Adam's...

mattmaus

Hi guys, Last week I learned that you can use your bead roller to roll beads in leather. There are a good number of tools and techniques that translate pretty well from steel to leather. Obviously, working in steel takes beefier tools than those you would normaly use on leather. But the heavy duty ...

mattmaus

Look at the flak Pitbull got when he started posting. Look how many nifty things he's posted since then. If a few of us hadn't spoken out against the people playing school yard bully and made him welcome he wouldn't be here. Which brings up a gripe I have. Dark victory. He's not evil. He makes a pr...

mattmaus

added a strap to hold the bevor on,not 100% satisfied with the look of the strap but it works very well and easy. And depending on who you ask, and what examples you're looking at, is the period 'correct' way to do it. Though, with that, you could make 4 burgonets a month, copying extant pieces (a ...

mattmaus

Man... I can't believe everyone forgot this very important tip... Post lots and LOTS and LOTS of pictures here. The stuff you screw up as well as the stuff you like. The screw ups so we can all dodge those pitfalls when/if we get that far. and the stuff you like so we can swoon like school girls &qu...

mattmaus

Baron Conal wrote:I need a money tree....

Yeah...

Me too.

mattmaus

Any of the Jiri's that frequent the board would be good bets too.

mattmaus

Been there done that... had a t-shirt, but burned it full of holes and wrapped it around angle grinders and shit... it's in the rag box now.

Welding galvy or not the shit is toxic.

Don't huff it if you don't have to.

mattmaus

Pitbull Armory wrote:it was a bitch to dish.

No.... really?

mattmaus

Another thing I do with tiny holes in stainless is to cut the drill bit shorter to lessen the chance of it snapping. Depeding on the size of the bit... yeah, or I just pick up the pieces after it snaps to make a stubby bit. This often leads to the problem of the drill banging into my work whenever ...

mattmaus

Anyhow, I'll see if I can find somewhere that sells cobalt bits, and use oil and a low speed and let you know how it goes. I get Ace hardware branded Cobalts at... Ace hardware. They are probably not as nice as name brand stuff, but they are cheaper too. The 135 degree point sounds right, and I'm m...

mattmaus

Seconding RJLeahy, and McMaster Carr. Both are good. Both have pretty much the same stuff. And by that, between the two if you can't find the right rivet, you're probably not going to find it anywhere. It just depends on the day of the week which one has the better deal. To my recolection McMaster w...

mattmaus

That's kind of a cool setup, I don't know about other guys, but those are the 3 sizes I use more than anything else.

Too bad I'm poor.

mattmaus

All of my helmets were always padded with duct tape rolls. I found that it helped a lot to make them very small rolls, the big ones had more slop. I also criss crossed them and arranged them in other ways so that there were several of them, but they didn't all roll one direction. I laid my foam out ...

mattmaus

Um... why? You're one $25 rheostat pedal away from it doing everything a hand crank would do... WAY back when I was fiddling with coal (can't now since I moved into the city...) I found that leaving it blowing all the time ate a lot of fuel. Turning the switch down took time that cost me heat. I wa...

mattmaus

Solid shanks have more mass, and mass kicks ass. Mass also costs more to ship most of the time. I use a lot of pipe/square tube. I don't taper my stuff. I built myself a poor mans pexto using slightly larger pipe and tube. I use 1/8" wall stuff for both. I've never crushed one in a vice. I rout...

mattmaus

I'm making leaves. I wanted to texture the part of the leaf betwixt the veins. I have 2 harbor freight 55lb ASO's. I grabbed the loose one (the other is bolted down real good) and found the rattiest, roughest, gnarlified texturated spot left from the sand casting that I could. I got som bar stock ni...

mattmaus

Spiff.

Let us know how they hold up and perform.

I was very close to fabricating my own head, and then using dog bones for making faces, but then someone here had a lot of hammers come up for sale and I lazied out and bought one of them.

mattmaus

It's not girly to stitch together an armor component. If I'm not mistaken, Tailor is a masculine... but I'm not a language guy. Anyway... armor... out of sweat pants? Nope. Bad idea. Even if you were possessed of enough stubornness to get them to the point of sitting on you half way decent, I very ...

mattmaus

Thanks Matt! I try to write for absolute beginners. And we do our best to help everyone who has a question. It's nice to hear that we're doing good. Sooner or later Sighart and I both have to throw something together with your patterns (he ordered your Landsknecht stuff too). We're both sort of 'du...

mattmaus

Thanks for the extra info Adamo. Yeah, as far as I can tell it was knitted with expansion rings tucked in fairly stealthily rather than wedge pieces knitted together in a pie.

Sale Pending.

mattmaus

I was going to keep this and use it to mount on one of my future helmets. Unfortunately, 'back to school' has straight up kicked my wallet in it's jimbly bits with steel toed boots worn by a mule. I need money bad. I got this as part of my trade with Adamo. Not sure where he got it. As far as either...

mattmaus

Not in a donut, no. But... I pretty routinely bottom out on my steel dishes. I got lucky and found one (tank bottom of some sort) and have used it to dish out other dishes but it's pretty much exactly what I want most 'round' tops to look like when they're done. If you have a dish that fits the shap...

mattmaus

You really don't need to worry about damaging a helmet much. The one's I build are meant to be beat on with sticks for years and years. I suppose if they dropped it out of a plane or ran over it with a semi... Really you need to worry about it 1> being dropped HARD and taking a dent, and bubble wrap...

mattmaus

Wonder what Icefalcon's doing -- an arbor press? And how many tons? If I am not mistaken he has been offering it for quite some time (couple years I think anyway... ). I believe he is importing it, rather than crafting it himself. Check his site, based on the prices he is charging there is no way t...

mattmaus

From what you described...

IF you are bottoming the piece out in your 'cup'

It's just too deep.

You can either get a shallower dishing form, or just not push your metal down as far in the deeper one.

mattmaus

RH. Hands down. I have some from each. I'm stupid when it comes to sewing. You couldn't fill one book with what I don't know. It would be a multi volume set. I've not used either patterns extensively. The few finished products I've made from the RH look much much better than the stuff I got from the...

mattmaus

Crisp execution on a well shaped piece.

I wouldn't wear it. But it's damned nice if that's your thing.

If your customer doesn't wet his pants, then you need to beat him with a clue by four.

mattmaus

Oh yeah...

it's way Shredderific.

mattmaus

Head dimensions are approximately 5.5"x7" and 23.5" around. Not to be difficult, but... Something seems wrong here. 5.5" x 7" on the axises is pretty small and pushing into tiny. 23.5" around is what I consider to be the top end of average. I would double check these n...

mattmaus

Your shank diameter is going to play into this... How big are the rivets? 1/8" shank stuff I usualy cut with just small end cutters. 3/16" shank I need something bigger. for the 3/8" shank steel ones I use for visor pivots I abuse the hell out of my bolt cutters and it still takes a l...

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