The Armour Archive

Louis de Leon

This should be one of the most melee rich events I have ever been to. That was my thought too. They're almost all res battles! *drool* If you fight in the Kamikaze battle, that'd be 4 days straight of res battles. Followed by the coolest field battle scenario I can recall - the Regicide win conditi...

Louis de Leon

where do you tend to hold the piece? that is, where on the piece do you clamp your vice grips? On piece #2 I held them way down on the fan on occasion. I guessed that the torque of beating on the center of the cop and holding it on the fan was the problem. On #3 I was *very* careful not to do that,...

Louis de Leon

Eric Dube has a video up on the raising of an Armet.

It is my favorite armouring video ever. Pop some popcorn, pull up a comfy chair and watch this:

http://bico.tv/video4.html

Louis de Leon

I keep breaking my fans. Here's a picture: http://members.armourarchive.org/louis/busted_cop.JPG Here's a closeup of the fracture: http://members.armourarchive.org/louis/closeup.JPG I've done this to three of these and it's making me nuts. First one I didn't care so much, it was a test cop. Second o...

Louis de Leon

I had a loaner helm cave in on me once. It was destroyed by the marshall at practice, who took one look at it, took it off my head, placed it on the ground, hit it twice with a polearm, sheared off two of the rivets holding it together, and said "i'm keeping this, you can't have it." I'd ...

Louis de Leon

The goofiest though, was an exacto knife I had set down which began rolling, and I ignored, while working on some other part of the project. I had my left hand splayed on my left thing, and the knife rolled, and fell, point first, and pinned my hand _to_ my thigh through the web between my thumb an...

Louis de Leon

Durasteel, many thanks for the clarification. In short, no. you are not making the metal thinner. You are compressing it. If you had a tube made from clay, and you squeeze it, it gets smaller and the material gets thicker because you are compressing it. Yes, that's the approach you're using, which I...

Louis de Leon

Durasteel: Thanks for the pics - they are very helpful! If I'm visualizing things correctly (and Sir Gaston, please correct me if I'm wrong) the way you're going about things isn't a shrinking process, it's a stretching one. I forget who it was, but when I first got into raising someone gave me some...

Louis de Leon

Thanks for the insights guys - I much appreciate it. Sir Gaston: From reading Sinric's work it appears that is what he has done. Only problem is that I'm new to this. My only real experience shrinking rather than stretching is I've raised a couple of knee cops. I still don't have the mental "pi...

Louis de Leon

This pic is from Sinric's 15th century arm pattern here on the AA: http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/arms_15thC_sinric/arm_15thC_7_040500.jpg http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/arms_15thC_sinric/arm_15thC_6_040500.jpg I love how he's shaped the vambrace. I just can't tell exactly how he's don...

Louis de Leon

Hey Ian, keep making helmets. You're good at it. That's a beautiful hat - love to see more of 'em on the field.

Louis de Leon

Their estimate (iirc) was 4-6 weeks for fabrication and 6-8 weeks for shipping. Hmm... Quite odd as shipping used to be 2-3 weeks. Makes sense to me. That's what my shipping wound up being, when I was quoted 2-3 weeks. I think they're just using a more realistic estimate for shipping from the Ukran...

Louis de Leon

I'm very happy with my helmet. It's my favorite piece of armour that I own. That being said, though... Please, Steel-Mastery - if you are having problems don't let your reputation suffer. I'm planning on ordering another helm from you guys sometime in the future. But I won't do it if your reputation...

Louis de Leon

They look like villains from some 70's sci-fi. Buck Rogers. Or Logan's Run maybe.

Louis de Leon

It's not stainless, but it seems much better than mild so far. Not immune to rust though. Clermont would be a better person to ask than I would - he has more experience in it than I do. Jean Paul de Sens would be good to ask too. He's had a pair of 4130 legs for a couple of years now. He was my orig...

Louis de Leon

4130! It's da bomb. Light, easy to work cold, moves like warm butter when doing hot raising. Heat treats like a champ. Use .040 for the cops, and .032 for everything else. My test cop is a freak of nature. You can mangle the bastard any way you like and she just springs right back. It's like holding...

Louis de Leon

Just doin' my part to help. It's much appreciated. And after studying it further, I think it might be just the thing I'm looking for. As long as the second one that says "all other gases" really means that. It's only about $40, so I think it's worth a shot. I could rig it up with a couple...

Louis de Leon

The biggest mistake I made with my first yurt was that I measured it like an engineer would. Everything down to the fractional inch. So when you put the thing up the fabric was stretched to the near breaking point because it was too exact. Tents aren't like that. It pays to be a little sloppy when y...

Louis de Leon

Gas savers for less than 60 bucks can be had at welding depot.com I am really happy with mine. link please!!!!! when I called my local welding supply asking for a gas saver for the oxy/act they said ~$300 on mine I hope to have a small pilot light& put a ball valve on the main burner Found this...

Louis de Leon

Anybody know if there is anything like that? I'd like to be able to turn my reil burner on and off quickly with my foot. Leaving it running the whole time I'm raising is draining the tank quickly. Turning it off by hand takes time and I lose heat while I do it. Plus, it's extra annoying.

Louis de Leon

His fans are innies. Yours are outies. I don't know what you mean. Could you explain that a bit? Dish the center area of the fans in a in a small dish. Ok, that sounds like a winner. I'll give that a shot. Crease a little more too. For some reason I'm not having luck with that part. How would you d...

Louis de Leon

Ok, currently working on Sinric's 15th century legs. Pattern is here if you want to review it. I'm working on the cop. I'm not happy with the fan I've made, not at all. Here's what I've got. The raising went very well, I'm happy with that. http://members.armourarchive.org/louis/mycop1.JPG But my fan...

Louis de Leon

cwr1000 wrote:how did the chicken taste? hopefully not like knee...

The chicken was fine. The only problem was friends making fun of me for being a frenchman with chicken-seasoned armour.

Louis de Leon

I was doing a secondary heat treat of a knee cop in my kitchen stove. 500 degrees for 30 minutes. The cop wasn't quenched in anything nasty (just water) and I was hungry, so I thought "I have an idea!" I put in a half a dozen chicken fingers to heat up alongside the cop. The oil from the f...

Louis de Leon

I have to say it again Stanislav, that really is the most beautiful bascinet.

Vervelles are the pins in the helmet that hold the chain aventail to the helmet. Here is a picture. Danfrombham was asking if these go under the visor, I think.

Louis de Leon

"Fish, plankton, sea greens, and protein from the sea! Fresh...as harvest day!"

Louis de Leon

Just to get back to the original question, propane is definitely hot enough to raise and anneal. Here's a pic of my propane forge getting a knee cop up to orange heat for heat treating.

Louis de Leon

This is one of my top 3 all time favorite helms ever. I am in love with this helmet. It's stunning.

BTW, for units conversion type this into Google: "convert 23cm to inches"

It will tell you this: 57 centimeters = 22.4409449 inches

Sample link.

Louis de Leon

First two people I'd send a PM to would be Jehan de Pelham and Donasian. They're both coinmakers.

Louis de Leon

Ok, this is me and Donasian a couple of Pennsics ago. I'm holding the green and black shield.

Louis de Leon

I'm pretty sure he means $2200. Have you seen any of his work? It's worth it.

Louis de Leon

You can get that kind if "chalk" from any hardware store that carries welding supplies. "Welder's Chalk" it's called It is a soft soapstone that comes in long rectangular sticks. They are not pointed but blunt on both ends. Cool and thank you - I'll be stopping by the store on t...

Louis de Leon

Tried it for the first time yesterday. Here's what I learned: It's fun . It goes fast , so you have to really be careful what you hit. Aim becomes much more important than in cold raising - when you're moving metal that fast it's much easier to make a large oops rather than a small oops. And it's ha...

Louis de Leon

How much would you charge just for the canvas all sewn up and ready to go? Or do you know anyone that would sell a pre-made canvas only. I don't know anyone who does, and I'm not so sure I'd be willing to do it either. I'd have to make a custom pattern to fit whatever it is you're trying to build, ...

Louis de Leon

I've snagged one of the Reil burners off of my propane kiln and temporarily affixed it to an aluminum ladder to test this. I've been setting up for this for a while in my garage. It seems to work! I'll take some pictures sometime soon, but the propane heats it up nicely. Got a good red glow after on...

Problem hot raising 4130

How do you shape a vambrace?

Propane foot switch?

How would you build this?

First hot raising - what I learned