The Armour Archive

ArtemisGreen

Well, I was right. It doesn't allow you to get into the deeply dished areas. Yeah, you guessed it. I'm still working on planishing my elbow cops. For some reason, I'm just not getting it right. I do the light taps, I hit it dead center, the hammer on an almost perfect tangential plane with the top o...

ArtemisGreen

Works now!

ArtemisGreen

So I got another planishing stake from Halberds today so I could test it out. I haven't tried it yet, but right now it looks to be a bit too flat. I'm not too sure if it's supposed to be that way, but it doesn't look like it would fit in a deep spot. Apparently Hal's welder said that it would probab...

ArtemisGreen

Would that really work? I saw something about how they made the VW Beetle back in the 40's and they used one of those that you're talking about to form the body panels. They probably do that for all cars. However, what I'm worried about is if I do that, when I pull the piece out, it will turn out a ...

ArtemisGreen

The inverted dishing hammer idea sucked. I'm going to try something else soon. I got the hang of dishing it out. I re-shaped my oak stump again, and it works much better now. The big problem I have now is planishing. It seems that no matter how much I planish it, no matter what pressure (ranged from...

ArtemisGreen

RINGS!!! OH MY GOD THE RINGS!!! Yep, you guessed it. It makes tons and tons of rings. Even if you hit it perfectly on the head, it still makes rings. Even after polishing the roughness out with 400 grit sandpaper, it still makes rings. And the winner of "Why This Won't Work"... Carmel!!! Yep. It'd w...

ArtemisGreen

Well, I just got back from running tons of annoying errands, and I finally got time to make the hammer. Here it is. I only have one disc for my grinder, and it's 24 grit, so there are a couple of small scratches in the face, but I won't worry about it too much. It's just a prototype. When I go back ...

ArtemisGreen

That'd be too cool, however, I don't have 2 massive blocks of steel to do that with

. When I get the money, I could probably do that and sell the halves for cheap. That's a long, long way off, though.

ArtemisGreen

I think I'll make it such a shallow curve that it wont leave the rings in the metal, and it'll give me room to make mistakes with.

ArtemisGreen

I talked to one of my friends about the scrap they sell at this particular recylcing center, and he told me that they carry some exotic stuff. And then last night I asked my dad if he knew if the navy used some kind of weird stainless for tanks, and he said it could be some kind of warp/bend resiste...

ArtemisGreen

Heck. I'll try it out. It does sound like it'd work, so I'm feeling kind of lucky. Hey, what's to lose. I have plenty of steel and now that I've found my scrapyard, it's really cheap. I'll make the hammer and try it out tomorrow on an elbow cop or something. Thanks for the kind (and too true) words ...

ArtemisGreen

So... I was thinking (I know, dangerous, right http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/biggrin.gif ) that if a sinking hammer works well in a dishing stump, how about making an inverted dishing hammer (kind of like a metal dishing form on a stick) and using that over a mushroom stake. That would dish thing...

ArtemisGreen

3/64 in my calculator says 0.046875. And I know that this stuff isn't 13ga! That'd be wayyyyy too thick, and I'd have passed that stuff up in a hearbeat! I tried to fix my dishing stump so it would be more circular. See, it was drilled out with a 1" flat drill bit, and I just smashed it down with a ...

ArtemisGreen

I use a 3lb hammer. That may be why it's not getting dished fast enough. Should I curve the hammer face some more, or should I start curving my dad's 8lb sledge?

ArtemisGreen

Also, I still would like to know if I could work it hot without it losing its properties.

ArtemisGreen

Well, that's true too. I'm not knocking his stuff. If you're wanting to get in the sca really quick and kind of cheap, then this is what you want. Except for the brass rivets, it's not all that bad for a starter kit.

ArtemisGreen

Sorry man, but I don't have any brass, and I think that 1.25"x11"; and 2 pieces 1.25"x7" would be a bit too large to be considered scrap. Most brass stuff that's done is just trim anyways, so that's quite a bit of trim pieces to just go giving away. I think your best bet would be to order it from ww...

ArtemisGreen

That's truly amazing. I've always been impressed by those that can work a helmet top from one thick piece.

That aside, I've always wondered what the little rondel thing is for...

ArtemisGreen

So where would I be able to find such a dishing form. I don't think I've ever seen a 4" pipe that's 1" thick, and nowhere near me sells blocks of aluminum.

Here's a pic of my dishing hammer in case I need to shape it differently.

ArtemisGreen

No prob. I'll just post instructions here. You'll have to go through the back gate by the brig. To get there from Redbank, you'll have to take N. Rhett Ave to Remount(?). I think it's gate 4. Go through there, take the first right, then a left at the yield sign. If you go a little ways down that roa...

ArtemisGreen

I tend to shy away from galvy because I just don't have the patience to strip it. If you leave it on, it'll get pounded in when you beat on it, and when you go to polish it, it'll come out horrible. Here's the end result of planishing and polishing a piece of galvanized mild. [img]http://home.armour...

ArtemisGreen

So I bought some stainless steel, and now I get why everyone says that ss is a bear to do anything with. 1) What gauge do you think 3/64" is? I don't have a gauge tool, so I measured it with a steel ruler. It's not too accurate, but I just need a rough estimate. 2) Can I work ss hot without destroyi...

ArtemisGreen

http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/armor/atli/atli-et02.htm

As you can see, you can do more with raising from a single piece than just a conical. You can do any of these helms too, as well as a bascinet. You'll just have to trim the helm a different way to make it a bascinet.

ArtemisGreen

Here you go- http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/armor/NormanHelmet/top_index.htm Have fun! Artemis OOh! Forgot to add that you probably don't want to use shears to cut this stuff. Use a jigsaw with a good blade, not cheap, the teeth will be ground off in no time, and lots of oil on the metal. 80w90 g...

ArtemisGreen

SCA legal full basic gear combo!
All gear above and (way) beyond SCA minimums!

Right, but he forgot to include the steel tummy/kidney belt. That would make it the min. for SCA fighting. Without at least that, you don't have the minimum, much less way above.

ArtemisGreen

Jeez. If it's 1/8" thick, then the only thing you could make from it is a helm. And then, you'd have to raise it from one piece so it would be thinned out enough to where you can hold your head up. You will have to work it hot over a metal dishing form and stakes. Have fun making anything out of thi...

ArtemisGreen

Never made lamellar, but I do know that fluting each piece would take a very, very long time. If you're up for it, it will make it stronger, but I don't know how it would affect how it lays, since I've never worked with it. However, I've never seen any lamellar with flutes (I could be mistaken) so I...

ArtemisGreen

Oh, well that's cool too. I didn't know it came in 6x6. And I didn't even think about the fact that the piece would slide past each other. Yeah, you'd probably be better off either drilling 4 holes and plugging them with dowels and using the shrink bands, or you could get 4 big bolts with washers to...

ArtemisGreen

Annabella- I tried to send you an email, but Yahoo says your account is full, so you'll have to delete some emails before I can send the directions. Halvgrim- That's freakin' awesome. I probably saw that ship numerous times while my dad was stationed at Charleston Naval Base. He served on the Billfi...

ArtemisGreen

If you live near some rural areas, you can look for places where they're clearing land for road work. Shoot, where I live, you can pretty much find stumps on the side of the road. If you can't do any of the above, you could go to a hardware store that sells lumber and buy up an 8ft section of 4x4, c...

ArtemisGreen

Well Dave, I just got my 5" angle grinder today from Harbor Freight, and let me tell you now, I couldn't be happier! It was so easy to make that 3lb sledge into a dishing hammer. After using the 24 grit grinding wheel on the angle grinder, I cleaned up the face of the hammer with a flat file, and th...

ArtemisGreen

Well, I'll be...

Wally world does have it for 50 bucks. I think I'll have to order that!

Thanks alot James.

-Artemis

ArtemisGreen

Aww. Crud. I just spent the bulk of my money on a bench and angle grinder. Now I have about 35 left, and that's certainly not enough to buy TOMAR. William- Im just about to crank out some really cool stuff, hopefully. With all these new tools and materials coming in, I'm getting kind of excited. I'l...

ArtemisGreen

Ok, so a little while back I decided that I wanted to put together a 1370-ish English kit. It was going to be K. Greyson's greathelm from Arador's pattern library, and some other crap thrown together. Now that I have materials, I'm going to get serious about building it. Now, I'd like to make this h...

ArtemisGreen

Dave, look here. It'll tell you to make a paper pattern and start grinding with either an angle or bench grinder. When you get that angle grinder, make this your first project. Things will go so much more smooth when you have a proper dishing hammer. When I got mine, my planishing time went from 2 h...

Beta version planishing stake

Inverted Dishing Hammer

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Putting together a kit