The Armour Archive

Sasha

Go to a metals supply store and ask for guilding metal. It is a bronze with most of its coppery colour left in. It is commonly used in jewellery and silver smithing. It anneals to a lovely working softness and it can be hardened to a decent temper too. I have made bronze weapons out of the stuff... ...

Sasha

I am afraid that this is not so. Copper based materials such as brass, copper, bronze and gilding metal actually work backwards to steel. The process (having just been doing exactly this in the jewellery class for the last 2 weeks) is to heat evenly (the evenly is very important) to a dull red (not ...

Sasha

Very nice! You have taken the concept one step further then I did by building the securing collar on top. I thought about it and decided I could always build one if it proved neccassary. As it happened I have never had to do more then give a couple of gentle taps to resettle the top edge, and there ...

Sasha

I hava stuff sitting around to ship to him, which he has asked me to hold off on sending because money is not in abundence as a result of introducing his car to a tree. I think he is just buried hip deep in the annoying and frustrating side of life right now. As someone that seems to have citizenshi...

Sasha

We have a local guy that has been building the varangian bra in various experimental incarnations for over ten years. He plays with the local metal weapons group, called the New Varangian Gaurd. You can find his site (with lots of useful info on a bunch of stuff) here http://www.geocities.com/svensk...

Sasha

I would go with the Sterling Silver. It is easier to get an even heat flow for annealing (the copper used for making sterling is nicer then nickel for soldering, annealing, and turning into stuff that gets worn next to the skin) Just anneal your wire before coiling, anneal the coil before cutting, a...

Sasha

ummmm....What you have just described cannot work. It would be a perpetual motion engine of better then 100% efficiency. (not only the spring/string interface but the ability to throw bolts, the energy for which has to come from somewhere) A spring that lets the prods draw the string forwards will n...

Sasha

My experience with the corrosive properties of one kind of stainless on another kind coem from industrial experience. As an example: On a minesite that was being constructed.... Different companies won the right to build different sections of the mine, then we all got to try and work together. A bun...

Sasha

Ummm...the majority of my comments was addressed to local quality of SCA welding...which is pretty appaling no matter what the welder on offer. Crowns of thorns generated on the insides of helms from MIG wires, scale modells of the Andes mountains, Grand Canyon like abysses of solid black slag. All ...

Sasha

As stated by Mr Dwarlock... Stainless comes in many flavours. From the bubbly full flavoured taste of "navel grade" (proof against the corrosion of navel lint) to the delicate diet sensation of "food grade stainless" (with not even a trace of nickel!). There is also the "old favourites" range of ind...

Sasha

Doctors are not neccassarily metal-workers. He may have been surprised...but it doesn't mean he had a clue about whether it *should* have been rusty or not. I have never had any difficulty telling stainless from mild. It is in the way it looks and feels and reflects light. Failing that, try a spark ...

Sasha

That "test" does two things. It tests the integrity of the overall shape (if the metal peices have not joined they will not ring with one true note) and it also de-stresses the weld line. Soemtimes the tensioned weld is the only thing holding a bit of work together (remembering having to dive out of...

Sasha

Okay. This is actually a very simple one. Just time consuming. You are looking at a ridge and two incomplete steps. So a total of four passes with a single-sided stake or chisel. Basically you do the "curve" of the plate but then bend it out form the elbow body so that it doesn't get in the way. If ...

Sasha

I second the comment on MIG. It is sort of a sewing machine for metal. I use arc for most application. I get good clean full-pen welds. With arc, If the weld looks good then it is good (with thin metals up to 5mm). With MIG you can generate a perfect looking weld that isn't worth snot. Oxy is about ...

Sasha

Hamish. The Ned helm is only about 10-12 years old. It was shiny and relatively new the first time I saw it....(shudder)

Sasha
P.S Tell Reinhard to hurry up with those photos!

Sasha

Somewhere in Ynys Fawr (Tasmania) is the armour that William The Lucky left behind for the newbies....this tsuff was pushing 20 years old when he left it. That was nearly 5 years ago.

Not sure who is wearing it down there now.

Sasha
Riverforge

Sasha

Nice work.
I particularly like the detailed touches you took. Like the edge of the eyeslot.

Now go make one like you mean it!

Sasha

Sasha

And as the auction draws to its final stages we see a bid from our own Armourereric. Go lad. I hope you get it (and then you can review it on the list and tell me that it was worth heaps more then it sold for and I can get into a jelous snik and grumble about you...) http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb...

Sasha

You need to take it in to any archery supply shop or indoor range. There is a jig that the bow is placed on so that it can be balanced, bent and re-cabled. They also tune the cams. You *could* buy/build one of these jigs for home and then learn to use it...but it is really not worth it unless you pl...

Sasha

ahhhh... All of this crossbow activety was the result of me finding a bag containing forty Standard Barnett crossbow prods for sale at a Sunday flea market for the princely sum of $10 http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile.gif (the seller did not have a clue as to what they were). The prods were all...

Sasha

We have an SCA legal repeating crossbow here in Stormhold. We are down to the original prototype, but briefly had four variations upon the field. The basic design is that there is a lever that slides a 'carriage" forwards towards the prods. On the edges of the carriage is a wedge shaped ramp. This r...

Sasha

Acetone tends to work well (that is most of what leather stripper is).
If it soes not come off for acetone and a bit of scrubbing then it will not take a dye.

Sasha

Sasha

Ah well...I am out of the running. We are heading for over%70Aus for something I haven't seen and tested (or checked the price of shipping)...but it was nice to dream when it was at the $5 level

Sasha

Sasha

Oh well. Learn something new everyday.

And this thing is busily escaping my upper range for it.

Sasha

Sasha

I think Pexto is a company that makes cheap and nasty copies of well designed tools. Thus saying "non-pexto" means it is the original brand and not a copy. It alos gives the e-bay search engine something to fix on when someone types in pexto. A clever ploy. As for the weights. The slot cutter is ver...

Sasha

Hefner? You are proposing a centrefold spread of PoD getting out of his gambeson?????? There is a difference in publishing styles and editorial contribution reqiured, I think (And bloody well HOPE!). The major issues with these kinds of projects is getting people to submit articles (for no pay) afte...

Sasha

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=561106980

My suggestion would be that someone snap up the Beverley slot punch ASAP. It is too big and heavy for me to even consider importing ...but it would be a shame to see it go to a non archiver.

Sasha

Sasha

I am bidding on it.

If I have no way of shipping it to Australia, I will offer it as a prize in a competition on the Archive.

Sasha
Riverforge

Sasha

Interesting.

It has given me some ideas to fiddle with.

Sasha
Riverforge

Sasha

Giggle!

Fredrich....is this you "reprobate" day?

Sasha

Gundo...Want some extra stock to peddle at Penssic?

Sasha

Harold. Ask Gundo about spring steel armour. He has more then a few years of experience on me in that field. I think he ships it off to get commercially tempered in an oven. When tempering blades I actually found that a far better indicator then watching to see the "straw" colour march off the edge ...

Sasha

Clinker: Glassy black potatoes that grow around the tyere of a coal fired forge. The stuff is taffy in nature, clings like napalm to anything that comes in contact and redirects the airblast as it grows, causing cold spots to form in the fire. I usually have a clinker-spike like an old fasioned fire...

Sasha

He is looking at a 23 hour flight from Melbourne (after a flight down form Canberra) with a changeover in LA before getting anywhere near Penssic.

Carry on luggage is not an option.

Sasha

Sasha

Okay...coal varies all over the world. And there is also the refined stuff called coke. And some poeple just like to use charcoal....of which there are also hundreds of varieties with different burning and tempreture characteristics. So have I made it simpler? http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile....

Sasha

It's the bright blue foam padding that gets me..... This is a style known as "bullsh*t medieval". If you take a generic SCA helm and bits and cover them with sonething associated with a medieval race eg: Yak hair for mongols, bear or wolf for Viking, leather with knotwork designs for celtic etc........