The Armour Archive

Sasha

Is Atar the best PW Master?

Huh???

Sasha

Hi folks. I am still offline and on borrowed seconds on other people's comp's (ours has chewed its third motherboard in 6 months...problem, you think?). I have just ordered htis book. Just wondering if anyone here has already got it and if it is any good. "1998, 0 948092 31 9, Â£10.95 paperback The ...

Sasha

This is about $125US (or $250Australian) ABOVE the hoped for price...so I am going to need to think about it a bit (this freely translates to approaching Margaret and begging "there has to be some way we can swing this purchase. We don't REALLY need to eat before 12th night...") the thing is that we...

Sasha

That is the hand-cranked version of my shear. It is okay...but doing tight turns while cranking the handle is going to be tricky. It also does not do circles as tightly as the beverley. Great for helm tops, lousy for finger gauntlets. Sasha ...still on a borrowed comp while waiting for cordless dril...

Sasha

Yes. A prooperly hardened veg-tanned leather will work fine for a shield box...I would advise lining it with sheepskin. Does wonders for comfort (the hide side of hardened leather tends to be as abrasive as sandpaper) and adds that extra layer of protection.

Sasha

Sasha

Rainald thus wins the "Armouring-in-a-phone-booth" of the week award.

Sasha
...who like room to swing several cats.

Sasha

6X8 foot is tiny... I am relaxing in the luxery of a 78sq meter workshop....and I have a 6X1.5meter sealed lean-to off the side just for materials storage. Okay. the advise for what to build in.... the vent system is a definate (especially in such a tiny space). Halogen down-lights all over the plac...

Sasha

BRAZING BAD. It used to be allowed locally for facebars....it gets kind of silly picking facebars out of the grass though. I use 2mm welding rods (as oposed to the more commonly available 2.5). DON NOT USE GP RODS. General purpose electrodes are not the way to get a good smooth finish on anything. I...

Sasha

So perhaps I am now looking at importing highly skilled metalcrafting midgets from refugee camps.
If nothing else we will save a fortune in etching compound.

Sasha

Sasha

500K US is around a million Australian...... Hmmm.... A while ago some friends and I sent a joke e-mail to the Australian Prime Minister during the time of the latest asylum seekers (boat people). We said that in exchange for having our taxes waived we could manage to accept twenty or so of the refu...

Sasha

I looked at your site but I believe you to be mistaken. It is a little known fact that the Normans, after spending weeks waiting for good sailing weather, had developed a mighty appetite and had stopped at the famouse "Channel Isles All-You-Can-Eat Lobster And Crab Servery". It is a better known poi...

Sasha

I am holding out for a B2...
hopefully from you. (and then we get to dance the dance of the international export/import merchant)

Sasha

Sasha

They are called aglates. get the ones without the filigree work (it catches everything). Fill them with epoxy after you have inserted the lacing(that way the metal edges do not cut the lacing) Never "pull" aglattes wide-end-first through eyelets. They are to be threaded like a needle (albeit a blunt...

Sasha

Or there is something called Trefelex. It is a specific cutting compound that starts as a grease and then gets runny as it heats. It is made form tripe (yummmmmmmyyyy)...and is green(which means it is tripe with history and charecter) Trefelex is also great for the hacksaws or piercing saws that you...

Sasha

Quite a lot of knee articulation will meet and overlap in the inside of the cop. You can prevent this by a) widening the cop (BAD IDEA!) or b) using narrower lames and more of them. C) you can just gear the lames to overlap because it is okay. In answer to your question. The lames should be dished i...

Sasha

It would not be at all un-ethical or out of line to turn up to things and sell armour, Clay. As far as the advertising without wearing out a welcome... The best advertising i have ever come up with is to offer on-site armour repairs (charge minimum, and have a few bits of looaner armour lying around...

Sasha

I had a set of Bosch nibblers. They did what it is that they do flawlessly. This means that they ate a wide curf and threw little sharp bits of crap everywhere. That is just how the evil little beasts work. There undoubted advantage is in applications like ductwork and corrugated iron work. Becasue ...

Sasha

The best views available are of the helm, so lets start there. I like the general shaping and so forth but it looks unfinished. A bit of plannishing goes a long way in presentation. I would have liked an inside view to check the welds and see if it uses internal D-ring fixings or if people are suppo...

Sasha

The other oft-discussed method iis cheap household vinegar. Takes less then 24 hours and works beautifully. With both this and the method described above, make sure you get FULL submersion of the work. The area at the surface of the acid/vinegar/air interface s the most corrossive place for steel th...

Sasha

BTW: $700 in castings + 300 for helm = $1000 sitting on your head. Anyone here willing to pay it and then let others hit it with a big freaking stick? Think of it as inspiratiion to improve your shieldwork to the point where you do not get hit in the head so much; "It isn't the fear of pain that ma...

Sasha

You can get a little hide-tan in a tube at the local leather place. Gives you chrome tanning (of a sort) over about 6square inches (gods only know why...people who like to make their own rabbit's-foot key chain perhaps?). You could try finding something liek that. Failing that if the skin is nice an...

Sasha

You have a couple of choices. you can use a sliding rivet system that has the slot running at an angle (this way the plates move apart before hinging...thus generating some space to move in before pivoting.) The other choice is to use strap articulation for the lower plackart (not uncommon in period...

Sasha

Actually I thought the methods I described were workable irrespective of the tanning method...but I was wrong on one count. If the hide is alum tanned (unlikely, but still sometimes used for long haired hides) then do NOT saok in water. It will eventually expose the hide to rot. Zorbel and neatsfoot...

Sasha

Bascot. That is actually a really good but very different question. Go on, be brave. Start a new thread with it. http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile.gif Inlaying. gilding, etching and engraving is ALOT of discussion to be had...and then there are all the sub-threads from that like whether to hand...

Sasha

I am afraid the anser to most of what you have asked is "do what feels right for you". I mostly eyeball the dishing I am doing...but when I am prototyping something new I often texta the inside of the plate so I can see where I want the dishing to flow. A good beginner cheat for corners is to roll b...

Sasha

I bought a set of drill bits at a home show last year that I would have paid twice the price for now that I know how good they are. These things go through glass, stone, masonry, steel, wood and anything else like a dream. Next time I am able to go to the homeshow i shall buy the larger set. Nibbler...

Sasha

Draw out all the cotton fibre, card it, spin it with a drop spindle, weave it on a hand loom into fabric, dye it with natural period ddyes such as onion skins and madder root, hand-sew the fabric into a period ensemble of garb, collect a laurel at your next event. Simple. http://www.armourarchive.or...

Sasha

Yes. they are usuable. You will find lots of opinions about what works best as a soak....the fact is that any number of things work. You can use palmolive dishwashing liquid/water in a 50/50 mix and let soak (with a bit of rubbing in) for a couple of houurs You can use a leather rejuvinating oil lik...

Sasha

Hot working and annealing stainless is like working copper based metals. Stainless contains no carbon. So it is backwards logic to steel. Heat and work at a bright red to dull red range. Do not go to bright orange. Heat and quench in order to anneal (soften) Heat and cool slowly in order to harden. ...

Sasha

I use a gull-wing shield. If you take a heater shield and cut it in half vertically then you will know what shape it is. The flat spot (what used to be the top of the heater) is the leading edge...so the shield is worn like a fat vambrace. The sweep (what used to be the point of the heater) is upwar...

Sasha

Ah. I didn't think there could possibly be two egfroths.

Welcome another member of the Australian contingent to the Archive...your purple socked highness.

Sasha

Sasha

They have fit-overs...looks sort of like a set of ski goggles.

Sasha

Sasha

Oh yeah. Bit of a postscript... Last night I went out to lock up thge workshop for the night and thourally concussed myself on a bit of work (sculptural) that I had left in the wrong place (like with the wingtips projecting across a pathway at head height!) Nothing quite like a freely bleeding scalp...

Sasha

OK...we may have a terminology problem. For oxy accetylene or oxy propane WELDING you should be using a set of googles. A tinted face shield that looks like the darker version of a dust shield is designed for smelting and casting. No good for close up detail work where you need to concentrate on the...

Sasha

"bowls" as in helms? Sit the "bowl" (edge down) on a flat surface. get it so that the crest-line runs nice and vertically and it has a pleasing shape. Prop it in that position with matches or little wooden wdges (halves of wooden pegs). Take a marker and lay it on the flat surface and circle the "bo...

Anyone met this book?