The Armour Archive

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Actually, my inclination would be to go for a livery collar. I have never seen plaque belts with bezel with that shape. Granted, the heyday of plaque belts is not my period of specialty -others with more experience may be able to provide provenance for something of the sort. But on chains of office ...

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WOW. Earnest, you've gone way beyond the call of duty on this one.

I'll post my results after the rosary is dyed.

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Milan is a city where armour manufacture was a major concern. Gothic is a style. So you are asking if it would be okay to mix Detroit cars with muscle cars/eco-boxes/luxury cars or trucks... Oh, pft. "Milanese" is shorthand for "Italian Export Style" -which is a definite and dis...

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Ah, it all comes off in the acid bath.

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Milwaukee 28 vt Hammer drill. AWESOME. The best drill we've ever had. Previously, Makita 18 vt hammer drill, which was a darn fine tool right to the very end, and a DeWalt 18 vt hammer drill, which started out as a good tool, but my memories of it are colored by trying to stretch out its working lif...

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Spear.

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AlvarCadiz wrote:
Destichado wrote:...you're cool under the rules, you're documentable and you're unique.

Sir Geoffrey Scott has had an SCA legal Hurley for at least 3 years.

Alvar

*cough* I, uh, didn't mean unique in the strictest of senses.

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New project, same problem. Back for more advice. Upon experimentation, this works well, though it looks very plain; I occasionally age my bone projects with a strong brew of tea, and or coffee. Let it sit for a few days and them allow it to dry. This works not at all (perhaps on something that would...

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Thomas Powers wrote:Thomas married 25 years to a spinster

What an odd way of putting it.

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A two handed sword? Nope. But they had hurleys. And the Hound of Ulster wrought more than his fair share of havoc with a hurley. For SCA purposes, tape a bit more closed-cell foam up on to the tip of your greatsword, loose the cruciform hilt and you're cool under the rules, you're documentable and y...

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I would say that's exceptionally rare with case hardening.

Far easier when you're working with a something like a scrap of tool steel or a funky alloy you didn't know you had.

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Are you asking about the Byzantines or the Persians? Either way, the short answer is "no," they both had light cavalry mercenaries/tributary auxiliaries to do that. Think less along the lines of the harassing that light cavalry does, and more of softening up an enemy during a charge, keepi...

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Not Thorfinn, but the two best yards in Cincinnati are Garden Street Iron & Metal (on spring grove, ironically) and River Metals in Newport on Licking Pike (the AA highway)

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I will repeat the old "poor-man's case-hardening" technique, passed to me by an elderly machinist. To whit: heat the steel to red, and "quench" it in a tin of graphite powder. Apparently this serves as a combination case-hardening, hardening and tempering (think slack quenching) ...

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Yup, pretty much. If you had blurred out your face, it might have forestalled it, but I'm afraid there's no escaping it now. You're about to be another Archive celebrity, I'm afraid. But hey, at least the natives are friendly . Regarding your armour, you've made a heck of a start. Will you be going ...

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Gentlemen, These armors are FAKES! Ironically, that's why they look so good... That's the pernicious thing about fakes; they look even better than the real thing if you are not tuned into the authentic aesthetic. Mac I know the helmet's a fake, and the breastplate, and the rearbraces, and the gaunt...

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Byzantine kataphraktoi -from the 8th century or so- were renowned for the awesome draw-weight of their bows, as well as their range and accuracy from horseback. Persian Dehgans wore heavier armor again -and had better horses- and could not match them at archery. The Dehgan was from a social station ...

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Oh good lord.

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.

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Boy can I sympathize.

Masterful work with some monstrous materiel.

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Once you get past the 13th century, your social status, based on how many 'quaterings' of arms were in your ancestry would decide wether you could participate in a tournament or not. Elaborate on this, please. This could be taken several ways and I'd like to know which you meant before thinking I m...

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Since we're all piling on a little... If a European smith had been willing to suffer the restrictions the Japanese placed on themselves by necessity, he could have equaled the performance of a Japanese blade with the steels available to him. But then, he almost certainly would have balked at the ide...

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It didn't even occur to me that this might be a Victorian reproduction. Yes, it very well might be. My inclination , though, is still that this was a period piece created as an anachronism -perhaps by an older man re-creating armour in the fashion of his youth? Of course at this point I am just gues...

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Definitely made post 1500, older styling. I think they kept the sallet because it looks "German," but everything about the harness -not just the obvious articulation- screams 16th century. The cannons are all straight and ugly as sin, there's no fluting anywhere but the gauntlets, the grea...

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the major achievement of the Japanese in iron and steel metallurgy seems to have been manufacturing any steel at all from the rather unpromising iron sands they used as feedstock. All that folding and forgewelding drove out slag from the body of the blade and mechanically evened out any variations ...

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Reminds me of Red Sonja. Which, incidentally, is on YouTube now.

Looks great, Pitbull.

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You could case-harden it, too, but why bother? If it's a prop for show, it's a prop for show. Don't use it. If you want to make a weapon from mild steel, design it that way from the ground up. If you want to make the finest weapon you can, start with the right steel. Those roads fork at the beginnin...

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A photo with the book inside would help a lot. Right now, I'm having trouble picturing how this thing would work.

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Mild steel works perfectly fine for weapons, you just designed a piss-poor weapon. I have done this SEVERAL times, just to prove the point that it can be done, and be done well. Mild steel or iron weapons will in general be thicker and shorter than their carbon steel counterparts -just like bronze w...

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I have seen depiction of knights wearing skirts and sleeves of scale into the mid 15th century. It would not be unreasonable to think that there might be a complete coat of scales under the cuirass and faulds, considering that in Italy it remained in fashion to wear a full coat of mail in similar fa...

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Hate to ask..... are you sure the battery was the only problem? Yes. Oh, the first month or so after the rebuild was wonderful, it was like having a brand new drill again. Three months later? Not so much. As I say, one of the rebuilt batteries "died" -would not hold a charge overnight- wi...

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Ignoring the part about horses tripping at the counter canter, its an interesting argument. I mistakenly mentioned being able to turn away from the tilt in my previous post, but after re-reading the section, I think he is referring to a situation without a tilt, when it is advantageous to avoid a h...

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I sometimes wonder whether it wouldn't be worthwhile to sew a fabric or upholstery leather backer onto belts and straps, for just that reason.

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Yes. And No. We had it done for a DeWalt cordless. Yes, we got maybe two more years of use out of the drill, but it *never* behaved like it used to, and one of the batteries didn't last more than six months of that. We had the batteries rebuilt because the drill was weak, sluggish and wouldn't hold ...

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Those are your planishing tools.

You'll make the armour with your dishing or raising hammer(s), and you'll finish it with these. You'll undoubtedly wind up with a favorite planishing hammer -mine would probably be #4 or #6, but it looks like his was #1- and you'll only use the others on occasion.

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very, VERY nice.