The Armour Archive

schreiber

That's frickin' cherry. I can see you put a lot of attention into detail. I was about to yell "HEADSMASHER!" (it's a pet peeve of mine), but then I noticed that they're all smashed evenly... or else it looks like it. It's a good effect, looks like the materials didn't come over mail order ...

schreiber

1. So, what have other's experiences been with products from RFTH? I get it that the armour isn't finshed, but how much work really needs to go into making one of these usable? I haven't seen his stuff straight off the hammer... I have seen his predecessor's work before, which I think is made on th...

schreiber

If you're looking at byzantine then there is a lot of evidence of what they looked like on religious icons. The problem with them, however, is that icons are intentionally made not to look like reality, or heavily stylized. None of the ones I've seen lead me to believe that putting metal on the ends...

schreiber

InsaneIrish wrote:Does this walther have the weird double click trigger?

You mean a trigger safety? Nope.

It's a dead sexy gun. But I'm in the market for a 22 rifle first.

schreiber

Sorry for the double-post... I reviewed your list and if you have any articulated knees, that's what I would really like to see. The authentic examples always have comparatively tiny poleyns, and I would like to witness firsthand how (or if) it's possible to get enough lame stuffed in there to cover...

schreiber

wcallen wrote:If you want to play with it, just ask.

Ha! That doesn't look like roping, it looks like a flat-felled seam! That's hilarious, do you think that may have been the intent?
I don't have any pics in front of me... are there a lot of similarities between that and a totenkopf?

schreiber

GOGGLES MANDATORY! Really a lousy way to end a day in the shop waiting in an ER to have a chunk of steel take out of your eye! Thomas I have recently adopted the habit of putting the eye protection on as soon as I enter the shop. Doesn't matter if I'm sweeping, hammering, or drawing a pattern. They...

schreiber

My shop has two 5jrs, one HF knockoff, and a RW #8. I find the knockoff to have looser tolerances than the RWs. Perhaps that is what is meant by "sloppy". However, I will say that I have broken RW punches before (not the mechanism, but the actual punch) but not the knockoff. I do not doubt...

schreiber

I like metal chinstraps... Like an armet, close helm, burgeonet - something which closes on the chin. 3/4" of stiff padding, like wool felt, and you're good to go - and it's actually how they did things. Trying to prevent a bargrill from rocking back and breaking your nose when it's poked with ...

schreiber

I'll be in, barring any meteor strikes, provided I get a month or so of advance warning.
If you need to slide the date I'll still be game.
However, I'll have to research stuff to do down there so I can take the family and send them to go do something fun while I play with armor.

schreiber

What kind of armor did traditional warriors use in Thailand? How did they protect it from rust and mold? I'm also interested in knowing this! It looks like you all have a really good group! It can be hard to get that many people working together. Good job! It must also be nice to be able to grow ra...

schreiber

No, it's that you're not preheating the metal, or you're not using a big enough tip. I get these if I try to weld something huge like 1/2" barstock, or even bargrills sometimes, when I don't preheat well enough. I get these on thinner stuff like 14/12 gauge sheet when I'm using a tip that's too...

schreiber

#7- Try and do it in a short timeframe. I did these over about 9 months, which is far too long, I think. I just finished a four year on-and-off effort on a clamshell pattern. A couple months ago I came back to the finger plates after not doing them for six months. The amount of cussing coming out o...

schreiber

I will post up a picture if anyone cares. Yeah, I'd like to see! So, now I get 'it'. My question is, how important is the heat source? So, my question is, what 'it' do you get? I don't find the heat source that necessary because I cheat - I mainly do 2-piece welded couters and poleyns, or sometimes...

schreiber

Sorry, Jiri, I don't know either, but I think a supplier would have recommendations. If I remember correctly you're already doing atmospheric, right? I also remember something about there being licensing restrictions in Czech - is this why you are using propane, or is cost the reason? The tank size ...

schreiber

Also not a professional. I suspect the pros are too busy making armor and running their businesses at a loss to answer questions like this. But I'll answer some for you.... 2. What made you want to become a smith? The same thing that made me want to become everything else I am: the erroneous thought...

schreiber

One of the first things I tried to dish was a breastplate. It got scrapped. I have learned enough after doing shoulders, elbows, knees, and spangenhelms (in that order) that I might try a breastplate again. I have also learned enough doing these smaller pieces to realize that I have little interest ...

schreiber

The factory head..... In some cases I am able to pick one out of the box, find a void in the head, dig the end of a needle file in there, and pop up the razor curl. Guys, I made the gauntlets in those pictures from scratch out of dinner plates with no supervision or guidance. I also spent 3 hours of...

schreiber

I've seen really large furniture tacks used, and chair leg bottoms. The last thing I noted being used was just really large head aluminum rivets. Whatever you end up doing, I wouldn't recommend using anything with a hollow head. If it has a hollow head it likely also has a really small shank. I'd be...

schreiber

For me it is the rivet head, any deformation of the head causes a small and hard to see "curl" of material that is very sharp. You would not want to brush your hand over the surface to feelk for it as you will get cut. It does not happen all the time, but enough where you can get pretty c...

schreiber

Baron Alcyoneus wrote:It looks nice, but...the hand is supposed to go in the other end.

Yeah, the caption is supposed to be "OM NOM NOM"

schreiber

One more, showing off the wrist movement and also the fleur....

schreiber

These are 18g stainless, which were previously appetizer trays I got from a restaurant going out of business. They don't have a closed thumb - I think they need one, but I'll let the new owner tell me that tomorrow. I find the hinged thumb offers a little bit of desirable movement. I didn't want to ...

schreiber

(weather permitting, I don't weld when it's single digits). I dunno, I think single digits kind of calls for hot work... it's when I like to break out the forge, in fact. Question for you.... do you fabricate the entire thing out of 14g? It seems like a little pipe would be in order for the rounds,...

schreiber

What is your ultimate goal here? If you want to make strictly plate armor, you're not only limiting what you'll get exposed to, you're also shooting straight for the moon IMO. There's a reason why the SCA has considerable amount of non-plate armor in use - plate is easy to do crappily. It requires t...

schreiber

Pffff.... those are professional quality, man. Back in 1991, at the age of 16, I was involved in a boffer group. Lots of leg shots and so greaves were in order. I cut two long tombstone shapes out of an enameled washing machine lid using my dad's buck-rogers style Black & Decker jig saw, which t...

schreiber

Watch that weld though. May not take too kindly to the shaping process. Yeah, this might be a stress test of Indian welds on Chinese steel. The very first thing I'd do is put it on an anvil horn and find out if there's anything that I could do with my hands. You'd be surprised at how much you can m...

schreiber

The one time I did a small triangular roll, I used copper wire. I wanted it softer than the steel, so that after it's done round I could hammer it into a triangle. I don't know if Aluminum would work: I didn't try because I wanted to be able to heat it again without molten metal splashing out of any...

schreiber

Well based on your quote I think it's reasonable that St Moses isn't the one kneeling but the one being knelt to. Just FYI, AFAIK saints always have a halo, and non-saints never do. With the exception of Christ and angels, I suppose, who are technically not saints. That stands true in the east... n...

schreiber

Oh, I'm not arguing that the guy doesn't know how to put together a shot, I'm not saying that he's not doing some research, I'm not saying it won't be action-packed, and I'm not saying that the production values will be anything less than spectacular. I suggest checking out a movie titled The Openin...

schreiber

PM sent.
BTW the one I made was largely 6-8 oz leather - a little thicker than belt thickness. If you buy veg tan leather, it doesn't get a whole lot thinner than that unless you're trying to buy it that thin... most of it is intended for carving and needs a little thickness, in my experience.

schreiber

Telling us what it's for will go a long way toward getting advice. If it's for an SCA setting (the usual around here) then unfortunately the bigger the scale, the more impact protection it will give. The smaller the scale, the more important any undergarment becomes. If you have a thick enough gambe...

schreiber

The fallacy here is that if A is historical and B is historical, then A and B together are historical. This. There's a concept in logic called the principle of noncontradiction. It states basically that something can not both be a thing and not be a thing. So replace "something" with &quo...

schreiber

Sure it will be a good film. It might be an enjoyable ninety minutes. It might be a lucrative business decision. But good film? If I want a good film, I turn to the likes of Fritz Lang or Akria Kurosawa. Ridley Scott never was, is not now, and likely never will be in the director's pantheon, and Cr...

schreiber

Yeah... just disregard everything I wrote before. I was being a wiseass. Provided we're talking about something for SCA type combat, I think you need to focus more on leather than on steel right now. In my opinion the steel isn't going to do much for impact resistance until you get it thick enough t...

Re: Sanding and Polishing

Re: New gothic gauntlets to show off

Re: Cold raising question and general armor making observati

Showing off new gauntlets