The Armour Archive

schreiber

Those are fricking beautiful. I too am interested in how well they take a hit. Are you planning on fighting in these? One other thing I noticed is that some of your wrist motion is coming from the cuff moving. If you stuff a gambeson and vambrace under the cuff, isn't that going to cut down on wrist...

schreiber

Yeah, you really do need a vise. I have a 5 or 6" Harbor Freight machinist vise that I use for riveting. I would not go lower than 5" because machinist vises are not designed to be pounded on and you will wreck it if it's too small. When you get it, here's a couple tricks. Assuming copper ...

schreiber

BUT - THIS STILL PRODUCES TOXIC ZOMBIE DEATH FUMES Here is the thread from the last time I did some actual homework on zinc oxide fumes, and was basically called an asshole for pointing out facts which show your attitude is not grounded in reality. Yeah, Metal Fume Fever sucks and I don't want to g...

schreiber

So, is your friend going plastic because you are "working on the cheap", or for some other reason? You can pick up 1.5" wide steel binding straps from the same construction site, which are hardened, but still worked with a whitney #5jr and a good pair of tin snips... and they're steel...

schreiber

Well, a quick treatment of "banded" armor first... the shorter story is it isn't like a Roman manica at all. Here, on page 73 of Laking's A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries , is a reprint of an illustration from an 1881 brochure on helmets & maille by Baron de...

schreiber

Fantastic work!
I only hope that whoever gets it is planning on sternly shouting "Lahnce! Lahnce!" at Michael Palin before getting taken down by the Jabberwocky.

schreiber

Duke Phelan wrote:In Atenveldt, 1/4'' of felt would not be seen as the equivalent of 1/4'' of Closed Cell foam.

Your name seems to suggest that you help maintain this policy.

Is the anti-felt sentiment true of helms as well?

schreiber

Avery, one thing that hasn't been said is that the kettle helm/ chapel isn't really popular in the SCA, and there's a reason. Any brim on a helm is going to be a sword-catcher. When he's new he's going to get knocked around a lot and probably won't notice it. But when he gets into the intermediate c...

schreiber

I'm pleased to here that it turned the leather "nut brown", because so much of surviving leather goods IS nut brown. The color must come from somewhere, and if a stiffening and waterproofing process also gives the correct color, so much the better. This says nothing of dies, though. Also,...

schreiber

perhaps I'm over thinking things here.. but to do a wedge, all you _really_ need are two uprights. Ditto. This is how I've done the three 8wx12lx8h wedges I've made. Two uprights - 2x2 PT dimensional lumber is plenty for personal wedges this size and probably even bigger. A ridge of PT 2x4 or equiv...

schreiber

I'd say no way. 1/2" of circumference difference does not translate into padding of any kind.

schreiber

Right, I'll be the guy. Don't take this the wrong way, we're all here to help. First, use the search. Second, tell us what you're going to be doing in this armor. Third, just from what I can glean from what you posted, you're not terribly worried about authenticity - which I'm not judging you for, b...

schreiber

I never took a welding class and I learned how to do it before I really did any dishing. There's enough info out there to learn basics without the class - my first welder's manual actually had basic instructions in it. If you're going to spend the money the class will probably help. It should at lea...

schreiber

Lionheart, most low-end digital cameras (like under a grand) aren't designed to cope with closeups. You might do better to pull back from the piece and zoom in to get it more in frame - the optics can handle that for some reason. Of course then you need to have a more steady hand. Or, you could pull...

schreiber

I think you'd have to try really hard to spend more than $439 on tools and materials necessary to make your own SCA legal version from scratch.

Edit: I missed the eighty-nine @^$&$ing dollars in shipping. That alone is an HF throatless shear to cut up your steel.

schreiber

As far as transferring the pattern, for any new project I usually end up eyeballing it, and wasting a lot of steel. With certain areas like the knee, you should be able to sink the deepest part of the knee and then raise around it, meaning the amount of metal you need should be a wash. Of course, I'...

schreiber

Yes, modelling pics please!

What's the gauge? What's the purpose? Is it for behourd style combat or reenacting?

schreiber

What they said. But to answer your question, I've been researching this for another project (industrial sewing machine) and what I've been able to determine is that you basically need a brushed motor with no starting coil or capacitor. Then you're looking at a long start time, too. Or you could look...

schreiber

Appalling site design. Difficult to navigate, unclear buttons, cluttered site. Awful pictures, none of the necessary detail. No opinion on the armor quality, but the site is utter shit. I am glad someone else noticed this. Someone needs to be fired. So the only helmet I was able to find that was ra...

schreiber

What smart things did you do when you were new, concerning armor. I got on the field for minimal bucks. I agree with this method because I've seen a lot of people come and go, never to be seen again. I made a lot of it, so I looked good, too. At least for a noob. I came to the conclusion very, very...

schreiber

So by the same question, anyone have an idea of what to use an 8-10lb. hammer for? One of those one-handed "Big Bertha" types, for pounding circus stakes. I am thinking of putting either a shallow dish into it, and using it for initial shaping, or just selling it to some Atlantian, who ne...

schreiber

Hi again, I see we're of the same mind... I didn't want to get into the plastic debate either. Truthfully, I wouldn't set the plastic bar much lower than what you're doing. The brown one looks so good I thought it was hardened leather from the pics - which I think should be the goal for everyone who...

schreiber

I am done with chinstraps. I much prefer to have a part of the helm wrap my chin, and have that padded. It looks like that might be an option with this burgeonet. Since the grill is meant to come up before you take it off, it might not be possible to take it off when it's padded. If that's the case,...

schreiber

If you really want to, you can use nothing for your chest. Unless something has changed you don't need rigid protection for your chest. Would I do that? Hell no. I had to smoke, not exercise, work a desk job, age 10 years, and eat twice as much to get to my "scientifically determined ideal weig...

schreiber

So, how does plastic not work? What are we deciding "work" to mean? I mean, of course it "works", because every Pennsic I've ever gone to has a ton of it on the battlefield. People wouldn't use it and marshals wouldn't pass it, if it didn't work. I'll just go ahead and be the fir...

schreiber

Clecos on Ebay. You'll see progress pics here of someone's spangenhelm or other piece which uses rivets, and they'll be using nuts & bolts to hold the thing together. You can do the same with clecos in a fraction of the time. You put the cleco in the pliers, insert it into the holes, and it cla...

schreiber

Where are you in VA? I'm in Woodbridge. I agree, vambraces might not be the place to start. At least not perfectly mated vambraces. I try not to grind at all, unless there's a weld bead to get rid of. There are ways not to have to hit it with abrasive at all. Of course, if you want a mirror finish, ...

schreiber

I have three punches. I bought a roper-whitney #8 a few years ago and it's proving to be one of the best investments in the shop. Around $100 used at the time, but you won't do that well on ebay. Punches are I think $18 a set still from RW site. Not only will it punch right through 12 gauge with no ...

schreiber

I don't planish, but that's mostly because I don't raise much. Who am I kidding, it's because I hate to planish. If I'm dishing I make every effort never to hit the piece with steel, and if I HAVE to, I never hit with steel into steel. I have ironmonger dishing blocks, which I keep clean (no pits, n...

schreiber

I don't like throwing in my two cents in this manner, but why are we reinventing the wheel? I assume we're talking SCA or similar because he's actually getting hit. First, notice that within this thread there's confusion not only about the type of buckle, thickness of leather, etc, but also somethi...

schreiber

No interest at all?
$150, anyone?
I really don't want to do ebay...

schreiber

I've been tooling around with this for years and got it to enough of a state of completion to get it out of the house - I wear later stuff. This byrnie has never been fought in. Technically this is lamellar since there is no backing - each scale is laced to all the others around it using an interest...

schreiber

Interesting. I don't know anything about cut-and-thrust and in typical Atlantian fashion, all I can find is broken links. You seem to have a different idea of what lower class means than I do. Unless the hyphen is hiding "upper", as in "lower upper class". Lower class Scottish us...

schreiber

Hi there, Yeah, you're definitely on the right track. I bet you've got the luckiest kids in your neighborhood. I'm wondering if you would accept some pointers that help me a lot. I don't know if these are available in Deutschland, but I'd love to see what you'd do with a stake plate and a collection...

schreiber

I used to use the pewter block. Then I frantically tossed my shop for about an hour looking for it one night, and grabbed an aluminum block out of desperation, and found the results to be much better. It doesn't dig the head of the rivet into the Al as quickly as the pewter. But it also doesn't wear...

Scale byrnie for sale