The Armour Archive

schreiber

As far as speed goes, 1725 RPM is much too slow for a belt grinder unless you have a 10" drive wheel or step it up with a pulley system. You want 4000 to 6000 surface feet per minute with modern abrasives. A 10" inch drive wheel on a 1725 RPM motor gives you about 4500 SFPM. Jurgen Huh, I...

schreiber

Regarding leather - there are an awful lot of people who do metal only, and never learn anything with leather beyond how to use a strap cutter and attach buckles. You don't have to learn leather, but if you do, then custom-shaped greaves or lorica musculata actually take a lot of labor and ingenuity...

schreiber

I went down the ebay route and I got a dirty pile of parts I could theoretically use to make a belt sander. When I took issue with the seller he left me negative feedback. That only cost me $160. I'm going to end up making my own at some point, since it doesn't look that difficult. Here's what I've ...

schreiber

Why not make more maille?
The tools & materials needed for butted maille are minimal.
Leather is easy to get started with as well.
I'm also finding out how interesting working with the P-word is, too.

schreiber

I am also mostly self taught. 1) Use the search button. Just about anything you would want to know probably has been discussed ad nauseum and waiting for you to find. And when you can't find it, or if search isn't working, don't be afraid to post it again, because there are people here who won't jum...

schreiber

I'm pretty sure that they are mainly used for taking dents out, not for forming.

schreiber

Doesn't tallow rot? Also: mink or neatsfoot oil will soften the item in question. Since this is an armor forum I'll assume that this is a bad thing. Johnson's paste wax. I get mine at Lowe's. Not very shiny. $5 a can and it will protect your mild steel as well. I'm going to end up getting about 4 co...

schreiber

EVA foam is basically craft foam. Find it at a craft store. But I'll suggest against foam every time I see this come up. I guess it's a rite of passage for new fighters. Some stick with it, others realize that it actually is possible to be comfortable while you're fighting, and then they make natura...

schreiber

Me and rotating blades have a history... which is why I found the money to buy ironmonger forms. If I were making a stump, I'd probably use the hammer method. I have never actually needed a dishing depression to be more than 1" deep, so ditto what the previous poster said about deep bowls the s...

schreiber

Hey Vlad! The blackening I've done is with used motor oil, and I wasn't heating it up to cherry red like the WD40 method seems to require. I was heating it up basically to the point where I could get the oil to combust, and then burning oil onto it several times. Great results, but I was doing a spa...

schreiber

Excellent work, not much I can say that others haven't, BUT....

Why are all your work surfaces wobbling around? Seems to me you'd work twice as fast if your stakes weren't moving targets. It looks like you've got a short leg on your stands.

schreiber

Here are a couple of my rig. Sorry about the crappy quality. It's what I could find right now. The helm is a Windrose sallet which used to just have a bargrill on it. I changed it last spring - redid the whole bargrill and made a spring-pin bevor that latches to the helm. It's not free-floating - my...

schreiber

As much as I hate to say it, if you're in Meridies then 18g stainless should last a loooooong time. You guys are simply not complete spazzes like some other kingdom's fighters. It also depends on the type of fighting you do and how often. I fought for 3-4 years in a pair of Andy Ward 18g stainless g...

schreiber

You've hit on a maddening question. Spend some time on wikipedia researching terms like "Lacquer", "enamel", "varnish", and such, follow links, and you'll probably come to the same conclusion I have: Very few of us really know anything about paint, and those of us who d...

schreiber

You could use it for patterning. I have some rusty 1.3mm that I use for testing patterns & such. 1mm is getting a bit thin so the metal isn't going to behave like 1.6, it'll wrinkle a lot easier and may even require different tools and techniques. The other option is to find out what you can mak...

schreiber

The time it takes to dish is limited by your hammer arm. If I didn't have to breathe, I could do the dishing on 20 knees in an hour. But that's not what takes the time. It's the planishing and finishing. Expecting a pair of knees to take 4 hours is pretty reasonable IMO. I have a similar problem - I...

schreiber

And the proof that it opens again. Now here's the deconstructive part: I'm going to clip off the rivets and flatten all these pieces. Then I'll cut away where I've drawn. After that I'll re-trace onto new pieces of steel and put it together again, only cleaning the edges and doing some tweaks - for ...

schreiber

Here it is riveted.
You can see how I've started drawing lines where I think I'll modify the pattern.

schreiber

Here is lame 3 with the lip formed. You can see how I've hacked up the other side now to be roughly what I'm looking for. As a side note, no, I'm not really sure why I didn't angle the other side. I was originally shooting for a Milanese style, believe it or not, but then I decided it would be bette...

schreiber

Here is the stake I'm using for the edge & the lip.
I bought it from Windrose last Pennsic. It's working out really well.

schreiber

Here is a pic after I've B2'ed and aviation-snipped on the line I drew. That is the essence of this thread: I start with a rectangle, form it, cut away what I don't need, form some more, cut some more, etc. The end result is that I'm only using one piece of steel to make the pattern where I used to ...

schreiber

Thanks Halberds.

Here is the lame after tracing.
What I didn't get a pic of is the fact that I've used dividers to trace along that line so I know where to cut - this is the lip clearance.
I've also drawn the semicircular section that envelops the rivet.
The next pic shows that much progress.

schreiber

Here I'm holding the new lame in place where it will articulate to trace a line to use as a cutting guide. The previous line is so that I leave myself enough extra metal for that lip.

Uploading is taking a while, I'll be back in 20-30 to post the rest of the process.

schreiber

That's right, it's just a freakin' rectangle.

Here is said rectangle dished and a line marked so I have clearance to form the lip. More on that in the next pic.

schreiber

Ok, above we have a patterning work in progress. Prior to figuring out I could do this, I would draw something on paper which I hoped would end up looking right. Then I would cut it, dish it, form it, and find out I was short here or way too long there... then redraw it, cut it, dish it, ad nauseum....

schreiber

First a test to see if the attachments work, then we'll get to the meat of the post.

schreiber

Hi there,
I picked up a dumbell like that a couple years ago from a scrapyard.
How did you mount yours? Is it just held in a leg vise?

I haven't used mine because I am looking for someone to make a stake for it.

schreiber

Part of the problem is I'm entirely self taught That's not always a problem. For instance, in 10 years of talking to armorers and reading sites like this, nobody told me the following: If you match the curve of your hammer and the curve of the form to the curve you expect in the piece, you're savin...

schreiber

I've got mine in a stake plate and I've never hit something on a stake hard enough for me to want straight stakes. I have straight stakes, of course, but that's only because there are more straight stakes available. If I was making them, I'd make them strong enough for it not to matter whether they ...

schreiber

How deep? Well, In the case of soupcans, about as deep as you think they should be, In the case of articulations, much deeper than you think they should be. Soupcans basically float, so they don't need to be very deep. Articulated joints are easier to deal with in the beginning if you make them much...

schreiber

Well, I wasn't really looking for where or how much - I'm looking for info on what works for total immersion hardening. I've back-and-forthed with at least one Archiver who does this. The $17 a gallon reference was a justification for why I don't just go buy oil-based-urethane, water-based-urethane,...

schreiber

I know brand names and their separate effects on leather have been mentioned here but I'm not sure if it got lost. I'm reading up on floor finishes and it looks like there are oil based, water based, acrylic, urethane, etc..... Can someone who has done this chime in and let me know what the best res...

schreiber

Here's the link to all of Jim Bailie's albums:
http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/c ... 0083442279

schreiber

Man, I love that show... almost makes me wish I had cable. I built a helve hammer. It works. The original plan was to spend about $200 and about a month of effort. $750, one year, and several changed plans later, it worked, and I still need to dump another $200 or so into tooling to really get going...

schreiber

Noobs: the experienced guys seem to ignore these, but I think they're the best thing ever. cleco clamps Look on ebay, you can get a basic set for $20 or so. Also, if you're doing a greathelm, remember that if you want to skip the whole finishing part you can paint it and make it look pretty sweet.

Deconstruction patterning

Review of floor finish leather hardening options?