The Armour Archive

schreiber

Thanks all: I tend to keep things obscure because when I spell out exactly what I am asking, everyone focuses on something I didn't say or some other minor point. This is part of an argument on another site, where a member argued with my assertion that the Vikings made pattern welded swords with equ...

schreiber

Does anyone know of an example of an in tact viking braided sword?

By in tact I mean specifically a) not dredged from a river, b) not unearthed, and c) retaining 90% or more of its original features.

All my books show blades only, the occasional crossguard & pommel, but always rusted.

schreiber

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Agreed - and the AWS safety sheet says that, and I said that. While it may not strike you dead on the spot, who knows about long-term effects? Well, nobody. That's my point. As for their comments re: Zinc chloride.... Well, I was not debunking any cl...

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Make your own choices. Include in that choosing who to trust. Gavin That was kind of my point. I choose to trust OSHA, the American Welding Society, and Wikipedia over a bunch of people who present information in the same format as an email scare. Nobody got aids from a theater seat, either.

schreiber

Zinc, galvanized steel, welding, and metal fume fever This comes up every time anybody makes any mention of zinc, galvanized steel, or welding. There is always a warning about welding or heating zinc, and the effects of breathing vaprous zinc vary, depending on who is reporting, from mild headaches...

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Browin: Get something like mcmaster.com part 8622A53. You can probably pick that up at a steelyard for less than they want on mcmaster, but it's still going to be over $13. It's going to piss you off that you have to spend that much money on a stupid pocket-sized hunk of metal, but when you need it,...

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Ok, how the heck do you spell the long thin pieces that drape from a roman thorax, pronounced ter-jeez?

I've seen it before, and I know it's weird, like theurgis or something...

anyone?

schreiber

The search function must not have been working then... I am not advocating that you do this, this is just what I did. Playing with burning oil is, in a word, stupid. (It's just not the stupidest thing I've ever done.) I grabbed the piece with non-marring tongs and heated it up. I was just going for ...

schreiber

I have only raised hot, and I only ever intend to raise hot. I highly recommend it. You don't have to worry about your hands - the focus shifts to the array of tongs and vise grips you have to collect. You don't have to worry about repetitive stress injuries so much, since you're putting much less e...

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Well, I've only had the shop for one winter, and there wasn't that much stuff in it last time.

I had a propane heater, but it was a Reil burner stuffed into a bunch of refractory... and I was forging with it.

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With oxy/acet, your only choice is to braze it. Well, I have a verifiable fact to add to this conversation.... m I own this O/A torch and am quite pleased with it, and the demo DVD he ships with it demonstrates welding a crack in a cast iron tractor engine with special cast iron rods available from...

schreiber

Well, find out if he's ever had a broken collarbone, or a smashed thumb, or a concussion, or months of physical therapy, and put it in that perspective. I guarantee you that one trip to the hospital room costs more than most of us spend on a single piece of armor. Price is not the ultimate considera...

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Thanks for that ebay view, that really works. I've been through all the search terms (even tried just "stake" for a couple hours one day), but I'm really looking for non-Pexto, non-standard stuff. I don't think Pexto ever made specialty creasing or fluting stakes. Seems like all the Archive members ...

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I'm looking for stakes to fit in a Pexto stake plate. I've seen what Ironmonger regularly has had for the last couple years and pretty much have what I need from him. I will not pay what Roper-Whitney wants for a new stake. Does anyone know of any other places where I can find standard stakes? I've ...

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Ditto on the website. Ditto on your wares: I still know you as the guy who was making lots of butted mail and shield bosses 5 years ago. As for me: I'm not ordering armor because I have my own shop. As for people I know: ditto on the website, ditto on the wares. I can't recommend your stuff if I don...

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There was a personal site on foundry work I tried to read a couple months ago. I actually ended up sending the guy an email stating that it looked like he had plenty of great information, but I wasn't going to read it because I was pretty sure I'd need neurosugery afterward. Black text on a blue & g...

schreiber

I spent the last year building the shop. I bought a lot of crap, and I learned a lot about what to do and not do. Here are the most useful, non-obvious things I did. -Wired 8 double 4' fourescent ballasts into the shop, which is a 1-car garage. I can always see. -Bought a stake plate and made a stak...

schreiber

BTW, this is OT... Boffer swords. I'm not quite classy enough yet for rattan, and fiberglass works far better for swords than PVC. This leads me to believe that you're eventually going to use rattan. I still boffer with friends in the off-season (with SCA helmets on) and I've been making them for ab...

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Andrew Ward was showing some faceplates he plasma cut at Pennsic. He did his out of 10 gauge. They weren't so much barwork as they were animal faces & such. There was one that was made up of Calontir crosses, which he admitted was a bad design (not enough steel connecting everything at the edges). Q...

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He never even includes the word spaulder. I think it's worth noting that I have never seen this word in any of my books - only online and generally amongst SCA folk. Both terms are in dictionary.com and show the distinction already noted (that spaulders would be for the shoulder only), but I'm wond...

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HR and CR - they are the exact same alloy, usually 1008 I think (might be different across the pond) - but the finishing roll (which determines final thickness) is either done cold, or hot. If it's done cold, it comes out of the rollers with a decent finish, but it's also slightly work-hardened. Som...

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I' ve only knocked out a couple pieces using raising, but there's one thing I notice about yours. You're headed for forming basically a nipple instead of a smooth, gradual arc. (I've done that a couple times.) That probably has to do with the fact that you're using a dolly and freehanding a lot of i...

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(I am not so good at working steel, but I can operate my oven). Remember that I want her to be able to throw this out if she decides in a year to not do this again. There's the middle ground, leather. Not cheap, but definitely easy - she could have a breastplate in a couple nights' work. And if you...

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Needlenose pliers here.

If they have teeth, you can just crimp the edges of the non-domed end until it's a point.

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Sir Vitale I'll be giving you the shipping weight on monday, I was hoping to give it to you Fri. but for a minor tie up, (school dance for a 15year old) Talk to you soon So, I'm a completely uninterested party here, but let me say: Dude, that is lame. I can't believe you wrote that. Aren't you talk...

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Well, this is all just my personall opinion. I don't know of a LARP where you need any protection anywhere. Which specific group are you dealing with? AFAIK the SCA is the place where you're going to get seriously hurt if something isn't covered: I've been fighting for 12 years, and have never had a...

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I took some long, hard looks at Bokalo's stuff at Pennsic, and no, it's not pretty. I tried to take a look at this sallet in particular, but web design doesn't seem to be a talent of his either. If I remember correctly, the price is right on his stuff. If you want a sub-$100 helm he's one of the onl...

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If you're looking for a transitional helm, you're narrowed down to a couple options. The three that are the most obvious are the bascinet, the great helm, and the kettle hat. You don't say that you're going to be doing any fighting. Assuming you will be fighting, you probably won't be making a kettl...

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Some other tips: Know what something is worth before you bid. Do the homework. If you can get a Roper-whitney #8 for about $100 from a non-auction source, don't go over $100 on ebay. This most often means that some things you will simply not get on ebay - there's too often someone out there who didn...

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Hey Rob, have you posted this on other fora?
metalmeet.com and metalshapers.org have people that would be interested, and so would anvilfire.

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Here is one with lames up, which couldn't be scale, since they'd fall down. m Another down-up: m This one looks like it's up-down: m The up-down that I have at home is a modern icon, so I don't know if something changed over time or not. It also doesn't have details of the rivets on it like the St. ...

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armstreet wrote:Wow - thank you for Archangel Michael info.

Well, I found one last night which has up-down, like scales. I have seen it both ways now. I will try to find examples online....

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I'd also like to add how funny I think it is that this site has been up for almost 10 years, and nobody registered the name "Hammer" until now.

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Freiman covered the basics, but I will add that it depends on what armor, what time period, and what you're doing in it. I am also in the SCA. We use rattan sticks in combat, and we hit pretty hard. It is different from the steel combat that is practiced in Poland and other countries there. It is al...

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Welcome to the Armor Archive! That is a very impressive set of lamellar. What do you use for lacing? How were the lames made? Also, do you do other shapes? This shape (I see it called "tombstone" a lot) I think is always done down-up. In fact modern Orthodox Iconographers still paint the Archangel M...

Viking swords

Zinc, galvanized steel, welding, and metal fume fever

Roman armor question

Want stakes