The Armour Archive

schreiber

That can't be the case - I researched it for about 2 months a little while ago and ended up buying a #5jr directly from a RW distributor since there was about a $10 price difference between them and all the other people I wasn't ordering dies from. If price is really that big a deal, get a knockoff....

schreiber

A friend bought a burgeonet from him last Pennsic. It's solid enough, but it's 14g mild. If you live in the East or Atlantia it's probably going to have a lifespan. I don't know about this helm but others of his come from India. I talked with him at Pennsic and found out it's a case of him telling t...

schreiber

Hey Vlad, I never got a chance to say hi at Sapphire Joust... It sure does look like boots, maybe the bottom is just for fancy, or maybe they intended the sides to come up over the top and lace together. However, that'd be a piece of a pretty big boot. I think you're about my height, and 3'6" comes ...

schreiber

Last summer some friends and I were working with a pit foundry which worked really well. The pit was about 8"/ 20cm diameter and deep - a good 12"/ 30 cm deep. We lined the thing with clay, because there was a trench coming off one side and a wall built up over where the pipe entered the pit all the...

schreiber

Well, probably not what you're looking for, but I got the HF 7x10 recently, and so far I'm loving it. I got it primarily to make tooling - extra dies for my whitney punch & stuff like that. I'd really like to know how to thread with it. I've figured out the horrible instructions on setup, but now I ...

schreiber

Can I suggest using a small rivet-head sized dimple in your anvil so that the rivet heads remain rounded and clean instead of flattened? It actually does improve the appearance a bit. $1 block of pewter + bench vise. If you're feeling industrious, make a hardie tool that has a cup on the top that h...

schreiber

A fabrication shop will sometimes also sell/ give you odds and ends. Shop around, sometimes you can get fairly large pieces and make someone think you're doing them a favor by hauling it off. Before steel prices really took off I would regularly walk into an actual steel yard and walk out with small...

schreiber

Yeah, Dude, you really have to start a page or something that describes who you are and how your auctions work. It should be plain from first reading that you have no intention of selling anything other than X pairs of Y item at a time. It should also be plain from first reading that these are Pakis...

schreiber

And a 10 day turnaround, to boot.

I'm certainly keeping my eyes open for more stuff for sale by him.

schreiber

I don't know what kind of tool you have, but my portable whitney #8 says it'll do a 1/4 hole in 1/4 steel. I'd need to gain about 150 lbs to make that happen, though. Please take this as constructive criticism: I would not buy the helm as built. IMO your helms that I've seen don't leave enough room ...

schreiber

I assume you mean that if you tilt your head back uncomfortably, to the point where you feel like the weight of the helm is going to snap your neck, and were falling backward at the same time, and someone thrusted upward, they could hit your jaw, right? Cause that's why I was bounced in the past. No...

schreiber

Ditto on straps - never use speed rivets for straps. Unless you really like setting them. I had some on my gothic floating elbows when I first started fighting in them. Every time I threw a spear shot, my elbow would catch on the guy next to me, and pieces of strap and speed rivet would go flying in...

schreiber

Well, it's going to depend on your process. I try to put all the work into the pattern. I go through at least five iterations of every piece before I cut a piece of steel that I'll be using for real. So I keep a lot of 18g around for that reason. I don't make finished pieces out of it. It's only for...

schreiber

People have been doing this since the early 90's at least. The first groups to do it were the MRL's - maybe MRL even pioneered the idea, I don't know. The crap merchants, basically. As mentioned, there are people who are importing SCA legal armor from India, and there are people importing crap. Gene...

schreiber

I am really interested (black 10.5 E width), and I really hate to throw a bucket of water on this, but the internet is the internet after all. Mr. Darmour, who are you? Where are you from? Do you have a website? Can you show us other work you have done? $78 for a pair of boots is, to put it in one w...

schreiber

Hi there, I'm in Occoquan and I have a torch that'll do it no problem. I haven't done stainless with it yet, but I just got stainless rods. (But I think they're way too big.) PM me and I'm sure we can work something out. I'm definitely interested in how you got it, I've talked to Ziegler before (auf...

schreiber

I recently got my shop in order, and I can tell you one thing that I agonized over buying and have never regretted once I got it open is a DeWalt 18 volt cordless drill & circular saw set. Drills also make holes in steel, and saws can also be fitted with metal blades that cut plate and barstock... A...

schreiber

Is this a known pattern or is it off-the-cuff? It seems like you may be a little shy of tools. Here's some stuff I suggest that you can get cheap to make this go along better: -a 3-4" diameter piece of black pipe, 18" or so long -rubber or nylon mallet, the heavier the better -really thick gloves (I...

schreiber

The only problem is that "wall tents" are pretty much either Roman Army or 19th century onwards. There's not much evidence to support using them for Medieval to Renaissance era---don't you agree? I agree that there are SAFER tents you can buy, if authenticity is your goal. Particularly wedge tents....

schreiber

You know, I made my first tent in 1996 with a $35 sewing machine, untreated canvas, limited sewing experience, and the pythagorean theorem. It's a 12x18 marquee top (only) and I did it for about $180 in materials, setup kit included. This Pennsic is probably going to be the last time it gets set up....

schreiber

Ditto on OpenOffice, but from experience I can tell you: a) not everything is at all similar to how it works in Word b) sometimes the things that aren't similar seem pretty cockamamie (although IMO no more so than the first time you use Word). c) there is no other program I have ever encountered whi...

schreiber

Sean Powell wrote:I've been known to mistreat mine on the anvil with a hammer on really stuborn rivets. Works like a charm.

Sean

I just shove mine in the vise... wear eye protection, though, preferrably a face shield, since the ends of roofing nails & such tend to go P-TEWWWW! in random directions.

schreiber

Huh. Nobody else owns a pair of hoof nippers? I don't know what it's like across the pond, but here (especially in rural areas of the US) there are a lot of antique stores selling what everyone except us would consider junk. Every so often you can find an old pair of hoof nippers, which are basicall...

schreiber

There's a lot of distance between your HF store and mine, but mine is open to taking returns as well.

If you try to use it and it's crap, take it back to the store, say it's crap and you want another one, and they'll probably give it to you.

schreiber

Firefox can't find the server at phvrf.yahoo.com.

Ditto on the links not working.

schreiber

I'm no expert, but I'm guessing Victorian Repro. There was obviously a lot of work put into it, but some of the repousse is celtic knotwork. The skull seems to be two pieces, but I can't tell what's going on there... ...it looks like it could be 120 years old, and I can't think of any time after the...

schreiber

I also think you should just take it apart.
If you do what you're talking about I think you'd end up with an elbow that looks like it had a bead welded to it.

schreiber

And remember, if there are any reenactment groups that camp in the Netherlands, you could probably make a small pile of cash just making decent 70 or 80 cm long tent stakes.... I've camped in what we in the US would call swamp land, and I can only imagine what it's like there.

schreiber

Whoa, brake. Brass casting isn't just a matter of doing, there's a lot of research to do. I have never heard of using cement, in fact I think you're making a recipe for exploding cement. Most people do an awful lot of split casting before getting into lost wax, so you can count on finding a lot of i...

schreiber

I also think that if you're just getting into this, you should have a main goal in mind. You are going to collect tools as you learn, and they are going to be good for what you're working on. If you work on paper thin sheet, your tools are going to be good for working on paper thin sheet metal. They...

schreiber

Your best bet is going to be casting. Besides being fairly inexpensive to get started, casting is a heck of a lot of fun. The only problem with small pieces like that is that you tend to vaporize a good bit of the metal while you're melting it. The only other thing I'd suggest is finding a scrapyard...

schreiber

Is that your first hot raising work?
What did you use for heat?
Did you hand planish, or was there a wheel or air hammer?
The couter and spaulder look like they were stamped, so you're doing something right... lookin' sharp.

schreiber

What are you using for dies?
Is this two pieces welded together, or one piece bent on itself and welded?

Looking good....

schreiber

VRIN: You are right, I missed you. I apologize. The fact that you took exception to what I said sets you apart. You didn't stop by, call it crap, and move on without seeing what effects your words had. I made a great helm with my almost-14-year-old nephew recently for a class project. After the seve...

schreiber

Konstantin, Sebastian, and Ding: thank you for your replies to Thray. Everyone else: WTF were you making at age 14 in an hour? Thanks for reminding me why I don't come here every day. Way to treat a new guy. Keep it up Thray, it needs a good deal of refinement but there is a lot of good in this.