The Armour Archive

schreiber

Can 410 be annealed after work hardening and then finish with a tempering? Also, I don't know what you mean by this. No matter what you do to it it will not harden appreciably until you heat the entire piece orange and quench. I use water and it works fine. It does not behave like medium or high ca...

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m Says it's annealed. Reasonable price to boot. I've been working with McMaster's stuff a good bit. So far I've done dishing, hot raising, creasing, embossing, punching, shearing, filing. No fluting yet. I am not noticing it work harden. Although I'll tell you that after I hot raised a couple spauld...

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Yeah, you are a bit low. There is a reason many armorers complain about pricing on them. Yeah, if you add a zero your possibilities open up a lot. If your wife thinks that your hands are only worth $60 then perhaps the last thing you do with unbroken fingers could be to make a list of all the thing...

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A bump for people who haven't seen it today...

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My household has an old trailer that is getting replaced with a brand new trailer this year. We don't need two on-site storage trailers at Coopers. We're looking to get rid of this old one. The trailer itself was built by a hippie moving from Oregon to DC. His hippie friends painted it. If having a ...

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If money wasn't an object, I'd have gotten a Bosch 1507 unishear a long time ago. As it is, I have an old Stanley that'll do 16g mild just fine. Between that and the B2 it does the middle of anything. I also keep a jigsaw around, because no shear does fine detail well. I like the way Eric Dube is do...

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the entire kink/fetish market is a lucrative one. particularly if you're not going to be phased by requests for X,Y or Z, when X and Y are particularly graphic/kinky/inventive, and Z is something that might personally squick you out. Many Pennsics ago when I was learning sandcasting, I absentminded...

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I really like the look of John D'Aubernon's effigy - he's got a 3/4 mail sleeve, with the vambrace underneath it, and the shoulder, rerebrace, and couter over it.

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The armor regulations are bullshit, always have been, and always will be, until they get a serious overhaul done, instead of the periodic nibbling around the edges that goes on. Marshalls generally know this, and accommodate that fact with their absolute power over who gets to fight. Some of them li...

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Vegetable tanning with oak is easy. 15 acorns crushed fine to one cup of water. Boil. You need a vat worth. Soak skin over night and remove hair next morning (water opens the pours of the leather and makes it easier for the hair to come out) That is oak tanning; also called crust leather. To make l...

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So Jojo, it sounds like you're not talking about articulated joints. We tend to call them "floating" joints. I think talking about articulation probably threw us all off. This means that the couter or poleyn floats on some sort of suspension system, as opposed to being riveted one piece to...

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Well, the computer programmer in me always wants to define the problem before starting to solve it.... IMO it would be much easier and give better costume results if you did vacuum formed polystyrene and painted it. It's pretty common in film and theater (and cosplay). What is it you expect to get o...

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I disagree lamella takes longer, I have laced a dozen or so lamella armours and can put one together in about 8 hrs or so. Granted I have become pretty fast at it, still its not a really long project. If you're starting with sheet metal, it takes longer.... it kind of has to. Cutting would be simil...

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Thank you, but I am finished making helms. It is hard to quit but one must know their limit. It's a loose loose proposition for me. I no longer wish to pursue this course of metal work. Sorry to hear that. I make an occasional helm but it never interested me for I suspect the same reasons. I will s...

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I hope you're still looking for constructive criticism here. When I hear "going for generic" I remember the episode of the Simpsons where Marge tries to run a pretzel wagon, and Homer's comment is something like "trying to shove another snack on an already engorged America". If i...

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This is my Lorica Squamatta... So my question is this: Have you ever gotten hit in the ribs with an unpadded polearm, and if so, how much was the emergency room bill? Aaryq, it's your armor, so take my smartass comments with a grain of salt. But I really think you should make a small piece, put it ...

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Now, look at the high end extent armor - There are no straight lines in the roping there either. Take a look at the low end extant armor, and you find pretty much what Alcyoneus did. The majority of what people on this board are making is going to be worn. If it's going to be worn, it's at an event...

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Greetings all, I am looking to get a maker's mark punch made. Heat 1 gallon of water to below boiling in a large pot. Add white sugar until it's sweet but not syrupy. Add 3-4 sliced lemons. Sprinkle ground clove over the lemons, then wash off all the clove with the Maker's Mark. If it's that sort o...

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The one size I remember is 3x5 centimeters That big? It seems like in the ancient world moving into the dark ages (flame on!) scales were very small. Then the stuff you see used as faulds or aventails (in illuminations only) in the 14th c seems to be larger scales, and a lot of squared ends. So, if...

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In an armor shop, anvils are used for five things, usually in this order. 1) Rivets get set on the anvil face, which smashes the head into irregular and unattractive shapes. This lasts as long as it takes for the armorer to figure out a better surface to work on, but the anvil continues to get used ...

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For 410 sheet, it's hard to beat the price they have at McMaster, which is why I started to play with it. The steel company close to me is Durrett Sheppard Steel. m Is this the place you mean? I might have to take a trip up to Baltimore at some point, then, if they carry spring alloys. Haven't you e...

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I got one as the first shear I ever bought... and immediately started looking for a used B2. I still keep it around, thinking that if I could somehow get custom shear blades for it, I could do stuff like curved ends for lamellar in one pull of a handle. But the reality is it's just taking up space. ...

schreiber

It seems like at 1250 you're running into the era where it might be appropriate to hang the poleyns on the chausses, instead of trying to have them underneath. I don't know what date you'd start seeing the couters outside... but it seems to me that if you were to do it you'd have much less of a prob...

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I'll see if I can get a pic of what I did with the D-shaped dolly. It's just standing up - and I use it for EVERYTHING. I emboss with it, I set rivets on it, I'll fine-tune lame curling on the side. Of course, I've been working with gauntlets a lot, so having a handy little surface like that has bee...

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I'll always contend that the best tool for gearing up a new fighter is a sewing machine.... particularly since a coat of plates would probably be in order here. I wouldn't mess around with scrounging paint buckets - they're too thin IMO (I've been hit in the ribs while wearing paint bucket, by a lit...

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The price of a lot of commodities will increase for the foreseeable future. It isn't really a problem in the West unless wages don't increase at the same rate. The poorer countries will suffer the worst. This is specious. By your reasoning, a drop in commodity prices should also require a drop in w...

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Well, I don't think Sasuke and I are conflicting each other. I also use them 99.9% of the time. I mainly wanted to point out that I was married to them, and it took a while to realize that in certain situations, being so devoted to using them was getting in the way of progress. I guess I'd follow up...

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I have them organized by diameter in parts trays in the bottom drawer of my craftsman tool chest, right on my patterning/assembly workspace. I used to keep the pliers in that drawer too, but I always ended up digging for them, and now I have a bunch of hard drive magnets on the side of my tool chest...

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I'd be interested in hearing what works in the end... I have a block house that is peeling all over the place, and it's all lead paint, and I'll probably be the one stripping it as opposed to paying for whatever insane abatement process is required these days.

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I've found the dart-weld thing to be in between two-piece and total raising, as far as level of complexity of manufacture goes.

I'll have to try it out after war, but I'll modify it so it doesn't have points at the center.

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Odd was a little harsh, but ask any armorer what 10 tools you absolutely have to have for an armor shop, and this is going to make the list. As far as experience with them, I will say with conviction that they are not very useful by themselves. If you get one, you'll spend about a week with it befor...

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The articulation points should be in line with each other. The closer you can get to having the holes so that you can put a rod through both sides, the better. But it's not exactly that way... perfect ones end up a little forward from that position. If you don't have dividers, get some, because they...

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The point in the middle of the top of your cop is too long. Note how it makes a very slight "M" shape in your picture. That's from the too-long point dipping down into articulation territory. When you look straight down onto a cop, the edge should form a nice arch with either a rounded top...

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I also use a push tool to hammer seat everything tight before cutting the excess rivet length. It is made from the end of a broken snap center punch. The brass tip housing works great on 1/8" rivets. Mine is made from a large diameter, short bolt. I drilled a hole into the end. For leather, I ...

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Now Fred, do you have at least one file? If not, pick up any old 3- or 4-file package such as Nicholson sells, those ones with the handles attached or the handles and collars available in it. A file can be made to work without a handle, but a handle makes your life easier while filing. ...... Files...

Re: 410 Stainless ?

Trailer for On-site storage at Cooper's Lake

Re: Maker's mark