The Armour Archive

Mac

Xtracted wrote:These will be glorious, I can't wait to see the borders mounted. You have soo much finger stabbing in your future Mac, I am not envious of that..

Thank you! I'm looking forward to the finger stabbing.

Mac

Mac

That’s just... odd. . It's unusual, but by no means rare. Here is a handful of Gothic gauntlets which have applied brasswork, in lieu of cuff hems. https://i.pinimg.com/564x/14/cb/d2/14cbd26eaea2ce06707284d9f8c24aea.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/25/c3/73/25c3735308d7468f698ac5c1e701f20e.jpg https:/...

Mac

I'm looking forward to seeing you hem these gauntlets - will you re-treat these, or just let the rolled edge be air-cooled hardness rather than treated and tempered? Scott By "rolled edge", do you mean the hems on the cuff? These will not have cuff hems. :shock: Like the A-58 gauntlets in Vienna, t...

Mac

I've got all the slots cut in both gauntlets. I may or may not also slot the holes where the proximal lames of the fingers articulate with the knuckles. I'll let the percolate before I decide. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XXwZWMQzRqAR76wxwCpCs8tFL9PuwqhsnLQtUBxhYU8J4p_ya3kKwSQtEV8cJXJSccgJrAB28...

Mac

Are you using your coping saw for this work? With the jewelers saw I simply draw a line on either side of the slot between my two "end" holes with a fine tipped marker (so I have a visual guide) and then use the saw to remove these lines. While there is a guide that matches saw blades to metal thic...

Mac

I find that cutting the rivet slots is much easier if I do it before heat treating. While it's certainly a bit easier to cut the slots while the metal is soft, I feel that it can introduce trouble in the heat treating. If the assembly already has slots when it goes into the kiln, it's possible for ...

Mac

Indianer wrote:Mac, you did that stop tempering in your kitchen oven I take it?

I did it in that beautiful 1970s "harvest gold" colored range sitting to the right of the kiln.

Mac

Mac

I put all the parts in the kiln after dinner. The temperature had dropped to about 450°F, so it was easy to just reach in and position them by hand. I then turned the elements on "medium" and waited for the temperature to rise. When it got to about 630° I turned the upper control off, and the other ...

Mac

Nice progress Mac. Thanks! Curiosity question, How long do you usually leave he pieces in the oven for the "stop temper" step? Thanks, Mark I don't worry too much about how long they are in there, just as long as I'm sure they have come up three or four hundred degrees. So long as they are "somewha...

Mac

I gave the parts a once over with some magnification to see if there was any cracking, and they seem OK. The only problem was a bit of gaping at the proximal end of the cuff joints. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/m_dVknXWZJT2u-7nCtW9oLGkvKiZ5GVSnTXjed0MI0LkbFUVtLpxwNO_4W_54UstYo9EjPDzfJqognGnbMgf...

Mac

As far as I can tell, the hardening went OK. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oUGHXNp0NrFc9WUf6_XWbVuFNeqrKUIviO5uhTUhKTGm_8lTudRn1cqCxmIXN6xfahcS1sBV-ZB96yY8SMY95SEzSewsbrElJICjM9Jk-PsS92L36o-DklTP0afV8v3LGeFW4q8RkdiQnHH-5k0QZKJvuR7Wkan42tXm-KeopF0p0Q-4XWYqiToU3g9qi_TG8JczuhOnzZiJC-MYGTigONaK3EIoi...

Mac

what kind of kiln do you have, Mac? Would be interesting to see your heat treatment setup :D It's an electric top-loader with an internal space of about 18" on a side. The lid is counter-weighted, and can be lifted by depressing a foot pedal. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LGF_RxN0DUYqnqX4x4F0fe...

Mac

It's an hour later, and the kiln is nearly up to temp. Unfortunately, the quench drum is still too cool. I need it at 100°F and it's still at around 85°. I've turned all three kiln control knobs from "Hi" to "Med", so the quench can catch up a bit while I have lunch.

Mac

Mac

Today is a heat treating day. I turned the quench drum heater on around 9:00 and just now (11:45) turned on the kiln. Meanwhile Ive been rigging lift wires on the various parts. The fingers and thumbs are straightforward, but the gauntlet bodies have been more of a problem. I'd like to lift them by ...

Mac

Galileo wrote:
Mac, off the topic at hand...

Do you offer said badge in your pewter business?

We don't, but I see that Lionheart does.

Mac

Mac

Do I remember right that you order a particular size screw which fits your holes better than the usual hardware store options? They are 5-40 screws, and their nominal shank diameter is .125" . A well stocked hardware store might have them, but you won't find them at the Home Despot. I get these 1/2...

Mac

I'm starting to prepare the gauntlets for heat treating. The first thing they need is some sort of strap to keep the cuff "door" in the correct position. I've got a cardboard template here. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nR9NlUPqig4Ma8FwIdMT9QQipzy3mJIWh9nXJnpNN9gJkOXGgbazC0YDP_SEAW1_bAQmEGhUQogW...

Mac

This morning I went and cleaned the late Will McLean's (Galleron's) marker on the anniversary of his passing. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/BE6N6C2BRk0R6DTM6y1_JIb_790t-jpvkMCuNUcbTtQJDTy5HvFDiCXFzLvR2E3fWbuOcOe9Gwooox1EJO_Sb3d4ylsdTUqklRMT3pkZfwJppdm7_6RryP6_cdDMMZU1cUj_bj1uoccCMHwSfVmOCWdGanaW...

Mac

I would suggest high grad upholstery leather, which can be very strong and able to take some wear. This is upholstery leather I bought from Tandy. It held up very well, and I was able to get it to pull down tight over the breast plate. There is a seam at the waist, but I think you'd need that no ma...

Mac

I had to buy a replacement for our electric kitchen stove a couple of years ago because it was from the '70s and the local repair services stated flat that there was no chance of getting parts for anything that old. We bought a brand new stove but I have found that our local Habitat for Humanity Re...

Mac

I've always assumed that we are supposed to see the decoration as a thing applied to fabric: some sort of embroidery in relief like what we see in this "order of the dragon" badge in Munich. https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8f/6d/ac/8f6dac7b868409255b7b5fa8c8536524.jpg This is, of course, well out of my fi...

Mac

Eachann wrote:Have you tried repairclinic.com

Yes. Unfortunately they don't have anything for Westinghouse KS735R.

Mac

Mac

Zubeydah wrote:

- yes. yes it is.

(raised in Bangor & Sangerville...)

Good to know. Thanks!

Mac

Mac

My current roadblock is in the form of the old kitchen range that I use for "stop tempering". That is to say, tempering at a relatively low temperature to keep newly hardened plates from cracking while the main kiln comes back down from the hardening temperature to one more suited to tempering. The ...

Mac

Gordon Thompson wrote:Gothic gauntlets at last!

Thanks for updates. It costs some of your time, after all

You're welcome, Gorden!

It's costs a bit in time, but I hope people will benefit from it.

Mac

Mac

I've started a Pinterest page of sallets with crests or plumes to see whether that's a reasonable explanation for (at least some of) these holes. Here's a couple of examples. https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a8/64/bc/a864bc00fbbd9818f066c8f3980f7885.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/564x/7f/a6/20/7fa620fc24616f8fbe...

Mac

The thing I'm working on now it getting the rest of the decoration planned and roughed out. The problem it that as soon as we get to the distal side of the main knuckles, or past the knuckle of the thumb plate, we can no longer just copy the A-56 gauntlets. The basic problem is that the types of art...

Mac

The ones I had seen were large enough for a crest. These small ones may be present to allow air to escape during a quench - trapping an air bubble in the crest of a helm would lead to extremes in differential cooling. A small hole would allow air (and steam) to escape, particularly given the depth ...

Mac

I've always just assumed that they were there to accept some sort of crest.... but I have to admit that don't seem very well suited to that.

Mac

Mac

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:
It's stranger (but better) than I imagined.
Isn't that true of all this stuff?

Thanks for the reminder to get back to this. I've bought a copy of the book on Rodrigo's grave clothes, and will post some images from it as soon as I can.

Mac

Mac

Yesterday afternoon, I turned my attention to the main knuckle plates. A rough grind made the surfaces receive the pen marks better as well as giving me a chance to find and fix the low spots. Like the other plates, most of the work is done by punching out holes and changing their shapes a bit with ...

Mac

It believe it to be an insidiously good fake. Among other things, it looks wrong in profile. The Finer helmet lacks the symmetry in the point that is characteristic of authentic helmets. Instead, it have a sort of "pushed back" look. That's a common modern mistake. Here is a comparison with one of t...

Mac

The temperature outside has fallen significantly, and the "wind's blowin' like a bahstahrd" *. I've actually turned the heat on in the shop. :shock: * I once heard a guy from Main say this, and I assume it's an authentic "Down East" expression. Yesterday evening, I punched the holes in the cuff exte...

Mac

I got all the holes for the pierced work on the backs of the hands punched this morning. I'm pretty pleased with how this is going. It looks like I guessed about right with the scale and spacing of the decoration, because the number of repetitions in each location is working out. That is to say it's...

Mac

I'm thinking it will also be worth taking a shot of each model with no helmet on so we can see if they have a particularly long or short neck before it disappears into the PDB and we're just left to wonder. That sounds like a good plan. It will also give us some idea of just how much stuff (padding...

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