The Armour Archive

[img]http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt47/reenactthis/armour/DSCN3008.jpg[/img]

question, how much of a curve should I give each piece and how much should each piece overlap the next.

personally, i'd overlap each plate by 1/2" or so. as for how much curve, i think that depends on how curved you are. the plates going around your sides are probably going to need a little more curve than the ones across your front and back. You should be able to cup the relevant body part and get an idea of how much curvature there is any given place, from there just use a bit of trial and error to get everything to sit right. if you want to test the fit without riveting them into your shell just duct tape them all together and weap it around yourself.

that coat of plates is looking nice. The amount of overlap on my coat of plates is 1cm but then again my plates are all 16 gauge mild steel so i suppose it depends on what your plates are made from and how thick they are.

Hi there

Interesting setup with the plates across the middle like that, most of the ones I have seen, built have had the larger rows of single plates across the middle, so I hope my advice is of some help but I'f never made one exactly like you have there.

Essentially most of us are box shaped rather than round, even if you are built a little more generous than most (like me), this still holds true. As such the ones across the front might not need much movement at all, then a fair amount at the corners of the box and then again at the back, depending upon how far round your pattern takes you.

I have found that you shoudl curve the plate throughout rather than a sharp curve at the ends, these latter ones may hurt you unless you have maille and a gambeson on underneath.

The nice thing is, so long as you have roughed things out well, you can do some minor adjustments when they are in place .. but not too much.

I hope this helps a bit.

Good luck

Graham

I strongly suggest seeking out someone that has a three bar roller. It will dramatically increase your speed and will yield a uniform curl on each plate. If you don't know, a three bar roller is simply a large device consisting of three long steel bars that curls sheet metal when it is run through it.

overlap - 1/2 inch
curve - to your (or your client's) body shape

Eltz-Kempenich I think you mean a slip roll.
The good ones rated for full lenth 16 guage are expencive.
Mad matt has a setup that works well with a bar and pice of pipe mounted to the bench and the forming done with brute strenth and leverage.

I have had luck useing this setup and a pice of12 oz leather to increase the fulcrum lenth on small pieces or when trying to bend the last edge of a piece.

I don't think he quite does; I think he's talking about the poor man's slip something like Matt's -- three lengths of pipe. Two spaced apart, third one swung down between the former two, beating and bending the metal set upon the two. You can make such things of a couple two-by-fours and a length of scrap steel plumbing or gas pipe.

It can make cylindrical bends with everything parallel, or conical bends if the two pipes on the bench can be set up in a / \-like configuration. With the third pipe in action the whole conical-bend arrangement looks like /|\.