The Armour Archive

Hi,
Let me know if this is in the right place, this is my first post....
I am looking for someone in Massachusetts that teaches blacksmithing, and sword/armor smithing... Does any one have any good suggestions? I don't really know which colleges teach balcksmithing (google has failed me) and I know the Sword and armour smithing is going to be pretty specialized. If not, are there any good books or programs to start self teaching? It would be nice to be able to make my own horse shoes for these big boys as they are expensive...
Thanks!

http://modernyankeeblacksmith.com/

http://massachusetts.uscity.net/Blacksmith/

try contacting a black smith and ask about an apprenticeship.

And you are talking about several, normally separate skill sets.
Armour, Swords, basic blacksmithing and ferrier are different.

They all involve moving steel around. I know for sure I could make a horse shoe if I tried, but I also know for sure that I would not put one on my horse. We have a ferrier for that and he isn't just a blacksmith. He knows horses. And he keeps them from going lame by doing the right shoes with the right hoof treatments for the right horses. He is one of the few people I don't mind paying related to the horse.

Wade

Cornel has a farrier program that a friend just graduated from. Definetly heavy on the equine health stand of things but also a lot of hands-on for moving steel, aluminum and other specialty metals to get a shoe to match a hoof AND do it's job (like custom carbide coated jobs for not sliding on ice or 'orthpedic' shoes to keep horses from going lame) A log of good hammer technique is involved as well.

Blacksmithing: look into the colonial reenactment loactions like Sturbridge village. That good general purpose blacksmith work and you also might learn to make a generic horseshoe, harden an axe head, rim a wagon-wheel, coop a barrel or even bore a gun-barrel. It's a diverse art. (but doesn't really involve blades or armor)

Bladesmithing: is it's own artform.

Armorsmithing: is very much a self-taught skill. It involves scrounged tools and practice plus looking at real armor VERY closely and playing with metal. Sit-back, engoy and read a lot of the archive and you will start picking up the vocabulary we use and the tools we prefer. Then go try something.

Also There are probably a few hobiest armorers in Mass who can help you out. What area of the state are you in?

Luck!
Sean

At wcallen; I do realize they are separate skills, right now i am just looking to start somewhere... I know that considering armor and sword smithing have to come later once i get a general lay-out of handling steels. As far as I am concerned, blacksmithing and ferrier are some thing I would do together. That's why i was generalizing my search...

At InsaneIrish; Thanks for the web sites!

Hie thee to a book-salery and get "Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction" AKA TOMAR.

For smithing I would suggest looking up the local ABANA Affiliate (Artist Blacksmith Association of North America) a basic list can be found here: http://www.abana-chapter.com/

Also look at the anvilfire.com and iforgeiron.com forums for smithing specific ones---(I send folks wanting to make armour over here from them...)

While many of these do have some crossover it's not as much as one might think---extremely good armour makers can be quite bad bladesmiths and vice versa though smithing helps in tool building for armour work.

Bladesmithing is something you would best get into after you know the basics of blacksmithing---save a lot of time and frustration when you only have bladesmithing mistakes to deal with instead of all the beginner's mistakes. (Blade materials are not as forgiving as mild steel!) "The Complete Bladesmith" is the go to book for starting this field. (I like "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" for getting the basics of smithing down.)

Note that apprenticeships are not a common thing anymore. Basically you are slowing down production for a professional smith to teach you while not having much in the way of skills to pay them back. (after discussion the pro's came up with 1 hour of one on one instruction should be repaid with 10 hours of "grunt work"---and most shops don't have that much grunt work!)

For a hobby smith you are asking them to bet their house, car shop, etc on *you*. (Most insurance contracts require you to sue a third party involved if anything happens to you or they don't have to pay! So you do something stupid---like not wearing a face shield when using power tools and suddenly you have a choice of bankrupting the smith or facing a quarter million dollars of medical bills on your own...makes a smith "gun shy") See http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor.p ... afety/demo and perhaps http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor.p ... fety3/demo

Welcome and well come, Winter-wizard.

What these guys said. Much of the heat-it-&-beat-it fundamentals of pushing steel about with hammers involves hotwork -- though much of armor-making does not -- so do you have a forge? Torch? Hammers? What? That is, what have you on hand for a shop? These matters have to be understood to figure out just where in "just starting out" you really are.

And then there's knowledge of your market: in armoring, SCA is different in its demands from LARP and either varies widely from Living History, which is probably the hardest armor market of all to break into, demanding both extensive shop and extensive experience as it does. Nor does it make you immensely wealthy. Internet marketing seems relatively successful -- but you have to be ready to ship all over the place. There are professional makers in Eastern Europe, shipping to an international clientèle -- and I think they keep afloat through minimal expenses and low overall cost of living.

TOMAR is by Brian Price: Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction: the Fourteenth Century is the complete title. Worth every penny, and hardbacks run forty to fifty-odd dollars most places that have it.

Tomar

If you do not have the $40~$50 for TOMAR Take a look at the FREE .pdf "Basic Armouring: A Practical Introduction to Armour Making" by Paul Blackwell. Link is here

Talbots also has step-by-step patterns (some with videos available as well).

And of course do not forget about the patterns here on the Archive some have step-by-step progress pics. Two other good sites for patterns/techniques are Arador.com and Bladeturner.com.

Though I would not recommend Bladeturner's mailshirt pattern. There are historical ones out there, which BT's is very much not. It is a Four-Trapezoid Yoke Top shirt, the simplest of the yokes. Raglan sleeves, about. It can be made to work, but they just didn't make shirts that way; they stuck with the European Modified Square all the time. Maybe a mantletop design unless the artwork that is its only evidence is confuzzled.

A straight-up simple mod that improves the BT is to make the rear trapezoid a handspan wider than the front one, to bias the sleeves forward for necessary slack.

But http://homepage.ntlworld.com/trevor.barker/farisles/guilds/armour/mail.htm has the most historical mailshirt recipe. Erik D. Schmid tells us mail shirts were very seldom built much different in Europe.

There's actually a place that teaches some of this stuff in the form of weekend classes. But it's in Oakland: http://thecrucible.org/

Last time I looked they had a class in "medieval helmet making" but I'm guessing it's more art-oriented than putting together something historical.

Each of those crafts on their own take a lifetime to learn. even if you live to be 200 years old. It's kinda like saying I want to learn to be a doctor a lawyer an engineer and something else only those only take 7 years to learn. I recommend thinking about which one most interests you and start working on that.

That being said. It's not really common knowledge that these are completely different crafts. Stick around and keep asking questions.

And it can be a good idea to try as many of them as you can to figure out the one(s) you want to continue with!

You also might want to consider a natural or bare-foot trim for the drafts. They do very well bare footed. Save you time and money for the other stuff.
Richard.

The guy you need to get a hold of is Carl West of Prospect Hill Forge.
http://www.prospecthillforge.com/
he's at pensic so you may need to wait a week of two.
I don't think he is a farrier.

Stahlgrim wrote:The guy you need to get a hold of is Carl West of Prospect Hill Forge.
http://www.prospecthillforge.com/
he's at pensic so you may need to wait a week of two.
I don't think he is a farrier.

he's in Waltham! My inlaws live in waltham and are only about a ten minute walk from his shop... I think I know where im heading next time Im down for a visit and need to escape from their craziness

They are all diferent crafts sure however there are some crossovers as to some basic skills you can apply to all of them as well. I have done some blacksmithing, blade smithing and armoring as well. I certainly claim to be a master at any of them however knowing how to shape metal both cold and hot helps in all crafts. Learning how to do stock removal, grinding and polishing all skills needed. Good luck on your journey and never stop learning.

I recommend spending a lot of time at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester. It will make you want to run home and work. And then get super frustrated when you can't turn out a full suit of high Maximillian style in a weekend.