The Armour Archive

We have such a vast well of knowledge regarding patterns and contruction, BUT we lack solid information for tempering steel. Some armourers have been getting into tempered carbon steel armour(Ex: Sinric ). I think it would be great for those armourers to enlighten us all with some essays to add to the collection when they have the time to write them.

Just a thought I had.

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"Well...it seemed like a good idea at the time.."

I've never really been that enthusiastic
about tempering armour. I've always called my mild steel stuff finished when the shaping and final touches were done.
All I know about that would be to tell you
to heat it high, quench it, and put it in a controlled degree environment to the set degree you need to make it tempered.
Does that make since at all?
Like I say, maybe someone else, Sinric, etc.
could enlighten you on this.
It's definately something to look into as far as a small operation is concerned where you would be able to put the time in on it.

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Flatfork Armouries
cavalier_h@angelfire.com

I use a commercial heat-treater...they have the expertise to do the job without warping the pieces.

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<B>Gundobad,
Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day
Wise Ogre Armory T-shirts & more</B>

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally - Flannery O'Connor

A position worth taking, is worth defending.

Gundo, where would you find that in the phone book?
--tom

Gee and here I thought this was a thread about how to lose one's temper...

G--

You won't find them in most phone books. You have to a search on the internet.

If you want a good set of document on HTML on how to heat treat, temper, harden, anneal etc steel shoot me an email and send you the URL. The zip files is about 50k. Plus it has loads of info on how to case harden.

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Baron Arland the Bastard
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/rivetedmaille

I didn't have to look up the commercial heat-treater I use in the phone book, because I pass right by their building every week day, twice, on my way to work and home.

But if I was looking, I check under "heat treatment" first...

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<B>Gundobad,
Wise Ogre Armory
Wise Ogre Pic of the Day
Wise Ogre Armory T-shirts & more</B>

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally - Flannery O'Connor

A position worth taking, is worth defending.

Cyril Stanley Smith's "Source book for the history of the science of steel" has a section from the "Book of Natural Magic" on tempering armour from when they still were using it...

Thomas thinking of tempering his next blade in mustard as suggested by an earlier pre-1600 source...

Steel heat treaters are listed in the Business to Business phone directories under "Heat Treat-Steel". Your local library will have a copy. Or contact a local fab shop and ask for some H/T contacts.

I do it is a standard ceramics kiln. I heat the metal up to 1550 degrees, let it soak in the heat at that temp for about an hour and and quickly plunge it into transmition fluid.

I then temper it to about 550 degrees for an hour and let it cool down slowly by turning the kiln off and gettin git out the next day.

The result is light yet strong armour!

Problems I have had, have been twisting and some delamination of the metal.

The cause of this was hating the metal too rapidly.

Let it get to temp slowly. All these are solved.



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Doug Strong
Sir William Talbot, OL
(The artist formerly know as Talbot Mac Taggart)


http://antiquities.cloud-9.net

"Hating the metal too rapidly?" Geez... I know we all get pissed at particularly stubborn pieces, but...