The Armour Archive

Ernst wrote:I've got some micrographs from Wade's lance arrêt. A-237. There is a small raised rib with roping, edged with two incised lines which appeared to me to have traces of gilding. I'm not positive of the exact area which the micrograph was taken , but it was around one of those ribs. Probably on the hinge area, perhaps Tom B. would remember?

http://www.allenantiques.com/images/A-2 ... -front.jpg

Arret incised lines.jpg

I am pretty sure it is the one down near the hinge in this view

http://www.allenantiques.com/images/A-2 ... -front.jpg

That was my guess too.

Wade

Just a quick update. The cuisses are polished and looking OK. There will be more polishing with a cotton wheel, but for now, they're done.



I cut the lines on the knees with the arrangement I showed above. The only change I made was to true the edge very carefully between my test pieces and the project. That was not really such a good idea, because the wheel did not cut as aggressively as it did in the tests. The result is a slightly thinner line. The less aggressive cut also meant that I had to advance the work slower, and this made the lines a bit less "spontaneous" looking. The moral of the story is to test after every change.





I really hate photographing polished armor. It just pisses me off to see the camera, the photographer, and the whole friggin' room in the reflection.

Mac

Beautiful. I love seeing this come together- especially after seeing the pieces "rough" in your shop. Inspiring...

What if you made a white screen with a small aperture, just big enough for the camera lens? Then the armour would reflect white, with a small black dot.

Only because I'm sure you have buckets of spare time just sitting around your workshop in buckets.

At least you're dressed!!! Beautiful btw!!!!!

lol

Ugo wrote:At least you're dressed!!! Beautiful btw!!!!!

Thank you!

I have seen an Ebay post where the seller did not observe that propriety when snapping a pic of a vintage toaster. His junk was reflected in his junk.

Mac

I don't like photographing polished things either. I have even tried using a lightbox with a front cover and s a slit for the camera. I think I would need a much larger set up so that I could shoot from farther away so that the whole is relatively smaller. Shooting pictures up close just gets to much off of the reflections.

Shooting farther away would help with photographic distortion too....

Anyway, nice legs.

Wade

A quick search for images of gold beads yields up some classic white box failures.









Mac

Amazing work as always. Will the knees be gilded? I really hope your patron will go with gilding like the statue, that would be fantastic to see and so rarely done on modern armour..

Don't take our collective silence as disinterest Mac. We simply don't want to disrupt the flow of your build-a-long and we're all eager to see more.

There's not much to report at the moment. Last week was taken up by house cleaning and shopping, and this week I am sick. I'm feeling vaguely better this morning than I did yesterday, so I might get out to the shop.

The next order of business will be preparing the greaves and sabatons for heat treating. I'll probably spend much of a day fixing minor flaws in the surfaces of the greaves. They are thin stuff, and there will not be much room for grinding.

Mac

I got out to the shop, but I didn't get a whole lot done. My nose still runs when I put my head down, but at least I'm no longer shivering when I take the blanket off my shoulders like yesterday.

The greaves are pretty long, and barely fit diagonally in the kiln. I would like to heat treat them with the sabatons attached, but I don't think that can happen.

The surfaces of the greaves are in better shape than I thought, so perhaps it will not take too long to get them ready.

Mac

My cold has improved to where I can stand to be back in the shop, so today I got the greaves and sabatons wired and braced for the heat treatment.

This is what the greaves look like. The open sides are bolted closed, and metal "stirrup" is bolted across the bottoms to keep things from moving. There are two sets of wires; one to let the greave into the kiln and another to snatch it out.



In this test run, we can see how the loop in the middle will allow the greave to be settled in horizontally. This is only one thickness of wire, because it only has to be strong enough to let the cold greave in.



This is how the greaves will look in the kiln. There's not much room for error, and I will have to remember to shut off the power while I get them into position. I don't know if I can get "zapped" by touching the work to a live heating coil... I think not, but it's better to play it safe. A couple of pieces of kiln "furniture" will keep the greaves from trying to roll over. I may have to readjust them with the hook in between greaves if they get displaced. When the greaves are done, I will shove them to one side to make room for the sabatons. This is an example of the sorts of things that need to be thought out and tested while the kiln is cold.



The "snatch out" loop is up at the top so that the greave can be removed faster and so that it will enter the quench cleanly. The loop is made of two thicknesses of wire because it will be orange and soft when I need to lift the weight of the greave with it. I'll be cutting the power for this part too.



There won't be any trouble getting the sabatons to sit right in the kiln, so they can use the same loop to get then in and out. This toe-down posture will enter the quench very smoothly. (I dipped one of them into the slack tub just to make sure, and the entry was delicious)



The loop is fastened to brackets under the nuts of the second articulation. I put stirrups in the first articulation holes to maintain the original width in spite of the pull from the loop.



Mac

It's a heat treating day.

The quench is nearly up to 100°F, and I have throttled its heater back. The kiln is passing 500°F, and I have turned all three dials to High. I've got another hour and a half to prepare myself emotionally and secure a state of ritual purity for the process. The Japanese sword smiths pour cold water over their heads, but I never liked that....

I'll report back this evening on how it went.

Mac

Gambatte Maku-sama!

One last report before the fun begins.

The quench tank temperature is stable at just under 100°F. The kiln has come up to 1550°F, and I turned the top and middle controls back to Medium. I have also turned off the electric heaters for the shop in general to save a bit of capacity for the tempering range, which I have just turned on and set for 350°F.

By the time I change into my shop clothes and get back out there, all should be in readiness.

Mac

Xtracted wrote:Gambatte Maku-sama!

Thank you!

I just ran Gambatte through Google Translate to make sure you weren't telling me I had to pour that cold water on my head after all.

Mac

An amazing process to see and hear about. Those are amazing pieces of work Mac. Those cuisses came out lovely as well!

RPM

The heat treatment went smoothly enough. I had a bit of trouble getting the first greave into the kiln fast enough because the let-in loop was too long and that let it twist around like the torsion pendulum on one of those "anniversary clocks". I fixed that on the second one by folding the loop over to shorten it. That made a big difference.



Since I had turned off the room heaters to make sure there was enough power for the heat treating, the shop was only about 55°F or so. That made the 100°F quench steam like the cauldron in a second rate production of Macbeth.



The other "atmospheric effect" was provided by the smoke which billowed forth from the range when ever I opened the door. Some parts smoked more than others, depending on how much of the quenchant I failed to scrub off before putting the part in for the "stop temper". This was the worst of it, really.



There was the usual and expected amount of distortion in the greaves. The overlaps at the sides are looking a lot gappier than they were....



....and the overlap at the top has gotten skimpy.



Rather than try to correct those problems by bracing in the final temper, I decided I would fix them under the hammer afterwords. To that end, I turned off the power and propped the kiln lid a bit so that it would cool down faster.



That worked well. After dinner, when it had gotten down to the tempering range, I put each part back in for about 20 minutes at 750°F



Mac

Happy to hear you suffered only minor grievous injury.

Is it Punday morning again?

I wish I knew a way to keep the greaves from warping at all; not just to stop the puns, but to save the work of fixing the greaves later.

As far as I can tell, greaves are just always going to warp to some degree. The more I try to restrain them, the more local but difficult the warps become.

I suspect that the only alternative is one of those salt quench processes, but they are decidedly not an easy thing to manage in the home shop.

Mac

I just got caught up. I'm sure you're bound to get tired of hearing this, but this is so cool. Thank you so much for letting us live vicariously and learn so much. Personally I'm at the level where I'm learning things I didn't even know I didn't know, but I have a feeling that I could study armoring for a lifetime and still reference this post and learn things.

Thank you far taking the time.

Hi Mac,
One idea of limiting flexing in greaves might be to look at triple normalising? It is very popular for knife makers. Start with an austenising temp anneal, air cool then repeat after straightening but at lower austenite temp, re-straighten and final temp as low as possible austenite temp and quench. The main aim for knife markers with the triple anneal is to refine the grain size. This can go so far that the grain size is too small to harden.
This link should go to a site that gives a good explanation on heat treating for knife making.
http://www.hybridburners.com/documents/verhoeven.pdf
From a quick scan through the doc, start looking about page 70 for the grain refinement section.
Andrew

Estervig wrote: Personally I'm at the level where I'm learning things I didn't even know I didn't know...

I learn things I didn't know I didn't know all the time. The important thing to never close the door to that possibility.

Estervig wrote:Thank you far taking the time.

You're welcome!

Ma

Andrew Bodley wrote:Hi Mac,
One idea of limiting flexing in greaves might be to look at triple normalising? It is very popular for knife makers. Start with an austenising temp anneal, air cool then repeat after straightening but at lower austenite temp, re-straighten and final temp as low as possible austenite temp and quench. The main aim for knife markers with the triple anneal is to refine the grain size. This can go so far that the grain size is too small to harden.
This link should go to a site that gives a good explanation on heat treating for knife making.
http://www.hybridburners.com/documents/verhoeven.pdf
From a quick scan through the doc, start looking about page 70 for the grain refinement section.
Andrew

My impression is that they are warping as they hit the quench, and not as a result of any residual stresses. They are just a bit too much like potato chips (crisps) to do otherwise..... But I've got to admit, I'm not sure.

I should see if I can devise some sort of test to see if the procedure you recommend will work for armor. I think what's needed would be a quick way to make identical, easily measurable saddle shapes to experiment width.

Mac

Mac

My thought would be to take a couple of idetincal items (from the pile of shame?) and triple normalise one correcting after each cooling cycle. then compare after the final quench.
This isn't considered a commercial method of production due to time / fuel costs. But knife makers don't seem to bother with this as they are after ultimate performance (hardness/toughness) as this helps in the selling.
I use it in heat treating tools/knives but never tried anything armour sized.
Andrew

To do a meaningful sort of experiment we would need at least a dozen identical examples of some shape that we knew from experience would always warp. I'm going to keep this one in the back of my mind and see if I can't think up a plan.

Mac

I'm off to visit the In-laws for Christmas, but should be back in the shop next week.

mac

Merry Christmas!
-Jeremy

Merry Christmas from rain sodden Brevard NC! I'm glad all this precipitation is not snow. If if were, we'd be up to our asses!

Mac

The cuisses and polyns turned out fantastic, mac! Happy holidays!

I have recovered from my cold (mostly) and am back on task.

The last couple of days, have been the initial grinding of the greaves. Here is the first pass on the first piece.



This work is happening with a grinding disc. The edge of the disc is dressed nice and smooth, and the noise is more of a hiss than a clatter. As soon as the cuts get looking "choppy" or there is any real vibration, I stop and dress the wheel again. I get about half an hour out of each dressing... more or less, depending on how much work happens at the very edge of the disc. The edge deteriorates rapidly and needs attention more frequently. This means that the saddle shapes of the ankles require more frequent dressing.

I am working bare handed for a couple of reasons. The first is that I really hate gloves, and never use them if I can get away with it. The other is that I want to have a more intimate feel for temperature and stress. If I were to unwittingly impose a twist on the part while at the same time grinding so aggressively that the temperature rose into the temper range, the part might warp. That would be a lot of trouble to fix, and I will go to some lengths to avoid it. Yes, I have accidentally touched some hot places, but I have not been much burned. Yes, I have accidentally touched the edge of the wheel, but it is so smoothly dressed that I have not been much cut. I would rather risk minor hurts than risk the part.



After the first pass, I marked the spots that need to be brought up under the hammer. This goes a lot easier on tempered steel than on soft stuff. Direct "squashing" blows bring the metal up, but the unsupported sloppy edges of the blow do not dent the work. I meant to take more pics of that process, but my camera batteries died.



Here's what the greave parts looked like after the first couple of passes under the grinding disc. Note, that I am staying well clear of the crest lines at this point. All grinding work is just two inattentive seconds away from disaster, and crest lines are especially prone to trouble. Each pass gets a little closer to the crest, but they won't really get shaped until I move on to a less aggressive procedure.



The next step is with 80gr. belts.



I am using a platen with a lot of curve on the saddle shapes of the ankles and "waists" of the greaves.



There are flatter platens for the convex places as well, but I did not shoot a pic of one. I'll try to get a shot of the platen fleet later today.

This is what I have after about three passes on the belt. Greaves do not allow much variation in the angle of the pass, but I try to get about 30° each side of perpendicular. Note that there is still a little bit of unground area along much of the crest lines. That will wait for an even less aggressive procedure.



Mac