Dusting off the cobwebs

[Mac]

The snow stopped last night and this morning I cut a path to the shop.



It's like I never left Buffalo!


Mac

[Johann ColdIron]

Wow! I'll bet that snowblower is looking better and better. ..

[wcallen]

I remember real amounts of snow and a climate where you really had to clear it. I was a lot younger then.

Here we just wait and it goes away pretty quickly. Also, we tend to get more ice than real, fluffy snow so shoveling just isn't the same thing.

I am hoping enough of our part of that storm will melt today that the world will get back closer to normal tomorrow.

Wade

[Aussie Yeoman]

Here's hat is probably a naff question: Would it not be more efficient to just clear the doorway and wear snow shoes?

I've never lived in a heavy snow region.

[Mac]

Snowshoes are not as convenient as they appear in the movies. They are expensive, tedious to put on, and hard to walk in. I think that it's not much of an exaggeration to say that by the time I had put them on and taken them off three or four times, I might as well have shoveled. It's pretty much the same for cross country skis.... which I already own, but they're up in the storage area of the second floor of the shop.

In any case, I have almost recovered from this unaccustomed and strenuous activity.

Mac

[wcallen]

you needed a rope connecting the 2 buildings and a sled (one of the northern types without runners)... or anything flat. Just pull yourself to the other building.

I don't know how long the snow will last there. Here in NC, we just wait a couple of days and it goes away. In Wisconsin when I was a kid, it would be months.

Wade

[Mac]

The snow has been disappearing by its self here as well. Between compaction, melting, and sublimation, it's less than half of what it was.



Mac

[Sean Powell]

The snow has been disappearing by its self here as well. Between compaction, melting, and sublimation, it's less than half of what it was.

Mac

Yes, but how is the armor? Been running the kiln to heat the shop?

Sean

[Mac]

Thanks, Sean.... I needed that.

Mac

[Mac]

I decided to put slightly wider mounting plates on the 1" (25mm) buckles, so that they could have two rivets. Remember that cardboard has a grain, and the template will behave better if it goes the right way.




A 1" strip was cut from .035" stock with the jig saw....



... and the template was used to mark the lengths. Those were cut on the shear.



Bending the plates in the step of the anvil takes a cross peen hammer. Bending them straight, and right in the middle takes a cross peen hammer and practice.



I am using the same hammer to finish folding them over, but really, any hammer would do. This is just the one I had in my hand.



The thickness of the buckles is about .118", so that will be the diameter of the center bar... more or less.



This finishing nail has a diameter of about .123". That will be enough bigger than the center bar that it will serve for a mandrel to finish closing up the buckle mounting plates. Since these plates will get opened back up a bit to embrace the leather, the mandrel does not have to be much bigger than the center bar. If they were to be mounted directly on a armor plate, I would have chosen a mandrel that was a bit bigger. Note, that the point of the nail has been ground down a bit. The points on nails are always a bit bigger than the shanks because of the way they cut them. Grinding them down lets you get them back out of the hinge or buckle plate.



I used that same cross peen to close the mounting plates up around the mandrel. The more accurately one works here, the easier the clean up will be later.




This is what one always ends up with after closing a plate around a mandrel. There is a sort of bulge in the turn, just off the center line. That will have to be fixed.



The small vise I use for this work has special jaws. They are mild steel, and the one on the "handle side" of the vise has a small radius in its upper arris. The jaws also protrude higher above the vise castings than the original ones. These are all desirable features for making hinges and buckle plates. The mild steel does not mark the work like the original (serrated steel) jaws. The radius allows the work to be set deeper into the jaws. The protrusion keeps me from striking the cast iron with the heel or toe of the hammer. The softness of the mild steel lets me saw or file right down to the jaws without dulling my tools. As the mild steel jaws wear from all that cutting and filing, they can be dressed back to shape. I have been using these jaws for decades now. The original jaws and their screws are in a plastic bag on the shelf under the bench, in case I need them.



The plate is clamped up in the vise and the the bulge in the fold is hammered with a small square faced hammer.



This is not so tidy as I would like, but it is sufficient. When the bulge is brought more of less to round, the mandrel will come out without any trouble. If you can pull the mandrel out, it probably still needs a bit more hammering.



I used the disc sander to bring the sides down even and make the plates pass through the buckles. I purposely chose the smallest buckle of the batch as the gauge. That will save having to match them up later.



The folded ends of the plates will have to be narrowed to fit the buckles. That was done with the bench grinder. Later, the coarse work of the bench grinder was smoothed off on the disc sander, but I did not get a pic of that stage.



Here, I am back to the vise to cut the notches for the buckle tongues. I have made a center mark by eye, and then used that to make the marks that delineate the two cuts of the saw. This is my special "hinge saw". It has a dull fine tooth blade. I use it for nothing else. Note, the use to the thumb to steady the initial strokes of the saw.



This is the chisel I use for taking out the material between the saw cuts. I have several different widths of these.



Here is the other reason for the special ablative jaws on the vise. No matter how careful you are, you will sometimes strike the jaw with the chisel. With the mild steel jaws, that's just not an issue.



After the chisel, I filed the notches a bit to clean them up. Here is the check to make sure that there will be enough clearance for the thickness of the buckle tongue. It's best to have the notches deep enough now, rather than having to make them deeper later in the process when you find that things won't fit.



The hole locations were laid out by eye, center punched, and then punched to #30 with a Roper Whitney #5. The #30 is just a couple of thousandths bigger than the 1/8" rivets I use.



This is my "special hinge clamp". It's just a C-clamp that's been filed away in places. The pad and anvil are smaller, and there is a notch in the frame where the hinge knuckle sits. It's what I use for holding hinges when I do the decorative filing of the leaves.



The nicks were laid out by eye...



...and cut with a file. It only has to be deep enough that the lobes are complete on the front layer, since the back will not be seen.



I used the big shears to cut a 3/16" strip of .062" steel for the tongues.



I did not document the making of the tongues because this process is always trouble. I'll try to do better when I make the tongues for the smaller buckles.

Here is what I have so far. The mounting plates have been opened up to accept the leather, and I have begun the finish work on the parts.



Mac

[Mac]

The two buckles for the shoulder straps need rollers. I have not made that many rollers, and I do it differently every time, so this it by no means the definitive procedure.

A bit of cardboard wrapped around the buckle forms the template.



The template is traced out on some .035" stock with the help of a trysquare. It's important that the long edges are pretty much parallel. These will be cut out with the big shear.



I usually start the roll this way. It's a bit hard to not hit my fingers with the hammer.



Once it has a shallow curve, it can be brought around from the outside.



The mandrel I am using here is larger than the one I will finish off with.



It is hammered over the oversized mandrel until it's nice and round. This one had a bit of a twist, and that has to be removed by tipping it up and hammering on the end until the join is perpendicular. Unfortunately, I did not get a pic of that process.



The roller is a bit long, and the ends are not even, so it goes to the disc sander until it is short enough to fit in the buckle.



The reason I started with an oversized mandrel was to give myself another shot at making the joint match up nicer. I do this by running a dremel cut off wheel down the joint....



...and closing it back up around a smaller mandrel.



Now, I use a very thin chisel to open the roller back up enough to fit on the buckle.



This is followed by a slightly wider chisel, but I did not get pics of that.

Because the chisels pulled the roller open by pressing the lips apart, all of the deformation is in the back. It takes on a flattened "C" shaped cross section.



Once the roller is on the buckle....



... it can be closed back up by carefully striking the sides.



The result is pretty round, and turns easily.



Easily enough, in fact that the finishing processes all happen with the roller rotating under the tool.



These parts are now pretty much ready for plating and assembly.



Mac

[J.G.Elmslie]

I've been needing to do a series of rolled pins for Langes messers.
I'm now split between curling up in a corner, sobbing at how insanely perfect those rolled tubes are, and being absolutely awestruck at them.

Thankyou for the oversized mandrel tip. going to have to use that!

[Mac]

I am always pleased to be of whatever assistance I may be. The oversized mandrel thing is a sort of crutch, really. If you made tubes all the time, you would come to know exactly how big the starting piece had to be, and probably have some other trick to get its edges nice and true.

Are those rolled pins for the grips? Do they get their seams brazed/soldered up or anything?

Mac

[Sean Powell]

Thank you for Monday morning inspiration. I hope your patron realizes what a fine work of craftsmanship he is getting. I hazard a guess these buckles are more carefully made than the originals.

Sean

[marcos.blues]

Mac friend,

Very useful information.
I am learning..

[Mac]

I am continuing to attend to the fittings. The greaves of the statue have a peculiar feature in the form of two strap loops, rather than the usual one.



Our sculptor has shown them as being more or less rectangular in section, so I will make them of plate, rather than rod. When I cut the template, 3/8" (9mm) looked like about the right width. That chunk of 3/4" (19mm)stock will serve as a mandrel for bending the stock to shape as well as for making the template. Since the straps are to be 3/4", this will work nicely.



I cut the parts out of .102" (2.6 mm) stock with the jigsaw. Making the short cuts so that they almost reach the line first is a convenient way to not have to pick pieces up off the floor. It also preserves the straight edge on the stock in case I need it later.



I used the 3/4" mandrel to roughly mark the bends, and lined the first mark up in a leg vise.



A couple of bonks with the hammer brings the first leg over to about 90°.



For the second leg, we do the same thing with the mandrel in place.



I used a piece of 5/16" key stock to mark the lines on which to cut off the excess stock.



From there, I cut the rivet stems with saw and files. Although my notebook page specified 3/32" (2.4mm), I found that there was enough material that 1/8" (3.2mm) stems looked OK. They are not really round, but they don't have to be.



Mac

[Mac]

Thank you for Monday morning inspiration. I hope your patron realizes what a fine work of craftsmanship he is getting. I hazard a guess these buckles are more carefully made than the originals.

Sean

Pleased to be of service!

He reads this thread periodically to check up on me, and sometimes writes that he is astonished to see just how much work is involved in this process.

I am trying to be just as "slap dash" as I can be with the buckles, but I just can't help being overly fussy. I'm sure that the 15th C buckle maker could do a comparable job in a fraction of the time I take.

Mac

[Mac]

Mac friend,

Very useful information.
I am learning..

Fico feliz em ser útil, meu amigo!

Mac

[Gerhard von Liebau]

I am trying to be just as "slap dash" as I can be with the buckles, but I just can't help being overly fussy. I'm sure that the 15th C buckle maker could do a comparable job in a fraction of the time I take.

Yeah, but he's be thrown out of town by the guild folks for trying to make the armour.

-Gerhard

[Mac]

The most tedious part of the 1" buckles was removing the file marks from the insides of the frames. For the 3/4" buckles, I thought I would try using a tumbler for that. To that end, I am preparing all of them at once. I think I need 18 of them (not counting the one for the waist belt, which will get a roller), so I am working on a batch of 20.

As I mentioned before, I had these buckles blanked out by a laser cutter some years ago. It is a delight to not have to cut them out!



This is where I can justify my little collection of hand vises. OK... maybe I can't really justify a collection, but it is useful to have one or two. The plan here is to get the material off with the coarsest files I can bring to bear, and then getting rid of those marks with a finer file. (If you look closely, you will see that that blur is only my hand in motion, so get your minds out of the gutter! )



My fleet of buckle frames. I have got the insides roughed out, but have not yet touched the outsides.



The upper sides are chamfered off pretty aggressively.



The backs have only a bit of rounding so that they are not sharp.



I'll turn my attention to the outsides of the frames today, and get them into the tumbler. I'm not at all sure how long they will need to tumble.... overnight?... a couple of days?

Mac

[Mac]

I am trying to be just as "slap dash" as I can be with the buckles, but I just can't help being overly fussy. I'm sure that the 15th C buckle maker could do a comparable job in a fraction of the time I take.

Yeah, but he's be thrown out of town by the guild folks for trying to make the armour.

-Gerhard

That's the thing! Back in the day, we didn't have to make our own frigging buckles, or hinges, or helmet linings. We would have bought them form a guy who did that all day, and was good at it. Nowadays, we have to be jacks of all trades, and (I fear) masters of none.

I'm doing the best I can by having some of my buckles blanked out by a Mennonite with a CNC laser cutter. That seems a bit weird, dosen't it?!

Mac

[Gerhard von Liebau]

As enthusiasts, I think a lot of good comes from us being forced to learn about multiple aspects of historical crafting. Even in today's world, contemporary craft industries focus on specialized tasks for workers. It is the old and less useful crafts that have been isolated which creates such multi-tasking. It is arguably a modern phenomenon, given that so few people kept up traditional crafts simply for the sake of doing so in the past. We should consider it an honorable privilege to be among the first folks attempting to keep complicated traditions alive by our lonesomes!

-Gerhard

[Mac]

May I consider it an honorable privilege and a pain in the ass? The two may not be mutually exclusive.

Flippancy aside. I do agree with you. I take some pride in doing it my damn self, even if I know full well that that's not how it used to be. On the other hand, part of me does really crave a good supply of buckles and guy who can sew up a nice helmet liner... and the older I get, the more I think I'd like that.

Mac

[Gerhard von Liebau]

May I consider it an honorable privilege and a pain in the ass? The two may not be mutually exclusive.

Flippancy aside. I do agree with you. I take some pride in doing it my damn self, even if I know full well that that's not how it used to be. On the other hand, part of me does really crave a good supply of buckles and guy who can sew up a nice helmet liner... and the older I get, the more I think I'd like that.

Mac

Ha. Well, I can't argue with the first point nor the second. However, I can recommend the fact that there are people on both sides of the pond doing skilled work who could make your buckles, and straps, and helmet liners, etc. Just as you specialize also in the pewter works, there are people taking pride in focusing upon nearly every aspect of reproduction. We just don't happen to all be comfortably fit into the confines of a dank medieval city!

-Gerhard

[Mark Griffin]

I love the fact that in amongst this cavalcade of care and craftsmanship there is the word 'bonk'.

[Mac]

Sometimes one must deliver precise blows with a hammer, and other times it is sufficient and proper to simply use it to bonk. Next time I will try to work around to "smite."

Mac

[Mac]

Yesterday I got the outsides filed on those 20 buckle frames.



It's remarkable how much a little filing changes the way the raw blanks look.



There still needs to be one more buckle, though. This one is for the waist belt, and must have a roller. The problem is that the blanks have a bit of a curve where the roller must be.



The solution is to reshape that part a bit with a hammer so that it is straight.



The usual filing brings us here.



I'm trying to decide now if I want to put these into the tumbler, or try to get a finer file to get the insides ready for polishing. I have very little experience with bulk finishing, and I'm frankly a bit apprehensive. I don't want to screw up a day's worth of filing by doing something stupid. I guess I will set up the tumbler, but only run it during the day so I can keep an eye on it.

Mac

[Keegan Ingrassia]

What are you using for your tumbling media? Or did I miss that?

[Signo]

I think the buckles themselves.

[Mac]

I'm tumbling them in these guys.


I have forgotten long ago what sorts of media I have. None of them are in labeled containers. I thought that these ceramic(?) triangles were my coarsest grit, but perhaps that's not true.

The buckles have been tumbling since lunchtime,(about 10 hours, now) and I am pretty underwhelmed by the results. The file marks are as crisp as they were, and the abrasion (such as it is) is not even keeping up with the rust formation.



Perhaps I will try a different medium tomorrow morning and see if that helps.

Mac

[Gerhard von Liebau]

Maybe mix the same sort of stuff with some gritty sand, so that friction is created between the larger and smaller mediums against the surface?

[Chris Gilman]

Mac,
I am very surprised at the lack of results. As I said on the phone, the speed of the medias movement should be brisk and move in a spiraling motion. Adjusting the counter weight or quantity of media can greatly affect this action. Do not add sand, the ceramic media should do the trick, but you may be correct in needing a harder or different media. As for size of the media you want something that can reach all surfaces, but the is not small enough to get stuck when edged up against the part and another piece of media. Typically they suggest media the is 70% the size of the openings. The buckles however likely will not cause any issues. They also use liquid additives other than water, but I don't know what or why.

[Mac]

Well... I let the tumbler run all night. The results are hardly worth mentioning.

I am going to switch over to a different medium and see what that does. The new one is some sort of gritty little green plastic pyramids. I'll report back on this later today.

Mac

[Mac]

Meanwhile, I need tongues for 21 buckles. I want them all to be more or less identical, and I want to make them with as few reject as possible. I spent some time messing with the lengths and other parameters until I came up with at procedure.

I start with a 3/16" strip of .060" mild steel. This gets cut on the big shears, and comes off as a tight spiral that needs to be flattened and straitened.

The first step is to forge a taper on the end of the strip. This is one of those processes that can be frustrating, but practice and a big hammer help.



The completed taper should be more or less square at the tip.



Next, I bend the tip down with a small hammer.



Then I round off the upper edges on a sanding disc followed by a scotchbrite wheel.



I have made two reference marks on the anvil face. The first shows where to part the tongue from the stock.



The rectangular part of the tongue will get rolled around the center bar of the buckle. It needs to be thinned out a bit so that it will roll nicely. This gets done with a cross peen...



....followed by a more or less flat faced hammer to smooth out the cross peen marks.



What I am aiming for is an increase in length that will bring me to the second mark....



... and a smooth gradual taper in thickness.



I have cleaned up the sides a bit as well. Ideally, the part that gets rolled should be more or less rectangular.



After starting the roll over radius on whatever stake or anvil comes to hand, I tap it around and try to get it nice and even.



Here is the growing pile of tongues. The buckle blank serves as a standard to make sure they are OK.



These will all need further finishing work. Perhaps that will be later today.

Mac

[Mac]

This is getting less and less amusing, and it's doing so quite rapidly.

Those rust spots I complained about this morning are distinctly pits this afternoon. I have clearly got some electrolytic thing going on here.



I am going to try finishing one manually and see if I'm still OK or if I have just ruined them.

Mac