The Armour Archive

Right. Well. I've ruined those buckles. The pits are too deep to file out without making the buckles look scrawny.

I'm pissed about the loss of 21 blanks. I'm pissed about the loss of two days time. Most of all, though, I'm pissed about having wasted what's left of my elbows on them.

I have enough blanks to make another batch. I guess I'll start in on that.

So.. the interesting thing about the pits is that they are copper plated inside. At least that's what I think I am seeing. The ceramic media were certainly used on brass in the past, and they are probably porous enough to have retained some of it. Perhaps someone out there with a better grasp of electrochemistry can tell us what's happened.

If you guys are learning from my mistakes, then I am accomplishing something.

Mac

Mac, has the medium you are using been used for other materials befor?

Wow that pitting- I would have never seen that coming.
I'm normally happy to learn from the misfortunes of others, but this one makes me cry a little on the inside.

Sorry Mac. That truly sucks.

Thanks for the sympathy, Jeremy.

I've mostly cooled down now, and the new buckles are under way. I will definitely not use a tumbler on them.

Mac

Actually, I don't think they are ruined, on the contrary, they have a very credible period look to me. After they will age a bit with use, and get a bit of oxidation, they will be perfect.

Unfortunately, they are not usable on this project. I have found a new home for than, though. They will leave my shop and my sight next time Dave R (Cet) drops by for lunch.

Mac

Hmm. Dave gets to drop by for lunch. Wouldn't that be nice?
Most of us have to watch from afar.

Wade

Sounds like you are hiding in the bushes Wade

Ungman wrote:Sounds like you are hiding in the bushes Wade

I do live in the woods, but I couldn't see Mac's shop from my house even if I stood on top of it.

Afar (as everyone could guess) in this case is through the web, not peeking through windows. I know whether Mac's shop has windows that would make for good peeking.



Maybe we will let Mac get back to work and showing us how much fun he is having finishing those buckles by hand.

Wade

I vote we force mac to install webcams in his shop with permanent live streaming.

Yes Mac, let's see those filed beauties, all 21 of them!

Personally, a web cam would be going to far.

Having Mac control what he shares is a fine thing. He can leave out all of the really frustrating things, and repetitive tasks, and all of the time that he is doing what he would rather be doing.

Wade

No "shop cam" please. I would not want folks to see how my reality falls short of my persona.

The new buckles are progressing. I'm on to profiling the outsides now. I do a forwarding step on five of them, and then force myself to take a little break.

Mac

Mac wrote:No "shop cam" please. I would not want folks to see how my reality falls short of my persona.

The new buckles are progressing. I'm on to profiling the outsides now. I do a forwarding step on five of them, and then force myself to take a little break.

Mac

What? Would we really find out that you're a happy to do guy who whistles while he works?

Ckanite wrote:

Mac wrote:No "shop cam" please. I would not want folks to see how my reality falls short of my persona.

The new buckles are progressing. I'm on to profiling the outsides now. I do a forwarding step on five of them, and then force myself to take a little break.

Mac

What? Would we really find out that you're a happy to do guy who whistles while he works?

You've figured me out. I'm one of the seven frigging dwarfs. Can you guess which one?

Mac

Mac wrote:

Ckanite wrote:

Mac wrote:No "shop cam" please. I would not want folks to see how my reality falls short of my persona.

The new buckles are progressing. I'm on to profiling the outsides now. I do a forwarding step on five of them, and then force myself to take a little break.

Mac

What? Would we really find out that you're a happy to do guy who whistles while he works?

You've figured me out. I'm one of the seven frigging dwarfs. Can you guess which one?

Mac

Doopey?

Hmmm.... I was thinking more along the lines of Grumpy, really, since there isn't one called Fussy.

Mac

I have a friend who is a retired aerospace battery engineer, and I told him about the trouble I had with the buckles. He assured me that what happened is reasonable if we presume that there was copper stuck to the media and that my tap water is somewhat acidic. He offered this link http://www.chemistry.co.nz/redox_new.htm to help explain it to electrochemically naive folks like myself. Unfortunately, it's too hard for me.

So.... All I have to do is make sure my water is not acidic, or do the tumbling dry, or just use conventional abrasives and stay away from all that alchemical voodoo. I think you all know what I will do.

Mac

What if you use oil as a lubricant?

I shall leave the vibrator and oil experiment for others.

Mac

Merlin's beard! I have never seen that before. Sorry I told you you would be OK with just water. I feel like a complete idiot.
Leave it to a rocket scientist to give you a plausible reason.

Not to worry, Chris.

"Now we know" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKEUujz12S4

Mac

Mac wrote:I shall leave the vibrator and oil experiment for others.

Mac

Not even a little warming oil?

I am not trying to rub it in but this is a good lesson for us all that we all really know about but still do way to often.

"Do not experiment on good pieces, use scrap"

Xtracted wrote: "Do not experiment on good pieces, use scrap"

This!

I aught to know better. No.... I do know better. I just don't always do what I know to be best.

Mac

Things are moving along on the buckles. I raided my watch bench and found a nice fine half-round needle file.



The trouble areas are the insides of the bows....



... and the little nibs on the outsides.



I was able to continue the outsides of the frames with a couple of grades of Scotchbrite de-burring wheels, but the insides needed greaseless compound on felt bobs. That was supplied with the Dremel tool. This was a bit tedious because of how fast the compound wore off of the bobs. I had three of them to rotate in, but they were each only good for a couple of buckles before they needed to be recharged and let to dry.



I'll give therm all a good looking at tomorrow to see if I missed any scratches, but I think they are ready for the black emery wheel.



Mac

It's a shame you had to re-do them but the results are as usual beautiful.

Sean

Very nice! That sure is a lot of elbow, fiddle and fuzz!

Mac,

I am curious about your choice of using the center bar for the buckle plate's attachment on the shoulder straps.
Most of the seeming extant examples I see in Goll's thesis show the counter intuitive use of one of the end bars.
Presumably so the leather strap could tuck neatly under the breast plate.

Like this example from Goll's Thesis:
Ref_arm_3695


I notice that Dave has been looking at these as well.
buckles and hinges Pinterest Board

Ya' know, Tom, I'm torn about that.

I currently have the temporary buckles set up that way, and I even had rectangular buckle frame blanks laser cut for just such a thing. Then, I got to thinking that I wanted wider buckles, and that they should be on short straps attached to the backplate. So, that's what I built... but now I'm vacillating... again.

Perhaps I'll go back to the idea of buckles on the breast. I did, after all, fuss with the gorget plate of the bevor to make room for them....

Mac

snipped from Mac's post wrote:short straps attached to the backplate.

Mac

Oh, like we have discussed in other threads.
I am kind of leaning that way on my in progress Helmschmid cuirass.

Here is one of the Thun Sketchbook images from our previous discussions:

I've been back at this for the last couple of days. One of the things that's been keeping me away was the knowledge that I have to make some decisions about the greave straps and fastenings before I can finish polishing the greaves.

The armor in the statue has a couple of peculiarities about it. One of the most noticable ones is the treatment of the straps for the demigreaves and the upper greaves. A pair of staples directs the bodies of the straps toward one another.



I started modeling the demigreave strap with some scrap leather and duct tape. Putting the top of the upper staple about 2" from the upper edge of the greave makes it look about right.



The upper greave strap will get pulled up by its staple like this.



The overall effect seems about right.



I made four of these guys a couple of weeks ago, and now it's time to make some holes to mount them.



All of them were made over the same mandrel, so the spacing between the mounting posts is going to be pretty much the same for all of them. Rather than measure that with a ruler and risk some stupid fraction error, I used a calipers to find the center to center distance.....



...and transferred that directly to the work.



The statue shows them as being very close to one another, but I thought it best to leave 1/4" between the holes so that there would be some "meat" between them.



Now... the place where I am currently in trouble is here. (sorry about the focus) My decision was to mount the upper greave buckle on a steel tab just behind the hinge. That worked OK while I was doing this mock-up, but there is not enough room under the buckle to thread the strap in. I either have to bend the buckle frame into a "V", or mount the tab on a leather for flexibility.



In the statue, the buckle mount is a bit obscure. Perhaps I should say that the hinge is obscure. In the corresponding place on the St George who occupies the other side of the Altar, the buckle tabs and hinges seem strangle connected. I don't have a close up of what's happening here on St Florian, but it's either the same (weird and nonsensical) thing, or else the leather of the buckle tab actually covers up the hinge.



I need to think on this one a bit, but not obsess about it. Indecision can be paralytic.

Mac

Excuse me, but wouldn't a curved strap be much better for the upper one? It would match the shape of the greave better, and not stick at an odd angle.

You are quite right. There is no way that a straight strap will lay nicely when being pulled down in the middle like that. I am hoping that the strap will take the curve it needs in use. Failing that, I will have to cut curved straps.

Mac

I think I am going to follow the path of least resistance on the greave buckle thing. Bending the buckle frame generates enough clearance to thread the strap, and that will do the job.



Mac

Now... down at the ankle of the greaves we have another issue. The statue seems to show an external hinge on the lateral side and what appears to be an internal hinge on the medial side. I think we can presume that the greave hinges on the lateral side, and that this other hinge is a loose-pin fastener. I hate to deviate from the statue any more than I have to, but I am going to do something different here. Had I been thinking more clearly a couple of months ago, I might have made up a loose-pin fastener for the greave ankles, but to do that now would be quite a bit of trouble. I am going to use a different sort of mechanical fastener instead, and that will be a turning pin.

So... I will need two turning pins for the greave ankles. I will also need some way to attach the sabatons in a removable fashion. That will either be with two turning pins (each), or one turning pin and an rivet in a keyhole. I need to look at some example of removable sabatons to see how they liked to solve this problem "back in the day". That brings us up to either four or six turning pins, depending.

Yesterday I started up a small batch of turning pins. These start out as 3/16" button head rivets. the first thing is to flatten the heads from side to side on the anvil. Those needle-nose visegrips have a shallow channel cut in each jaw to make them grip the shanks better.



I then cross peen one of the lobes over the corner of the anvil to lengthen it a bit.



That makes them look like this.



The other lobe gets ground away....



...and then filed.



I use the dremel tool with a cutoff wheel to start defining the roots of the "flags".....



... and then clean that up with a file.



Today, I will be reducing the ends of these guys to form the pivot/rivet shanks.



Mac