The Armour Archive

Good thought, Christian.... but sadly, no.

Mac

This morning I searched in vain for some small pieces of .050 that were big enough for the tassets. Rummaging through the sheet stock revealed that I am down to two 2x4 sheets of what I need.



I put one of them on the cutting table and laid out a the work.



The cutting went smoothly enough.



The next step was to shape them up. This mostly involved hammering from the back with the the faces in contact with appropriately shaped anvil surfaces. It's important to give the parts the right subtle shapes and curves before any of the fluting goes in. These must first and foremost be tassets, and only secondarily provide surface for fluting. The visual impact of the basic shaping will get somewhat overshadowed by the fluting, but it will still be there. If they are not first imbued with tassety goodness, they will just look like fluted shovels.



More after lunch.

Mac

"If they are not first imbued with tassety goodness, they will just look like fluted shovels."

This made my day. And is a very memorable pearl of wisdom.

Mac wrote:The Post-Pennsic torpor was significantly prolonged this year by yet another injury. I must have pulled something in my neck while doing the unaccustomed heavy work of disassembling Oakewood Hall this year. By the time I got everything unpacked at home I had pain from the middle of my back all the way down to my wrist. I've done this sort of thing before, and it takes a few weeks or a couple of months to work its self out. When there was no improvement at all in three weeks, I took myself to the doctor, and got a prescription for steroidal anti-inflamitories and muscle relaxants. That seems to have gotten the ball rolling, and now I'm not in any pain and only have a bit of residual numbness in my hand when I "sit up straight" like my mother told me.

Sorry to hear about your injury, hope you feel better soon. It sounds like the Mendel Brotherhood won't be getting your application right yet

Apparently the industrial-engineering guys have done research on how processes get more efficient as they scale up http://tikalon.com/blog/blog.php?articl ... y_progress An armour like this would have never been routine, but if a shop had made dozens of pretty similar ones, and just needed to make the decoration fancier and coordinate with the other five shops working on the same project, and if the gilder got orders from armourers every week ...

Now seemed as good a time as any to make the central point on the tassets look like the other points on the fauld lames.



The same modifications got marked onto the template as well. The template does not get trimmed till after the steel in case there is a last minute change of plans.



The central flute is the "odd man out" in this fluting pattern because it sits down an existing crest in the overall shape. That makes it a good candidate for being the first flute to put in.



After which, the other flutes can be drawn in with a sharpie pen. Acetone and Q-tips serve to clean up unwanted lines.



I spent a lot of time thinking about the strap locations and how they relate to and impact upon the rest of the project. As a result, I did not get to put the flutes in this evening. I did get the tassets hung on new temporary leathers, and got the old holes welded up. The wider tassets are a definite improvement.



The next part of "the tasset situation" is the shortfall in the side tassets. Overall, they have to be about 3/4" longer, and they too will need new and different strap holes.



I dug out the old template, but it was getting late, so that's where it stands for the evening. I will make up new templates tomorrow.



Mac

Mac,

I am not sure if you are using my manual method for posting and resizing the photos, if so here are a couple of further things thah may make it a bit easier.

Here is what you used to get one of the photos above posted.
Note the part I have bolded:


That link gives you this:


Google is pretty smart, if you just give it a width it will keep the aspect ratio.
Look at this link for example:



It generates this image:

Thanks, Tom!

The images are showing up for everybody.... yes?

Thus far I have only been tweaking the width for images where it exceeded the 850 that this board will accept. Perhaps in a bit I will get brave and size the pics so that they fit nicer on the page. I used to do that (or at least try) with Picasa.

Mac

Mac wrote: The images are showing up for everybody.... yes?

I can see 'em!

Good Lord, Mac. That is outstanding.

Thanks, Arrakis and Kel!

Mac

The new template for the side tassets looks pretty much like the old one but it's about 3/4" wider.




I cut a pair of them out of .042" stock and shaped them up from the back as usual.



Like the front tassets, I hammered in the center flute first, and then laid out the rest of the fluting program.



By the time the rest of the fluting was in, they looked a bit flat...



.... but they looked better after a bit of hammering from the back with the work sitting on a sandbag.



I spent a little time picking out the bad spots from the front or the back as seemed most convenient, and then hammered in the chamfers on the bottom edges.



I did pretty much the same procedure to the front tassets, and got everybody slung up on the stand for a look.



The side tassets may need a bit more curve at the tops so then hang more vertically, but otherwise I reasonably pleased. On the statue, the side tasset straps have two rivets each. I have been worried about how that will work if the cuirasse is not cinched up the same way every time. I thought about giving each strap only one rivet, so that they can pivot and self center, but that seemed like it would lead to a situation where they were always a bit cattywampus. In the end, I decided that the front strap would get two rivets and the rear strap only one. I thing they will work OK.



The old tassets have now taken their rightful place on the discard pile.



Mac

Lookin' good Mac!
I'm very pleased to see you back at work.

Keep it up!

-Jeremy

Thank you, Jeremy!

I was having a hell of a time getting back to this. Everything seemed daunting, and my path was muddy and unattractive. I thought maybe if I just put every thing back up onto the stand I would see what needed doing most urgently and that might start me back up again. It seems to have worked.

Mac

as ever, spectacular to see the progress. (I can entirely sympathise with the whole being in a rut and daunting, feeling everything's just not right, while needing to get on with things too. its a soul-destroying place to be in. )

But your reject pile is utterly insane, you know that? I'm pretty sure most people reading this would do awful things to man, beast or duck for stuff that good looking... But while it may well be quite nuts, that forlorn pile of work that anyone else would be chuffed to bits with is perhaps the best example of the importance of never accepting work as "good enough" that I've ever seen. As ever, its an inspiration to watch this progress.

I'd be curious to see the rejects assembled on a second mannequin alongside the current iterations of the work, just to see how much of a difference there is in the details of form and fit and how many alteration there have been between successive iterations.

(My only complaint is if this is going to be blacked and gilded, I suspect we're all going to be green with envy by the time this is over, arent we?)

Mac, I cant with words describe how much I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us like this. Thank you so much. I am verry happy to see this thread moving along again!

Ah! Once again the time of the year starts when I update AA in my browser almost on an hourly basis, even though I know you are all asleep over there for most of my day.

Mac, as so many before me has written, this is valuable beyond describing! All the knowledge you have aquired over the years out in the open for everyone else to use has probably saved thousands of hours for a lot of people.

I have had the pleasure to observe Per Lillelund in action and this is equally informative or perhaps even more due to the wide coverage of all things creating armour.

My deepest thanks!

//Erik

Mac wrote:

The old tassets have now taken their rightful place on the discard pile.



Mac

Looks like someone could build an entire harness from your discards!

Johann ColdIron wrote:

Mac wrote:

The old tassets have now taken their rightful place on the discard pile.

Mac

Looks like someone could build an entire harness from your discards!

The quality of Macs discard pile puts some of the best production armorers to shame.

Sean

Sean,

No kidding. Some nice discard Mac!

Never before have cobwebs been dusted so well. Best thread ever

Mac wrote:The images are showing up for everybody.... yes?

I can see them when I load the Archive in a sandboxed browser without some of my usual anti-tracking software (I am shocked, shocked that Google would redesign something in a way which lets them track people better!)

I think we would all rather you spend your energy on making beautiful things in steel than in fiddling with web tools!

Mac, I might just do many crazy things if I could have those discards...

Thank you, Guys for your words of support!

It's difficult to know when it's best to throw an object on the dung heap and when to say it's good enough. I try to see it through to the final product and imagine what the resulting problems will be. If you then put a value on dissatisfaction, it's surprising how often it's cheaper to toss something on the pile and do it again. Remember, when the hammering is done, you're only half way there. Two days to replace the tassets is nothing compared to the total time the project will consume. I wish all decisions were that easy.

Some of the rejects are OK in a different context, and they will get finished off after the St. Florian armor is done and delivered. Others may even appear as unfinished items in a rummage sale. I'm trying not to think about that yet.

Meanwhile, GI Job has taken up residence on the heap.



Mac

Well you should at least save the nuts and bolts, right?

A lot of knowledge in that pile.
And knowing is half the battle.

If you do a sale I suspect you'd have some interested parties here

I'd much rather see them finished though. Always need to see your projects as they come to fruition.

Joe looks pretty down there or deep in though.


RPM

Jeremy.G wrote:A lot of knowledge in that pile.
And knowing is half the battle.

I see what you did there

RandallMoffett wrote: Joe looks pretty down there or deep in though.

I guess my presentation here is only partially successful. Joe is cosplaying Job of Old Testament, during the dung heap part of the story.

Mac

Ckanite wrote:

Jeremy.G wrote:A lot of knowledge in that pile.
And knowing is half the battle.

I see what you did there

I don't.... What am I missing?

Mac

I got the 'Job' reference. That's one person, at least.

Mac wrote:

Ckanite wrote:

Jeremy.G wrote:A lot of knowledge in that pile.
And knowing is half the battle.

I see what you did there

I don't.... What am I missing?

Mac

It's a line from the GI Joe cartoon. "Knowing is half the battle"

I like that GI Job is even wearing the appropriate sack cloth.

Mac, If you need your shop cleaned out, I can be there in 20 hrs or so.

Valerius would get frustrated with a project from time to time and put it in the trash! That was my cue to start sweeping the shop and taking out the trash. When I would lift the trash can, he would yell "put that down" and then come back in a few minutes to grab the piece and start working again.

I have decided that the best way to deal with having both a mail skirt and a mail breyette is to attach the skirt to the inside of the fauld and cullet.

We have plenty of evidence of these attached skirts from art. (We have extant examples as well, but none of them are Gothic armor.) Probably the best example from art is this one from the Thunn sketchbook.



Here are a couple more Gothic examples from art.




The mail will be sewn to a leather lining strip which will be riveted to the lower edge of the second lame.


Mounting the mail skirt this way will have two advantages over wearing it as a separate garment. . It will reduce the bulk on the hips, and it will ensure that the proper amount of mail is showing every time. Since the cuirasse comes apart into a front and a back, the mail will be in two strips. There will be either hooks or buckles under the side tassets to make the overlap behave properly.

The other thing I did today was to again attack the unruly overlaps on the inside of the cuirasse using clamps and the torch.



Today's campaign began with drilling holes in the overlaps. These will serve to hold things together for the heat treating, and will be filled in later. I should have done this earlier. It makes the parts behave better than with clamps alone.



Mac

Johann ColdIron wrote:

Mac wrote:

Ckanite wrote:

Jeremy.G wrote:A lot of knowledge in that pile.
And knowing is half the battle.

I see what you did there

I don't.... What am I missing?

Mac

It's a line from the GI Joe cartoon. "Knowing is half the battle"

Ah! Thanks! I'm too old for the G.I. Joe cartoons.

Mac