The Armour Archive

Agreed! Fantastic info and images.

I have taken the liberty of attaching the butt-tasset temporarily with screws. This will make the fluting easier, and the holes may yet be used in the heat treating.



There may still be some who do not know the trick where you run a line parallel to an edge by using one of your fingers as a guide. My apologies if this is old hat.



The fluting was all pretty straightforward. The only things that may call for clarification are these.

I turned the lower edge down on this stake, with this rather flat faced hammer.



The sculptor showed the flutes as being quite round in the valleys. After fluting more or less normally, I rounded things up a bit from behind over this bicorn. I would normally recommend that any surface that gets used against the outside of a plate should have a clean finish its self. In this case, the tool is rusty, but otherwise tolerably smooth, and the hammer was used with light blows. Any imperfections that got transferred to the valleys of the flutes will grind away without any trouble.



It's starting to look OK.



The spray of flutes is next. (I see that my lines need to be redrawn to look more like the statue...)

Mac

Suzerain wrote:I'm starting to feel this thread's contents shouldn't be saved as a simple PDF of tips and tricks.

this is a masterclass that deserves to be a book.

Save away, Sir! I am blogging so that I don't have to write a book!

I am sort of taken by the idea of a "masterclass"... Not like this, but more like the sort of thing that musicians and fencers have. In that format, a student takes a class with a master while an auditorium full of his peers looks on silently. The master instructs the student as if they were alone. He tells the student what is good and bad with his performance, and shows him how to do it better. The student sweats bullets, but is better for it all in the end. The audience takes notes. Their schadenfreude is tempered with the knowledge that someday they will be in that student's place.

Sometimes I think that it would be useful to all to have a sort of "column" like that on the AA, where someone submits their work and I give an honest critique. I wonder if anyone would be up for it.

Mac

Mac wrote:Sometimes I think that it would be useful to all to have a sort of "column" like that on the AA, where someone submits their work and I give an honest critique. I wonder if anyone would be up for it.

Mac

I would. There is still so much to criticize in my work, I want the best (most informed, insightful, measured, pointed) criticism I can get. When I finish the CoTT harness I am working on, I would be fascinated to have it considered as a whole, as well as the constituent parts.

Mac, one thing that I've never understood is when we are fluting. Why do we flute the individual pieces separately then assemble and then see our mistakes as opposed to flute in the whole thing at once meaning everything attached as we do it to make 1pass of the entire unit and our lines will line up correctly? It's something that I've always done and I've never really understood why but I followed suit with everybody else on here that I have seen. Can you give us some insight as to that?

Ckanite wrote:Mac, one thing that I've never understood is when we are fluting. Why do we flute the individual pieces separately then assemble and then see our mistakes as opposed to flute in the whole thing at once meaning everything attached as we do it to make 1pass of the entire unit and our lines will line up correctly? It's something that I've always done and I've never really understood why but I followed suit with everybody else on here that I have seen. Can you give us some insight as to that?

Mac can provide the more theoretical reasoning. Mine is pretty straightforward - when the plates overlap the metal suddenly doubles in thickness at a step. This transition is very bad for nice even flutes. When you are working on the double thickness the flute won't act the same way as it does in in the single thickness. You will get a much duller flute on top, and very sharp on the inside one and if you try to sharpen the upper layer you will likely do some things you don't like to the interior plate. Just for fun you could try it sometime, I expect you will find that you don't like it.

On a similar note, I see no sign when I look at real pieces that they tried to flute plates together. There would be signs of that technique that would likely still show.

Wade

Wade has pretty much cut to the heart of it.

Mac

I redrew those lines on the cullet so that they had more life....



....and laid in the flutes.



There's still a bit more tweaking, and edge scalloping to do before it's done, but I am calling it a day.

Mac

I spent some time today getting the cullet "just so". In addition to tweaking things a bit, and getting rid of any hammermarks or other irregularities that were too deep to grind, I scalloped the edges of the lames to accent the flute spray.

The first and second lame went straight to the grinder for this, but the third lame and butt tasset needed deep enought scalloping that I thought it would be better to begin by nibbling out the material with a RW punch. This does not save time directly, but it does save me having to true up the wheel one more time. Grinding on edge of a wheel like this puts it out of true, and that makes it chatter and catch the work. Both of those are detrimental to the work. The chatter makes long narrow things like lames spread out and flatten; a thing that must be fixed. The catches are unnerving, and cause further unbalancing of the wheel. This means even more wheel dressing, as well as having to repair work with the hammer. So, all in all, it is better to begin be removing some material with the punch first.




After the edges are roughed out with the wheel, I smooth and chamfer the them with files.

The back and cullet, so far.



All that work to the butt tasset has made it remarkably stiff. I hope it does not do something untoward in the heat treating. If it warps it will be difficult to straighten.

Mac

Very good Mac! Very impressive!

Delicious. Redrawing the flutes to give them some more life completely changed the dynamic of this piece. When they were straight sprays, the overall look was quite heavy and thick. With the flutes now arced, this piece has a very trim and energetic appearance. Despite your patron's heavier physique, those flutes have made him into a younger man. Much like the armorers of old did for their august patrons. Very nice work, sir.

As to your earlier suggestion of submitting one's work for critique, I look forward to putting my suit through the crucible, once I've finished it.

A thing that's been bothering me is is this. When my August Patron was in town for the fitting and we had all the armor on him, I remember distinctly that it looked better than it did on the stand.....

I can adjust "Massimo" to accommodate a wide range of skeletal sizes, but he is fundamentally skinny. A couple of weeks ago I tacked some stiff carpet underlayment to his chest and upper back, and that made the cuirasse sit better. Today, I realized that although I had the hip joints adjusted to the right pelvic width, the cuisses still did not look right. So I tacked on some more of that carpet pad to the fronts and sides of the upper thighs until the measurements matched my Patron's tracings.



This made a big improvement in how the armor looks. Padding the cuises out to a more natural position has made the whole armor look more stable, solid, and imposing.

Here are some pics with all the tassets in place.





Mac

Ckanite wrote:Very good Mac! Very impressive!

Thank you, CK!

Mac

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:Delicious. Redrawing the flutes to give them some more life completely changed the dynamic of this piece. When they were straight sprays, the overall look was quite heavy and thick. With the flutes now arced, this piece has a very trim and energetic appearance. Despite your patron's heavier physique, those flutes have made him into a younger man. Much like the armorers of old did for their august patrons. Very nice work, sir.

Thank you, KI! It's funny how such a small change made such a big improvement. There's a lesson in there. Everything we do has an impact on the overall look.

Mac

This thread has so much good information, yet I think one of the best nuggets is rather subtle. There is not over-emphasizing the value of a good armor stand. Being able to see how the pieces lay on such a realistic form is invaluable.

I really need to make the time to get back into making stuff again...

Paul

Mac,
Everything looks like its coming together nicely. One question about your grinding wheel used to grind in the scalloped edge. The grinding wheel in the background looks like a 7" angle grinding disk. How do you true these up as When ever I get a divot in my angle grinder disks they never feel to be in balance and tend to throw off pieces in use. Are you running these at lower speeds?
Andrew

There is no form of art more dependent on its frame than armour.

Andrew Bodley wrote:Mac,
Everything looks like its coming together nicely. One question about your grinding wheel used to grind in the scalloped edge. The grinding wheel in the background looks like a 7" angle grinding disk. How do you true these up as When ever I get a divot in my angle grinder disks they never feel to be in balance and tend to throw off pieces in use. Are you running these at lower speeds?
Andrew

Thanks Andrew!

The wheel in the previous pic used to be a 9" notching wheel. It's gotten quite a bit smaller. I use the notcher when I am going to be working on the periphery of the wheel and not the face.

This pic shows the set up for truing wheels. The rest is adjustable and removable. The wheel in the pic is one I use the face of.



Here is a pic that shows truing the wheel with a diamond dresser.



Mac

Allow me to add my thanks to everyone else's about this great thread. It's fantastic to get to see in such detail the methods and skills of a master.

Mac-
You mentioned that you were able to get Massimo's hips to the right width. I am assuming the hips and shoulders are adjustable for width? I saw your previous pictures of the joints but couldn't see how you constructed the width adjustments. Also, I noticed Massimo's head is made up of layers of plywood. Did you just use a hand held grinder to shape the head?

I have a very basic armour stand that I have to fight against to get armour to sit on somewhat ok, but it is a pain. I am thinking before I move on with my current project I need to build myself a Massimo.

Mac;

How's your arm doing?

Corey,

Having a good way to hold the armour up on the right shape is important. Massimo is useful for Mac because he needed to be able to simulate a lot of differently shaped people. In your case, you need to simulate one. So you can build a much more straightforward dummy that only simulates one size/shape person - you.

I have found that it isn't hard to build a dummy that is reasonably accurate for a particular person based on full sized tracings of the person from the front and side. I have then worried to a greater or lesser extent about how much I filled out the form.

Wade

coreythompsonhm wrote:Mac-
You mentioned that you were able to get Massimo's hips to the right width. I am assuming the hips and shoulders are adjustable for width? I saw your previous pictures of the joints but couldn't see how you constructed the width adjustments.

I took some pics of the hip and shoulder joints and added them to the page about the stand. https://picasaweb.google.com/1074249789 ... 9tu31ICUVw
The shoulders adjust in and out in 3/4" (?) increments. One of the carriage bolts goes through a curved slot in the back to allow the shoulder to be set higher or lower.



The hip joints can be set farther out by the use of spacers.



The inboard spacers are masonite, but the outboard ones need some "tooth" to keep the joint from sagging. These spacers are cast from poker chips, and lock into one another in any of about 120 positions.

coreythompsonhm wrote:Also, I noticed Massimo's head is made up of layers of plywood. Did you just use a hand held grinder to shape the head?

I cut what I could on the bandsaw while as I laminated it up. The rough work was then done on my usual grinder with an 80grit disc. The finer work happened with the dremmel tool and a 1 1/2" disc.

coreythompsonhm wrote:I have a very basic armour stand that I have to fight against to get armour to sit on somewhat ok, but it is a pain. I am thinking before I move on with my current project I need to build myself a Massimo.

Like Wade said, if you only want to display one armor, the stand does not have to be adjustable for size. Unless you want a fussy project, I would not recommend making a pose-able stand. Just pick a pose that looks natural and work toward that.

Mac

The next phase will be the arms, starting with the pauldrons.

First off, I can't get the pauldrons to sit on the stand like they should.



Massimo's arming points are not set high enough, and the screws holding the triangular plate into the back are getting in the way.


So, first off, I drilled some holes and put in some new arming points.



And then I replaced the nuts and bolts with temporary rivets and washers.



This is better. I am not going to try to get the pauldrons as high up as they are on the statue. I think our sculptor has gotten a bit carried away there.



Mac

Old Armourer wrote:Mac;

How's your arm doing?

Ah... Funny you should mention it, Peter.

Yesterday, I was having some trouble slinging the cuirasse back on to the stand after making the changes I wrote of above. My left arm gave way a bit, and I had to take everything back down and try again. I did not think I had hurt myself, but lo and behold what my elbow looks like today.



I was able to get a Doctor to look at it this morning, and the first thing she said was "olecranon bursitis". I have never had this before, so I don't know what to expect. We are treating it with ice and anti-inflammatories. The Doc also prescribed antibiotics, just in case it is not what she thinks it is.

Aside form this, my elbows are still holding in there.

Mac

Take care, and a bit of rest.

I have been loving this thread, great stuff here.
I am glad your elbow is holding up. I did not pay enough attention to mine, in addition ue to bad advice from an MD I continued to work until my wife noticed dramatic muscle loss in my hand.
The end result was 3 surgeries on my elbow wrist and hand just to save what I have left and I lost the ability to armour, I cant even change the small light bulbs in my pinball machines without it being a huge ordeal, small nuts and bolts, well I am hopeless with them.
The lesson came to late for me but folks should pay good attention to their body and especially joints etc.

I would just like to take a moment to point out the stroke of genius that is using castings of poker chips for the texture and high degree of adjustability.

white mountain armoury wrote: The lesson came to late for me but folks should pay good attention to their body and especially joints etc.

A sobering story.

Do any of us escape unscathed?

I think that a lot of the problem we have, as a group, is the absence of a formal system of instruction. Back in the day, we would have learned in a shop full of more experienced craftsmen who would have told us.... "Kid! If you swing a hammer like that yer' gon'a be a cripple by the time yer' thirty!"

Mac

Browin Auld wrote:I would just like to take a moment to point out the stroke of genius that is using castings of poker chips for the texture and high degree of adjustability.

Thanks! They weren't part of the original design. It became obvious that friction alone was not sufficient the first time I put an armor on him. Massimo has got a number of parts that are marginal. They get replaced or upgraded when I think of a better way.

Those chips are, by the way, cast using Petro-bond sand. That stuff can render a surprising amount of detail.

Mac

Mac wrote:

white mountain armoury wrote: The lesson came to late for me but folks should pay good attention to their body and especially joints etc.

A sobering story.

Do any of us escape unscathed?

I think that a lot of the problem we have, as a group, is the absence of a formal system of instruction. Back in the day, we would have learned in a shop full of more experienced craftsmen who would have told us.... "Kid! If you swing a hammer like that yer' gon'a be a cripple by the time yer' thirty!"

Mac

I agree, for me it was SCA 12 ga helms and the big culprit that few think about is time holding an angle grinder and the negative effect of a vibrating tool used for long periods.

Mac,

"
I think that a lot of the problem we have, as a group, is the absence of a formal system of instruction. Back in the day, we would have learned in a shop full of more experienced craftsmen who would have told us.... "Kid! If you swing a hammer like that yer' gon'a be a cripple by the time yer' thirty!""

An excellent point. Wish there was such a school!

Adam,

I wonder if there is some other option than Angle grinders? I started to wear some diving gloves while I hammer and it has cut almost all the later pain and soreness out. (Thanks to Pitt Bull for that) It has made a huge difference with soreness. Though I do often cheat now and buy the helmet halves from Cet and cut or hammer them to whatever I like to save on the time factor mostly now.

RPM

Incredible work Mac, as always

Spending to much time working on my own not noticeing my posture, my physiotherapys is telling me my shoulders are getting better.

So, getting back to those upper cannons...

The statue shows three lames between the elbow and the main plate of the pauldron, with the lower two being closed tubes.



I tried this a couple different times, and this is what they looked like at the end of the fitting.



There is a fundamental problem with the "tubes within tubes" arrangement. It doesn't flex enough. It will go a bit farther than this, but not enough to really work.



So, in the interest of making a thing that works, even if different from the statue, we have elected to compromise. The new arrangement will be a more conventional construction. I have turned the width of lame #1 into three normal lames, and made lames #2 and #3 into a single closed cannon. That cannon will carry the fluting pattern as if it were the two lames of the statue. The upper three lames will be left unfluted. I thought about carying the flutes right across the lames, but rejected the idea. Fluting across lames like that is technologically practicable, but aesthetically "strained".



Here are the six narrow lames. I cut them out of .042" stock with the jig saw. The total cutting time was eleven minutes. I don't know how that compares to what one might expect with a Beverly, but it went quickly enough.



The overlapping edges are chamfered off with the grinder and then smoothed out with an 80 grit disc sander followed by a hard de-burring wheel. This is not the final form or shape of the exposed edges. It is just a working finish. The chamfer lets me hammer lightly on the exposed edge while fitting the pieces without the edge getting pressed into plate below.



Likewise, the underlapping edges are chamfered and smoothed. Unlike the exposed edges, this probably is the final finish here. It does not have to be pretty. It just has to not be sharp. I don't want to have to worry about the edges or corners cutting my while I am working. I also don't want my Patron to cut himself handling his armor, or have his clothing abraded by the edges.



The internal corners are radiused. Unless I end up trimming the length of the lame, this is its final finish. Radiused corners are kinder to fabric as well as hands. They are also less like to catch on the mail.



The external corners are blunted. I will probably make these more uniform at some later stage, but for now the important thing is that they not be dangerously sharp. Note that the hole locations have been lightly center-punched. I do this before even cutting the parts out of the steel. Even a light punch mark is permanent. No matter how much these lames get hammered, I will be able to find the marks. On the other hand, the marks are not so deep that they can not be ignored if there is a change of plans. If it turns out that I want to make the hole somewhere else instead, no one will even notice the redundant punch mark once the armor is ground and polished.



Tomorrow I will shape up the lames and get them temporarily attached to the pauldrons.

Mac