The Armour Archive

Good Day, all. I am a new smith that has been infatuated with one of the oldest crafts, for as long as I can remember. I really want to get into smithing, but I also want to know what is required to melt down metal inside the crucible with. I want to melt down old coins that serve no purpose anymore, and make ingot to then smith with. Can you please direct me in what I should be making? Also I live in the Suburbs so coal is not the easiest to come across.

Thank you in advance,

Arctus.

A lot depends on the metal your casting, how the item will be used, and what your setup for.
Pewter alloys have a low melting temp and work well for decorative items.
A bit more costly but you can get decent detail.
Often small scale bits.

Aluminum higher melting temp and requires a bit more setup cost.

Aluminum scrap is fairly easy to find.
It can loose a bit of detail depending on alloy, temp, and scale.

James May has a video on YouTube showing a basic aluminum casting setup.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jtFkn4gRt-M

melting down to end up casting ingots in what is the first thought.

In steel? Unlikely, not many people have the equipment to do steelcasting
In copper alloys? Much easier to melt, but to then forge the ingots is rather on the counter-productive side. most copper alloys are cast in moulds, its far more efficient for applications if can be used for.
silver? Easier still to cast. But I have horrible images of the loss of old silver coins that are collectable there.
Aluminium, even easier to cast. pretty much anyone can cast that stuff, but like copper, much more likely to be cast to shape, or machined, than forged.
Pewter? well, forging that's unlikely to ever work, but a 10year old can cast it easily.

But really, what you're asking is way too vague to really give any clear answers. each is a different set of answers.

Also, I'd say that casting down old coins is likely going to be horribly inefficient in terms of material obtained, and will almost certainly be nasty stuff metallurgically speaking, a right mess of different alloys. Its almost always far more sensible to buy fresh stock, in whatever metal you want, and get something that's homogeneous, has no probable faults, inclusions etc in it, for normally, only a small cost. If you'll excuse blunt language (because I'm scottish, and we're crude like that), you cant polish a turd. In the long run, scraping together old scrap into ingots to use for money-saving actually tends to be a false economy. The only area where that sort of recycling is really viable is when working in gold, silver, or genuine wrought iron (because no-one makes real wrought iron nowadays, so its a valuable resource)


As for advice of what to use, I'm afraid I personally feel the questions are too vague:

I really want to get into smithing, but I also want to know what is required to melt down metal inside the crucible with.

these two aren't really two things that particularly cross over in terms of kit. you get a lot of stuff for smithing (and remember, armouring, the focus of the AA in general, is very, very different to decorative blacksmithing, and that in turn very different to bladesmithing.), and you get a lot of kit for smelting, and not much of its used for both.

I want to melt down old coins that serve no purpose anymore, and make ingot to then smith with.

Smith *what* is the problem. Armour? Jewellery? Gates? Knowing that will let us be more useful.

Can you please direct me in what I should be making?

What you should be making, In terms of equipment? Or in terms of what you should make with this ingot of ex-coinage?

Also I live in the Suburbs so coal is not the easiest to come across.

It may be more prudent to also explain what you have access to. A spare room? A small garage? A fully-fitted workshop? A back alley with the drug-dealers who're quite puzzled by the anvil and forge you've got set up...? Also, maybe say what your sort of level of ability is. Have you ever made equipment, tools etc?
Coal is'nt an essential, you can easily use gas systems for forgework and smelting alike. but it does really depend on what sort of space you have, and what purposes its for, to give you sound advice. Making armour for a 15th C joust is very different to that for an SCA event, and that in turn, very different to stuff you'd use for a LARP or cosplay event.

So, tell us what you're wanting to make, what resources you currently have at your disposal, and people will likely be more capable of giving you constructive information back. Currently, there's not enough information to tell you much in detail at all

iforgeiron.com may be a better forum to ask on
casting is covered in one section and there are several sections on forgework.
you can melt metal in crucibles with gas, induction, coal, charcoal or electricity.
which part of the world are you in, put it in your profile and you can often be more suitable advice

Don't let the metalsmithing bug bite you.

Smithing and casting are different activities, though both require heat. *Smelting* is getting metal out of ore that is generally dug out of the ground. Skip that part!

Some metals are *melted* and poured into molds to make an item, and that's casting. That includes copper and its alloys, bronze and brass; also aluminum (a modern metal), tin, lead, pewter, silver, gold, probably a couple others. Some objects require some hammering after casting, others only need to be cleaned up.

Iron and steel were not cast, generally, in the middle ages, but heated and hammered into shape, which is smithing or forging. You can also do a certain amount of hammering and shaping of cold iron and steel, often with heating and slow cooling between hammer sessions to soften the metal (annealing/normalizing). You can also hammer-work brass and bronze when they are cold, though you must anneal often by heating and quenching in water (different from iron and steel!).

Don't melt coins. If they are not too old to spend, spend them. If they *are* too old to spend, sell them to a coin collector and use the money for equipment and materials. Coins are all different kinds of metals and alloys, probably not all compatible, nor usable for armoring or historical gear.

There's a lot to learn, but all of this CAN be done. My nephew is still in high school, and in the past year or two built himself a forge and is teaching himself blacksmithing. He is already making pattern-welded knives and wrought-iron flowers. He does NOT have much of a budget, either!

But learn some basics before you burn your hand off, eh? Have fun!

Matthew

Arctus: Where are you located? There may be some ABANA (Artist Blacksmith Association of North America) nearby, or even some members of the Armor Archive.

Meanwhile, one of my main resources is Anvilfire ( http://www.anvilfire.com ) which has many "how-to" pages and such; well worth the investigation. Both Master Thomas and I regularly comment there on the two fora and I've got several articles posted in the Armoury section.

Also, raid your local library! They should have a number of books on blacksmithing and metalwork available there or through Inter-Library loan (ILL).

Good luck, and happy metal smiting!

And while we're at it, welcome and well come, Arctus.

My introduction to casting was through an out of hours course held by a local university's art department. They focused on petrobond sand casting and we started casting the first class! Many community colleges have jewelry making classes that cover lost wax casting. I strongly suggest you find one and take it! (besides which the extra information on silver/copper/...smithing is VERY HELPFUL if you ever want to hilt blades *nicely* and make fittings for sheaths.) backyardmetalcasting.com is a good place to visit for casting info.

There are a lot of old coins that have *NO* collectors value and can't even be spent as they are worn past being accepted. They are often sold at scrap rate for the silver in them and there is a massive tome that lists the silver content of coins by coin and date used by dealers to set the silver content of what they have.

As mentioned you get an indeterminant melt from indeterminant scrap.

I once was making a pectoral cross from 30 pieces of silver and so had bought a lot of old worn coins (some had the shadow of Queen Victoria on them!) from various countries. It was amusing trying to hard solder them together, (old british coins are about a medium silver solder themselves), I had to give up on the Finnish coins from the time of Russian occupation; their silver content was so low they would just puddle and run away when the torch hit them.

As for casting steel; it's not a beginners task! In western Europe we generally put cast steel as becoming common in the 18th century with Huntsman's process. It was done in central Asia 1000 years earlier where they would cast both steel and wootz "pucks" and then forge them out. (The Ulfberht swords being cast steel was a mind blowing discovery)

As for smithing you have already had anvilfire.com and iforgeiron.com commended to your attention.

If you are near central New Mexico or El Paso Texas, USA, give a shout and I can give you some basic training in casting and smithing.

I am located in Dallas, TX, I've been getting advice from a guild mate in an mom who is a smith in real life. I can most likely self teach smithing. I've seen some forge construction of forges, but for the refractory I don't know what material to use. I'd prefer a fast drying extremely heat resistant material that won't crack for a long time. Any idea what I should use? Also thanks and glad to be here!

In a MMO*

For pewter I just use a propane torch and small crucible.
The crucible I have is a bottom poor model and only holds a few oz of material.
big enough for army figures, bullets, sinkers and tokens.

It takes only takes a few moments to refill the crucible and reach casting temp for the next poor.
I'm using a larger bernzomatic plumbing torch and 20# propane tank.

for a furnace it depends on how big you need it to be, some crude setups are made from terracota pots.

for aluminum I would likely use a forced air and charcoal setup.
mostly because I have access to wood and can make charcoal one day and cast the next.
hear is a few popular designs.
http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/

it should be noted that some alloys can off gas if overheated.
Brass being an example.

zinc and lead are also easy to cast but have some health and safety concerns.
if you want to work with those metals do the research and use dedicated equipment.

For gas forges a lot of people use Kaowool (it looks like white fiberglass insulation) as the major insulator, usually lined with Satanite or ITC100, which are sort of a high temp ceramic that comes in powder form. You mix them up, paint them on and let them dry. The ceramic coat keeps the Kaowool (it's not asbestos, but you don't want to inhale it) from flying through the air.

Some folks are happy with fire brick, though it's not super efficient on its own, it's cheap to set up and makes a forge body you can reconfigure. There are refractory materials you can cast, and high temp fiber board, which is what I currently use.

I'm just down in Austin, if you'd like to come down to check out my shop. I'm geared for armouring, though I do a little smithing and my wife is into casting.

Basically to be more specific what's a good setup for something that can melt steel and is good for starting out? Also what type of fuel is more cost effective and is not too large. I'm 16 and live with my parents. So I have limited space (garage for storage, slanted driveway for forging.) it would need to be sturdy as to not tip over and easy to help to self teach. Also about how much space do I need for a small workshop if I were to do something like that? P.S. I love in true suburbia so can't just build a structure such as a shed or room.

Forgot to mention, I'm going to start smithing classes in January.

Also how would I go about being an apprentice?

What I basically want to find is plans for a steel forge large enough to forge armor with with coal as a power source.

Most if us buy sheet metal and work it cold, with the accasional normalizing cycle.
all you really need is to reach 1250 or so and let it cool slowly.
This is the point steel starts to glow.

A few shops do hot work usually with OXY fuel for localized heating.
A few others also go through a heat treating process for some alloys.

There is a thread anchored to the top of the list that may help you get started.
There really isn't a union for armourers so apprenticeships are often a lot less formal.

You're just starting out and want a set up for casting steel: Let me re-phrase this: "Hi I'm just learning to drive; what's a good car to learn on that will also win formula 1 races and is cheap and safe?"

Sure you can self learn smithing but 1 Saturday afternoon spent with someone who knows what they are doing will speed things up by 6 months or more.

For bladesmithing you can do very well with a 10'x10' hot shop with room elsewhere for finishing, hilting, sheathmaking, etc.

Just the proper safety equipment for melting steel will be quite expensive and shorting yourself an safety equipment is never a good idea!

As for apprenticeships: SCA or real world? SCA you need to talk with laurels. Real world---how much are you going to pay? You want training by someone who has advanced skills in a craft you should expect to pay for it just like you would for classes with a college professor. Many people expect they can trade their work for such training. This has been discussed before and the group mind was that for each hour of one on one instruction you should expect to trade 10 hours of unskilled labour---and most small shops don't have that much available---bladesmiths often use "sweeping up" and shop cleaning time to think over things they are having problems with. What skills do you have to make it a better swap? Can you weld? Machine? Do bookkeeping?

Finally there is the insurance considerations: You are asking someone to bet everything they own on you not hurting yourself in their shop---I've had a number of folks tell me that they would never sue me if they did something stupid in my shop---until I asked them to look at the insurance they were under. It usually *requires* that you sue other people involved in an accident or they are not required to pay. So if you mess up and take some hospital time and get a $100,000 bill will your parents be willing to pay it out of pocket or will they want the insurance to cover it?

So I let folks in my shop but I want to know them pretty well first! In 33 years of teaching smithing I have had 1 lost time accident due to stupidity on the part of a student and it was when I was teaching an out of hours intro to smithing course at the local college so I was covered.

Also coal is not a suburb friendly fuel, charcoal or propane will annoy a lot fewer neighbors. Look into getting a Fisher or as a lower choice Vulcan Anvil as they are quiet anvils. If you get another "Loud" anvil look at how to quiet it with the mounting to the stump. Do *NOT* get a harbour Fraud cast iron Anvil Shaped Object---a piece of fork lift tine will make a better cheaper anvil than that!

As for armouring look at the neat sheet heater shown in in the armouring section over at anvilfire.

Coal is also the hardest fuel to learn and the hardest to source too. Check into your local ABANA affiliate: (anvilfire has a list)

There's a Facebook group called Iron Smelters of the World you might like.
Losthelm is trying to help get your thinking of armour in the right ballpark. Let me take that a step further. Read the tutorials here:
http://www.ageofarmour.com/education/index.html
And dig through youtube for other tutorials. Search for Eric Dube armor to find some good things to watch. His are more more like perching over a master's shoulder than getting a lesson, but he's extremely skilled both as an armourer and as a cameraman.

So there's a big continuum of arts from mining ore through smelting, blacksmithing, armouring to silver smithing and fine jewelry work to consider.

If I were in your shoes, I'd put Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction (folks here call it TOMAR) by Brian Price on my Christmas wish list.

Melting steel -- that's for welding. Steel welding is the making of a little puddle of liquid steel maybe three-sixteenths of an inch across and thus gluing two pieces of steel together by letting the stuff cool again; they're now one piece of metal. That's the province of oxy-acetylene torches.

Its use is also a skill that will get you steady work; that's something not to be despised.

Not-quite-melted steel, like orange to yellow hot and still bearable to look at without welding goggles, can be fusion-welded using a forge and hammer -- you heat it, and beat it. Persuades the hot metal to get it together. The process is called forge welding. Has to be hot enough to do it; with the metal too cool the weld doesn't happen and you get a "cold shut," visible as a dark line where you wanted the weld to be. A cold shut is an unwelded place, of no structural integrity at all. The surfaces to be welded together are covered in flux to flush impurities away from the inside of the weld -- they squirt out of there when you strike with the hammer, as a shower of sparks -- and this helps prevent cold-shuts by clearing interfering fire-scale and junk out of the way.

For the process of melting steel or iron, or smelting iron, in quantity, read up on blast furnaces -- there's lots of detail right here on the Internetz. You quickly come to the conclusion that blast furnaces aren't all that neighbor-friendly either -- a blast furnace and steel mill look like the hotter end of Mordor. (Sauron was always very keen on metals...) If and when you'd like to do hot work in steel and in the suburbs, your most practical bet is gas forges or, much more cheaply, propane weed-burners and fire brick (never plain building brick; red brick will literally explode under such heating -- more or less a volcanic steam explosion -- or just crumble). To bend metal hot -- nice if the metal's thick, and you can use lighter hammers too -- you need only to get it up to orange or yellow-orange heat for even the worst of difficult steels like manganese spring alloys. They are "red short." Look that up too. Happily, low- to medium-carbon steels are not red short.

Almost everybody working sheet metal into armor shapes primarily works it cold these days. Functional if not museum-piece accurate steel armor may be so made for various armor markets by coldworking and welding. In order of severity of demands on their gear, the armor users run about thus:

• LARPs and their foamy weapons, which can sting, but a guy can play wearing a couple sweatshirts for body armor and maybe an all-round leather mask to look fantastic and protect your ears from getting stung by LARP soft weapons. One LARP even puts two inches of foam rubber over its shields. Creative Anachronists think that's unutterably weird.
  
  Society for Creative Anachronism, heavy fighting -- uses rattan sticks fashioned into sword shapes, from 60-70cm to about 180cm in length for various kinds and sizes of sword, plus perhaps a bit longer for halberds and other pole weapons. Armor may be of steel, aluminum, titanium, plastic, leather... And hard shields too, that aren't upholstered two inches thick, and really look like shields.
  
  Living History is demanding for accurately copying historical models of anything, and LH's purpose is primarily educational, so they want to get it right -- right weights for helmets, right weights for steel swords (broadswords run about 2 lb 8-10 oz, great Zweihänder swords as much as 6 lb, at least the ones actually intended for fighting), period correct buckles, all that. In an era of hand craftsmanship, they liked things decorative, and made them like that. Armor of carbon steel, or bronze for Bronze Age living history. Bronze is hard to get any more; used to be steel was the rare stuff. Not since the blast furnace.
  
  Rebated-steel fighters: choreographed like HACA or not so choreo'd like ACL or BotN. The last are very hard core and you've seen them on TV. Since these guys are hitting each other with un-edged metal weapons, they need very stout gear indeed and generally go to medium-carbon sheet steel, heat treated -- that's spring steel. Considerably tougher to work than mild (low-carbon) steel.

Yet stick with us, kid, and we'll take you past this very beginning of your knowledge and set your feet on a good path. Don't expect to do an apprenticeship to learn ye Mysterie -- it will be a study of written stuff plus logging hammer time, and learning drawing to help you visualize and plan. They did it that way back then too. Right now you need knowledge even more than you need hammers, so for bending steel into armor we recommend you get a copy of Brian Price's Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction: the 14th Century. (TOMAR) There's nothing comparable to this tome for the fifteenth or the sixteenth yet; that's still being passed down in the Internet's oral traditions.

Smithing with forge, hammer, and anvil is one thing -- particularly, it is hot-working steel bar stock. Armorsmithing may do some of it hot (see the Eric Dubé videos) but is mostly something else from blacksmithing, in working from sheet metal and making it into compound curvatures, shaped ergonomically to both cover vulnerable flesh and bone and to allow you to quickly move wearing it. Plate armor is wearable sculpture; mail is comparable to knitting (though knitted yarn sprayed silver only very vaguely sort of looks like mail, and doesn't move like it at all), which knitting at one time could armor the fighting aristocrat from kneecaps to bald spot in one single piece of equipment, the late-model hauberk. That record has never been equaled before or since -- plate armor gets put on, tied on and strapped, in separate pieces from the ankles up, and can be worn sort of modular if required. They didn't think of it quite that way, but they could do it.

I should clarify,
Money is not as much an issue as I said. Preferably I need a forge capable of getting steel hot enough to forge, would http://youtu.be/71s6HpuG_hQ work?

Hey, if you have enough helpers, a hole in the ground will suffice!

for a couple of minutes it may if you are lucky
in answer to arctus

I should clarify,
Money is not as much an issue as I said. Preferably I need a forge capable of getting steel hot enough to forge, would http://youtu.be/71s6HpuG_hQ work?

( edited to add quote )

...and my wood framed coal forge (with firebrick table top and commercial cast iron tuyere) has served me for over 25 years.

Note that forge welding is NOT fusion welding it is a solid phase process!

for small blacksmithing bar work a hole in the ground , a it of iron pipe and a blower.

For a blower you can start with bellows.
A hair drier works but they are not designed for continuos use long.
a small rheostat and squirrel cage blower is a better option.
Mecanical blowers are another option and often sold on websites like eBay.

If your handy in the wood shop there are designs for traditional bellows, Japanese box bellows, and wooden blower assembly.

Having two or three blowdriers plugged in and handy, and using them in rotation can doubtless save the blowdriers. Handcrank blowers are simple and durable and infinitely flexible in how much blast they supply, just as needed.

Double bellows, not paired as those above but in effect two bellows stacked and pumping in opposite phase so while one bellows is filling the other is blowing also supply a continuous steady blast. Particularly with the aid of an apprentice on the bellows! One-man forges tend to have an overhead lever to work the bellows with through a series of linkages, handy to the smith's weak hand while his right hand manipulates tongs and irons. Very period to the eighteenth century and later!

The double lunged bellows which is a pair of bellows stacked on top of each other where the bottom half has the valve for intake and feeds the top half and the top half is connected to the forge and serves as the reservoir so that there is *never* a change over or a time air is not going out can be very very NICE indeed! I built one based off a 19th century commercial one in a museum in OKC and I could pump it to welding heat with my pinkie. However they do take up a lot of room and have issues with portability.

A chinese box bellows is probably the cheapest to build and transport.

BTW when I built my bellows I used the heavily treated canvas used for oil drilling rig wind wings instead of leather. Did a great job and was still going strong 20 years later...

On my first forge, I used an old vacuumed cleaner motor... Worked well for me till I got careless and lopped off a good chunk of my right middle finger...

Ckanite wrote:On my first forge, I used an old vacuumed cleaner motor... Worked well for me till I got careless and lopped off a good chunk of my right middle finger...

I'm trying desperately to picture the interaction between the vacuum cleaner motor and your right middle finger!

this is why nature abhors a vacuum
it really sucks

Arctus wrote:. . . about how much space do I need for a small workshop if I were to do something like that? P.S. I live in true suburbia so can't just build a structure such as a shed or room.

A bench 36" x 36" square is enough of a shop for doing things compactly, including, particularly, armoring. A bench vise will make about everything you try and do a lot easier by holding stuff firmly. The vise may be a machinist's vise, in which case you may prefer a bench longer than 36" to still have room to work if you bolt it to the bench, or else put the vise on its own mobile stand and park it anywhere you want. A carpenters' vise fits most of itself underneath the workbench surface, with the jaws and screw lever sticking out front. Neither type is intended to be beat on with hammers; this is hard on them. There is one type of vise that is for beating on: the leg, or post, vise. Old-school blacksmithy thing with a post to it to reach the floor and support the works while you pound on something in its jaws. These aren't much made now but can still be picked up cheap. They may want a new part or two when you find one, and likely a new spring as well. (Smithwork!)

Cap'n Atli wrote:

Ckanite wrote:On my first forge, I used an old vacuumed cleaner motor... Worked well for me till I got careless and lopped off a good chunk of my right middle finger...

I'm trying desperately to picture the interaction between the vacuum cleaner motor and your right middle finger!

I was testing air flow. So I was holding the motor down, and had my other hand at the tuerre. A rock fell down the air pipe and went into the motor which made it jump. When it did, my finger went inside and I caught the tip of my right middle finger in my left hand. 3 seconds later, I went into shock. The doc said that if I had cut ANY deeper, it would never have regrown. I do have a nice scar now and some occasional numbness... nerve damage can be very fun... like the time I got some molten metal on my left thigh and every now and then it goes completely numb and gets deathly cold... Oh memories!!

Note a good postvise is WONDERFUL, always check the screw and screwbox for wear/damage as that is the part most difficult to repair or replace; so much so that I will not pick up a postvise with a bad screw/screwbox unless it's at scrap metal rates *or* I already have one with "donor parts" to hand.

I never factor in a missing mounting bracket and or spring as they are fast and easy repairs, (check out the columbian vises that basically used a piece of angle iron and a U bolt as the mounting plate)

I've got 12 postvises to hand, the most expensive was US$75 for a 6" vise, the cheapest were $20. The heavy duty one I bought at Quad-State this year cost me $40 I like to mount a heavy large one and a light small on on every workbench and have one large one mounted to a telephone pole that holds up the roof truss and is buried 5' in subsoil and cemented in---I once twisted a RR spike in that vise---*COLD*.