The Armour Archive

Wondering if someone could give me the names and a brief description of the main/basic raising/planishing stakes that are out there, if not maybe just a resource directed at stake types and all (SPECIFICS- I saw this stake in the shape of cone/couter, any ideas?)

Also, if someone knows of a good supplier of stakes, maybe even armouring tools in general, it'd be much appreciated.
one last thing, stake sockets/holders, where could I get one/how could I make one?

Ok, maybe I'm asking a lot more than I thought but any help is appreciated

Ok the common brands
Pexto
Dixon
Durston
J. Wilcox
There are others, many focus on jewelry scale stuff.
shapes
Ball
Dome
anticlastic
Synclastic
sinusoidal
Convex
concave
automotive shapes that can be useful
Football
tear drop
Spoon dolly

as for suppliers Halberts, Ironmonger, Llewelyn Gododdin, and Clang have some.

a useful link
http://www.anvilfire.com/anvils/af_anvils_025.php

Under "make a stake" there are several simple classics, only some of which need a welding torch.

First and simplest, a creasing stake: nothing more than a dulled edge 1" masonry chisel, or brick chisel. These chisels come in several widths up to three or four inches across the edge. The wider ones are about the size of a paintbrush and usable for long straight creases. A 1" or so can handle both straight line creases and gently curved flutes too -- very good for detailed work. The modern-guy equivalent of all those long thin things on Conrad Seusenhofer's workbench in Weiss Künig, in the armor shop. You don't usually need but one, really, and especially starting out. Makes creases, fluting, tight crisp bends; corrugates steel sheet to make stronger armor with no increase in weight and much increase in visual appeal -- that sculpture thing. All you need is some way to hold the chisel handle, like a stake holder or clamping it into a bench vise with the chisel handle resting on the vise screw housing for support.

[Bend your metal over that, and crisp the resulting radiused bend up with more hammering just to either side of the peak of the bend to change it from rounded to two planes meeting at an angle, then smooth out the unfinished crease by a little light grinding so it ends up being ^ and never like a radiused ( unless you were making it that way in the first place -- which they didn't, not creases and flutes; they liked their two planes intersecting when it came to creases and flutes. Sculpting belly muscles into a breastplate was more like dishing than creasing.] Bracketed because this is off on a tangent from topic.

Next and needing a welding torch, getting auto-body sheet metal bucks and backers for curving sheet metal over in various forms. Weld a shaft onto these and they fit into stake holders like we were discussing in the make-a-stakeholder thread.

Of the same degree of complexity, welding together a T stake from pieces of solid stock. Again, nothing fancy, just has to be solid enough to stand up hammer-bending metal over. And/or being used for a heavy hammer at need, if and when. A very good project for making during a welding class, and all types of welding serve to put the thing together. The simplest T stake, thick round-stock crossing an upright solid bar, is sometimes called a rivet-set because it makes riveting a helm together fast and easy: fit rivet into hole, put helm on the T arm with the rivet backed up by the arm, pein over, move on to next rivet hole. You'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Same goes for assembling gauntlets, and to a somewhat lesser degree putting articulated limb joints together, and that's just a few of the wonders you'll perform. T's may be made with anticlastic saddlings ground into them and other refinements from Lostie's list of stake shapes. Some anticlastic stakes look more like crutch or cane tops than T's, but that doesn't matter; either way works.

Ball stakes, much as the T's: find a solid steel knob or ball, like a big ball bearing or a trailer hitch ball, weld to solid steel post, Bob's your uncle. They make terrific rivet backer-uppers for riveting rounded helmets like spangenhelms or the multipiece sort of kettle-helm, as well as being your planishing tool inside, with a light hammer outside. They push out the low valleys and help knock down the lumps and hillocks.

You can weld-fabricate your own mushroom stake in any size from about an inch and a half across to eight or ten inches across using weldable pipe caps to make the cap of your 'shroom. For strength, these need strengtheners welded into them across the inside, for these are hollow, though thick and heavy, generally about 10 gauge. Weldable pipe caps are mild steel and pretty soft, so they want those radial reinforcers in there. [Tangent again: that they are heavy mild steel also fits them for making top caps for greathelms and barrelhelms, once they are malleted out of their circular shape into an oval shape the better to fit the head. With that, your top cap is ready to use and especially good for interiorly fitted top caps, to rivet the forehead and occiputal plates of the helm onto. Mark, centerpunch and drill rivet holes in the forehead plate first, top edge and left and right sides, to locate the rivet holes correctly on the cap and on the occiputal plate, both of which underlap the forehead plate.]

Don't expect to have a full set of auto body bumper blocks welded onto stake handles before you can even set out: just get/make stake shapes as you come to need them, one at a time. You can do a whole lot starting with ONE dish, ONE creasing stake made of a brick chisel, and ONE T stake. All the rest -- they're but details. Nice to have but less than absolutely essential.

What you're generally getting in all your threads is what you need to start, plus what is nice to have for taking the next step with. Long as you're clear which is which, we've done a good job.

Well said, and a good job of covering the topic.
Best of luck on your quest J. Hillard, may you pound long and prosper.

Hal

A cheap old lincoln tombstone welder can pay for itself in *1* project if you have a friendly scrapyard close by. They make pretty much every alloy you can weld in rods for stick welders and with a little practice you can get strong and ugly welds unlike mig's tendency for weak and ugly welds. Mine cost $US40 and is older than me and I suspect my grandkids will be arguing over who gets it

Just an FYI as well look at tool rental companies, even big box hardware stores that rent out paving breakers and stuff. I have a bucket full of free bits that they gave me. I already ground out a Brian Brazeal style cutoff hardy, and am going to make a bunch of other tools and stakes with them. Scrapyard steel is cheap too and you can make hammers and chisels and stuff out of Springs and axles.

It's not a stake holder per se, but I am going to make something similar for stakes specifically next. This is my rr track anvil stand. Cost me less than 30 bucks and I used scrounged stuff to make it.


http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff34 ... wine64.jpg
http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff34 ... ydr2zz.jpg
http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff34 ... imfj2m.jpg

I did all of the work with cold chisels, a drill press and an angle grinder. Cutting out that square hole with chisels and a small sledge was a pain in the ass but it works great. The square tubing sits inside the hole in the plate down in to the wood where I drilled it out and takes hardy tools just under an inch square.

These guys have a lot of stakes (blacksmithing, not armouring, but you get the idea) -- http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/product ... tools.html

Double post.


Have a good week

Pitbull

Just use a bench vice for your stake holders. Get your dishes from Llew, Get your stakes from Hal, Get your hammers from ebay, search Blacksmith. New people should cut their steel with a jigsaw if they dont have shears. Use an axe head for flutes on a curved surface, Cut a wooden ball bat in half and mount a handle in the center of the big side to make a long headed dishing hammer, cut an oxygen tank in half and use the bottom for a dishing form, Use a flat stump for subtle shallow dishing, and MORE!


Have a good week

Pitbull

Use a long steel pipe for shaping, Buy a bunch of tools from Halberds and make your own Halbertsons,,,


Lastly,,,,build some squirrel armor....



Have fun

Pb

moar

Use vice grips to hold your metal, work hot if possible, wear ear protection, Wear a respirator when grinding, Dont hammer too long at one time, No loose shirts, wear eye protection,


Put the hammer down,

Dumbells work for ball stakes too, See the one standing upright in the dishing form?

When squirrel grows up, he wants to be a glyptodont.

Rofl....is that a real thing Ktr?

Not any more i think Miecian or pliectocian man sized turtle/armadillo shaped animals.
Though cryptozoology theories permit for odd things.

Pit, I can't tell if you were serious, . If you were, likely I can unleash a whole lot of glyptodont and pampatherium stuff your way, if you don't Google 'em up on your own hook.

Long long ago, there was a fella name of Florentino Ameghino had a bookstore in South America he called El Glyptodon... Los Bros Ameghino were major fossil diggers in Argentina in the late nineteenth.

Thanks much for the info and visuals!

Also, wicked bat hammer

an old bowling ball on bungee cord fixed above is good for dishing

Search-button on "bowling ball basherizer" too. There is discussion, a few pix. The pix are enough to go on to build your own one-man piledriver for larger-radius dishing, for say breasts, backs, and cuisses' finished curvatures, and initial dishing of other things before moving to soft hammer/hard anvil and tightening things right up easily.

J. Hillard wrote:Thanks much for the info and visuals!

Also, wicked bat hammer

And in Pitbull's bench pics, do you see those hammers with the green heads and the tan faces? Those are Garland Mfg's split-heads with the rawhide faces. The first ones you'd want to get would be either the middle size (2-lb head I think) or the smallest one, which I think is about a pound and a half. The biggest one costs more.