Mac's blog

[Mac]

I think that 5934 is a waster. I don’t know if it is for two different mounts or one- the hole isn’t quite the same size as the domed section of the remaining mount.

Thanks for the additional views!

I had not noticed the roping around the perimeter before. Yet, we don't see the roping around the one with the big hole. It sort of looks like they were making two different things, and neither of them worked out right.

Mac

[Mac]

Hi Mac

If you are only making a "male" die and striking into lead, you can get the "female" die by striking the die into lead first.
Scott

I been there and done that. The results were still poor. I really think I need to bring those bosses up from the back with something stiffer than lead or tin.

Mac

[Mac]

Here's the starting blank for the next punch, fresh out of the lathe. The ring will have to be divided up into ten individual bosses, but I can test the proportions first.



When stamped up in the tin block, it looks OK.



With the central dome in place for caparison, it looks like it's close to what I want, but perhaps still a bit shallow. I think I'll deepen it a bit more on the lathe before proceeding.



Mac

[Johann ColdIron]

I think you are on the right track Mac. Certainly reads two piece with a thin wire rivet in the center to me.

Some of the depth might be achieved by the ease at which the reduced contact surface area of the ropes driving into the work piece VS the solid ring. But deepening the solid ring on the lathe is easy and the tips of the rope can always be reduced by hand.

[gaukler]

The roping is obscured by the plain mount rim.
The hole is 6mm, and the central dome of the roped mount is 7mm, measured on the back.

[Rene K.]

I like such tiny items that makes things cool

[Mac]

I deepened the punch by .010" and then made another test stamp.



I also used a slightly larger blank. By "slightly" I mean that I left the pencil line, rather than cutting it away. In any case, it looked OK, so I moved on to the next step.

The punch went back into the lathe so that the I could use the 60 divisions on the bull wheel to mark off my 10 locations.



Those scribed lines are the ridges in my bosses, and I took out some material from in between. That began with a dremel cutoff wheel and proceeded to a triangular file and then to a square file.



The test in the tin block looks like I'm headed in the right direction.





I need to compare what I have to my images and decide if there are any changes that need to be made to the punch before hardening it.

Mac

[gaukler]

That looks pretty close, especially in the picture that is a closer match to the angle of the black and white photo.

[Mac]

That looks pretty close, especially in the picture that is a closer match to the angle of the black and white photo.

It's closer than I expected it to be. In my head, the bosses looked more gracile out at the edges, but that seems not to be the case. They are blocky and crude. I think I've inadvertently stumbled on the final shape when I thought I was just getting started. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Mac

[Rene K.]

very nice result !

[Scott Martin]

Looks good Mac - can we get a picture of the Tin imprint? That looks "sharper" than I expect to get in lead, which suggests that the tin gives a "firmer" backing.

I think that we are back to the "figure out the easiest way to do it, and that's generally how medieval armourers did it"

Any chance that we could purchase some of these? I suspect that there are a number of folks who would be interested in adding the decorative elements without having the equipment to make the tooling. That may be a question for Marc

Scott

[Galileo]

I have found tin to be firmer than lead - a bit more expensive to get, but sometimes easier as it's not toxic like lead can be.

[Otto von Teich]

If you decide to make a few extras to sell, I too would be interested! Your doing a Great job on these and the whole project is really coming along nicely. Thanks for showing us your tooling and techniques. And thank you to Rene and Gaukler for sharing pics of the tools and bits! This is all very informative and interesting.

[Mac]

very nice result !

Thanks!

Mac

[Mac]

Looks good Mac - can we get a picture of the Tin imprint? That looks "sharper" than I expect to get in lead, which suggests that the tin gives a "firmer" backing.

Thanks!

I hope to stamp up a few of these this afternoon. I'll get a pic of the tin block then.

I think that we are back to the "figure out the easiest way to do it, and that's generally how medieval armourers did it"

It's true. I was overthinking this.

Any chance that we could purchase some of these? I suspect that there are a number of folks who would be interested in adding the decorative elements without having the equipment to make the tooling. That may be a question for Marc

Scott

At the moment, I don't see these are a thing I can sell profitably. That may change if I can get a suitable punch/die to cut out the blanks. I'm currently cutting them by hand, and it's way too slow.

Mac

[Mac]

I have found tin to be firmer than lead - a bit more expensive to get, but sometimes easier as it's not toxic like lead can be.

Indeed!

I've switched over to either tin or lead-free pewter in place of lead for punching. I used to use lead a lot, but I noticed that it was always shedding bits onto the floor... where I supposed I was grinding them to dust underfoot. I'm not at all freaked out by lead, but that just seemed a bit unwise, and I figured I'd get rid of the problem while I could still think straight.

Mac

[Mac]

If you decide to make a few extras to sell, I too would be interested! Your doing a Great job on these and the whole project is really coming along nicely. Thanks for showing us your tooling and techniques. And thank you to Rene and Gaukler for sharing pics of the tools and bits! This is all very informative and interesting.

Thanks!

I don't think I'll be selling any unless I can make the process faster.

Mac

[Sean M]

Would the domes be fastened to the disks in some way?

[Mac]

Would the domes be fastened to the disks in some way?

Only by the rivet which passes through everything.

Mac

[Mac]

Here's the stamping setup. The block is tin... mostly. I have three of these blocks cast on some tin that I suspect has gotten contaminated with a bit of our usual pewter. I keep the metal separate from anything else when I recast them... which I did for this project.

The punch has been hardened and tempered except for the driving end. That got taken up to orange heat and then let to cool as it will while I heated and quenched the business end. This leaves the driving end in a normalized condition. That's not ideal, but it's good enough. Hardening the whole punch all at once would be more difficult.

I'm using a 5lb (2.27 kg.) drilling hammer to drive the punch.



A close up of a disc after a couple of blows.



A stamped disc next to the tin block. A couple of the impressions in the tin have gotten a bit messed up from misalignment. They will be corrected and reused until they are too deep, or too messed up to be useful.



The stamped discs sitting in the traditional container. Two of my tin blocks are all clapped out from the procedure, and I re-cast them as soon as I was done stamping. That way they will be al lready for their next assignment.



The thing the camera refused to focus on is a punch I made to mark the location or the punched hole. It also flattens the center a bit if it needs that (and some do). You might ask why I bothered to make a punch for this, rather than using a 5/16" transfer punch. There are a couple of reasons. One is that I wanted the prick to be shallow, so it would not go right through the thin brass before the broad surface had a chance to flatten the center of the mount. The other reason is that I don't own a transfer punch set.



In addition to flattening the center of the mount, the outer diameter of the punch makes it easy to find the approximate center.



I may get a chance to install these on the shoulder straps later today... we'll see.

Mac

[Mac]

The installation of the mounts looks like this...

Start with a length of 3/23" (2.4mm) soft brass wire. Flatten and square the end.



This will leave a burr that may or may not be sufficient to keep wire from passing through the 3/32" hole in the "dome" part of the mounts.



Just to be sure, I lock up the wire in the vise and give it s few taps with the cross peen of a very tiny hammer. A couple of notes here.... First, this vise has un-serrated, mild steel jaws. It's the vise I use for making hinges etc. Second, the hammer really does need to be tiny. If it's too big, it will just drive the wire down in the vise without upsetting the end at all.



The hammering has spread the flat end of the wire slightly. This ensures that it will not just fall through the hole in the next step.



The dome and the disc of the mount are threaded onto the other end of the brass wire. I had not mentioned the point before, but it really helps.



If too much wire sticks up, I tap it down with the mount supported in this heading die. If the wire is upset exactly right, this is not necessary.



The pre-marked locations are punched with the smallest tube on a rotary punch, and the whole assembly threaded through the leather.



A "bagel washer" is threaded onto the wire on the bottom side, and the wire is clipped off close.



Both sides are peened up with a small cross peen hammer.



Lather, rinse, and repeat.



All the straps are attached now... so I guess it's done. I'll get some other pics of it soon.



Mac

[Galileo]

That's really neat!

[Mac]

I managed to squeeze into my old mail shirt for some pics.









I really hate to see the waist rise up in front, but I'm really just too paunchy for this breastplate. Sure, I could have made it to look better on a paunchy guy, but that wasn't the point of the exercise.

Mac

[Armadillo]

That whole process was a treat. Thank you. It's an eye opener for me to see this iconic piece fitted up as it should be, paunch aside.
-Adair

[Ilkka Salokannel]

Beautiful job on the Churburg 13.

I have re-drawn my patterns based on your work.
Thanks.
Ilkka

[Mac]

That whole process was a treat. Thank you. It's an eye opener for me to see this iconic piece fitted up as it should be, paunch aside.
-Adair

I'm glad you found it useful! There are still some problems of proportion that I hope to work out in MK2. Perhaps by the time I do that I can reduce some of that paunch as well.... Ya' never know.

Mac

[Mac]

Beautiful job on the Churburg 13.

I have re-drawn my patterns based on your work.
Thanks.
Ilkka

I can post images of the patterns I used for this piece if that would be useful. My only reservations are that.... One.. I'm not satisfied with the proportions. Two.. I made some mistakes with the hole locations. There is not much I can do about the first problem this time, but I can make some indications on the templates of where I should have made the holes.

Mac

[Johann ColdIron]

I managed to squeeze into my old mail shirt for some pics.

I really hate to see the waist rise up in front, but I'm really just too paunchy for this breastplate. Sure, I could have made it to look better on a paunchy guy, but that wasn't the point of the exercise.

Mac

Looks sharp Mac. Those rivet details really make it.

Just tilt the pictures till the waist lines up the way you want it then crop the rest of the image to hide the tilt. That is how the instagram models do it...

[Scott Martin]

I can post images of the patterns I used for this piece if that would be useful. My only reservations are that.... One.. I'm not satisfied with the proportions. Two.. I made some mistakes with the hole locations. There is not much I can do about the first problem this time, but I can make some indications on the templates of where I should have made the holes.

I can park your patterns on a server that will not be changing terms of service periodically, and I suspect that JT would also be more than happy to do so.

(Digression warning)

I've been giving some thought to how we can teach the next generation of armourers, which is why I have been (slowly) posting patterns and tutorials. It may be worth having a more fulsome discussion and looking at what "holes" we should be filling. Albert Collins is trying to build armouring as a craft from the master down. I think that we need more work at the apprentice to journeyman level, and I think that we need to put some "journey" in place for the journeyman, Books like Albert's are valuable, but IMO they are more valuable for those of us who have been doing things for a while than for a "new" armourer. I have some hopes that the book that the Greenleaf Workshop is working on will fill some of this gap, since I think that the novice to intermediate armourer is where the largest amount of help is needed. I know that if I had access to you and Wade 25 years ago it would have made an enormous difference to my learning curve.

Scott

[Ilkka Salokannel]

Post away Mac. We can all benefit from it.

I share my patterns freely, at least locally.

The main change in my old patterns was that I made the patterns of the smaller side plates fit the expanding cone of my torso from waist to chest, which I had failed to accomodate on the inital pattern. I even have the plates all cut out, which will have partial changes done and will most likely finish them off for SCA use, but I will build Churburg 13 to fit myself properly.

Thanks.

PS: Scott, you have to post more. Just a reminder.

Best wishes.
Ilkka

[Signo]

I think that one of the greatest help new armourers could receive is to stop looking at armourmaking as an artisan job from start to finish, reinventing each time the wheel, making stuff from scratch always the same, but always different. This thing of "custom armour made on measure" has gone out of control, with armourers reinventing the same pattern again and again just to change a final measurement of few mm compared to the previous project, when 2 minutes with a angle grinder can deal fast and precisely the same outcome. The work ouf armourers was industrial, and today it must be seen in the same perspective to be profitable. Metal is dirt cheap today, labor is hugely expensive,this must be taken into account. Many parts can be rough formed, even stacked together, then put aside for the next job, and from project to project simply shaped to measure, trimmed as needed and the assembled as usual.

[Gordon Thompson]

Hell yea, trimming. I've noticed similar "mistake" here and there, some guys when they want to build something for the first time, they want to make "ideal pattern", spending hours of measuring and thinking. I think thats counterproductive(ineffective?), as their "novice pattern" will probably be not ideal anyway and shaping also makes all the difference. IMO better way is just draw it more-or-less to measure and add excess everywhere. Like your idea with stacked pieces - roughly form a piece and then trim it where needed. And its good to repeat trimming on pattern as well for future use and fixes - it will be also better that way than overthinked one (keep in mind Im talking about unexperienced guys).
I did that with all parts of my work in progress gothic armour, and its not bad - it would be worse if Id try to make a "perfect pattern" first.

[Mac]

I've drawn up clean copies of the templates. Here are my questions...

Is it better to have the template centered on the "bull's eye"...


..or out in the uniform grey field?



Should all the images be at the same distance etc regardless of size?.. or should they be cropped?

I realize that my writing is illegible. I will go back and darken it up. That should help a bit anyway.

This is a 1" grid. Apologies to the metric world, but that's what I have.

Mac

[Indianer]

Is it better to have the template centered on the "bull's eye"...

..or out in the uniform grey field?

Should all the images be at the same distance etc regardless of size?.. or should they be cropped?
Mac

None of that matters. Useful however for those that can not digitalize the stuff would be aligning a straight edge along the long axis of any given pattern with a line in the grid.

Best
Indi

[Mac]

None of that matters. Useful however for those that can not digitalize the stuff would be aligning a straight edge along the long axis of any given pattern with a line in the grid.

Best
Indi

I rather expect people to lay out a suitable grid and transfer the lines and rivet locations square by square.

Mac