The Armour Archive

Is there anyway to put a simple curve into 1â€

Well, how I did it was to use a central rivet line. I then screwed the splint down to a big round chunk of oak that had the curve I wanted. Then I beat the snot out of it until it was shaped how I wanted. Or, if your rivet lines are on the sides, you can get some vise-grips and grind off the teeth. Then hold them with the grips and pound the snot out of them over the oak. One last way is to make a swag out of scrap wood. Take a oak stairwell banister and cut it in half. Screw down from the outside so no screw marks show on th piece. If you need more help, don't hesitate to e-mail me. My address is in my profile. Good Luck!!



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Torr O'Neal
The Irish, Norwegian Merc

thick walled pipe of the desired curvature in a vise and curve the splints on top of that.

How thick is the metal? If it's not too thick (16 ga. or less) you can use two pieces of pipe that will just slide inside each other. The larger one gets split lengthwise. Put the splint on the whole pipe then the partial piece on top of that. Looks like this ((O from the end. Press it together. An arbor press works great, a vise will work, but it's harder to handle the entire package.

I just curved an arm's worth of splints (vambrace and small rerebrace). I used my seaming stake (a thickwalled pipe will do) and a mallet. I found that it worked fine for a slight curve (the splint is 1" wide, and the difference between the edges and the center is about 3/32").

I first tried a weighted rawhide, but found that a (much lighter) wooden mallet worked better, and since it's lighter, was easier to use.

{edit}
The splints are 14ga 304 SS, 1" wide, and from 6" to 9" long.
{/edit}

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Yehuda ben Moshe
mka Juliean Galak

[This message has been edited by jgalak (edited 02-26-2002).]

Couple more thoughts on this issue (since I just finished the rest):

On really short splints (3-4"), there wasn't enough space to hold the splint. I found that a large curved-jaw vise-grip, opened most of the way, worked well for holding the piece against the stake. I didn't actually lock it - just held it by hand, so that the piece was still. If the pipe you use is too big for this, a C-clamp will do, but a strap (or chain) wrench would be ideal.

Also, I found that I got a certain amount of twisitng and bending (along the long axis, in the direction away from the bend I created) occurred. This was easy enough to correct, and since in my version the splints are hidden, getting them perfect isn't necessary.

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Yehuda ben Moshe
mka Juliean Galak