The Armour Archive

Right. We've all seen the thread by Pat, and the glorious works and videos of Eric Dube and all feel less worthy than the armourer's apprentice. Maybe the work experience kid.

But, in this thread I hope to show, in pictures (with some words) the making of my suit of armour.

This is not specifically to highlight my weaknesses (there aren't enough highlighters), but to show people out there who may be a bit scared of armouring that to learn, you eventually have to just jump in and do something.

I'll be making a 15thC German harness, based on cuirasses from the various Talhoffer and Kal fechtbucher, as well as some pictures of extant pieces in museums.

It will be used for WMA; harnischfechten of the various sorts, and looking kewl at costume parties. I won't be doing SCA combat and only rarely steel re-enactment. Thus, it's more of a re-creation than a creation for modern sport fighting wherever possible.

When I'm done, I'll share the patterns, if people are interested.

First off is the breastplate. I didn't take pictures of this during the making, but here it is shaped:





It has a coat of primer on it so that I don't have to worry about the rust. Also, the steel came that way.

I shaped it with the DGC Hammer:



It's free sae for the time it takes to gather the materials. You can read about it here:

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... all+bungee

Next is the backplate. First steps are to cut it out:



And hammer some shape into it:



This was out of an old sign I picked up for free. Just inside my budget!





It needs more bulge over the shoulder blades, and the tops need to curl around a bit more to fit my shoulders, but it's getting close.

Getting from a big sheet of steel to that stage is about 2.5hrs work. The breastplate was 3, but there was a bit more done to that. The backplate also needs the placcards to be cut out and fitted.

The breastplate is 1.6 mild, the backplate 1.2.

You may notice that I haven't fluted anything yet. Well I shan't. Yet. The fluting will come later. For now I am just trying to get bits of metal that look like armour.

That's all for now. I do this in my (occasional) spare time, so this won't go very quickly.

Go make some armour,

Dave

That looks good Aussie!

I have seen some of this on another forum and think your ingenuity is great!

And what you are doing looks very promising indeed!!

Lawrence

Nice work Mr Yeoman.
Please continue the pictures. We like pictures.

thanks. nice shaping

It's been ages, but I finally got some work done on the breast/backplate. Making swords, bows, a career and many other things got in the way of the nice shiny steel. More's the pity really.

I had to sand the paint off the breatsplate so that I had something to wear to the work mid-year function:




It didn't have any rolled edges or anything but no one at work knew what proper armour is supposed to look like, so I got away with all the anachronisms too!

Bad news though. photobucket just went down. I was going to show you all some nice piccies of the breast/backplates shaped nd fit with the lower edge flanged out, with more pics of how I patterned the fauld.

You'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Dave

Thanks for the pics.

That is one mean looking pirate,
Your breast plate is nice too.

Tell her to put down the eye flap to reduce the red eye effect by 50%.

Hal

Cheers Hal,

I'll pass your comments on, though it wasn't her idea so she might not listen to me .

Photobucket is back up, so I can show you those pictures I was on about.

I made this very crude tool to help me put a flange on the edge of a sheet:



Just a bit of steel re-o with a slot in it. Works quite well. Especially when you clean up the edge over an anvil with a cross-pein. Here's my practise bit, done on a bit of ranom dished steel. It may nt be very clear, but in only a few minutes I got it to 90 degrees:



So anyway, as with nearly any metal working process, the effect is achieved with many and shallow passes, bending only a small section a small amount, working right the way along the piece.

Here's the breat and back all flared out:



I don't have an armour stand yet so it's hanging kinda spaz from the shed ceiling.

Something I've quickly learned about patterning armour, is that masking tape is your friend. Rather than faithfully cut out the patterns of others then scratch your head in bewilderment when it doesn't fit, it's far better to make your own patterns as you go. That's how I did the top lames of the fauld:





I kno it looks a bit like Marvin the Martian's skirt at the mo', but when cut out of steel and dished, it is gonna look sweet.

I hope.

I'll do all the lames this way, more or less.

Oh yeah, here's another:



Till next time,

Dave

Very nice.
Most of my stakes are made from the same steel reinforcing bars for concrete as your little do-dad tool there. Handy stuff.

What a strange looking sign.

Sign? If you mean the sign that the backplate is cut out of, I picked it up as scrap.

Dave

Uryen wrote:Very nice.
Most of my stakes are made from the same steel reinforcing bars for concrete as your little do-dad tool there. Handy stuff.

Plus there ribbed for your pleasure

Well, after a long absence from working on my harness, it was time to do some more stuff to the breastplate.

(in the interim I did however make myself some gauntlets: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... highlight= )

Firstly was making some faulds. I made the patterns by sticking strips of masking tape to the bottomg of the breatsplate/subsequent lames, making sure the shape was right, peeling off, and transferring to steel.

Easy stuff, and anyone can do it. More than that, anyone that plans to make faulds should make their own patterns in some similar manner rather than taking pre done patterns as your breastplate is unlikely to have exactly the same shape as the guy that made the original pattern.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.





I know the bottom edge of the bottom lame is a bit wonky. It matters not. It will be covered by the next lame.



There you might see lines around the arm holes for me to cut extra material off.



This makes it look like my body shape is a cone from chest to feet. I'm not I promise...I just had nowehere to hang the harness from to get good positioning.

Tragedy: I found that my breastplate was a little too narrow across the chest. It was OK as-is, however after an edge roll, it would be too narrow. Solution? rivet a lame of steel in place which brings the breastplate a little further under the arms, then roll that edge.

I coulda welded it, but I don't have many hours practice with ym new arc welder yet, and I was sure that rivets would be strong enough.

The first time I did it, I had far too few rivets (5). This meant that when I tried to roll the edge the lame would see-saw around the edge of the breastplate proper. What ended up happening is the additional lame cracked with me trying to bash it back and forth so much.

Try again.

This time there were heaps more rivets. Result: a much firmer base from which I could hammer. I coul roll the edge as if it was the parent material to begin with. Except that I used 18g for the roll, unlike the 16g for the breast. It's thinner I know, but that's just how I roll







A bit of grinding and maybe a bit o' planish fluid wiped over it, and it should not end up being the worst aspect about the armour.

Why did I leave extra? Here's a valuable bit of initially counter-intuitive knowledge for beginning armourers. You WILL use LESS steel overall, if you allow for MORE stell in your patterns. I was a miser with steel for ages, and the result was that I wasted many pieces cos they were too small. Make your steel bigger than what you think you will need. Then you can cut it down to be perfect(ish) later. Please please please trust me.

Till next time,

Dave

Dave is right you know.
Make your patterns to fit you and what you are building.

I am watching a gauntlet poster board pattern progress thread.
He sure needs to trim that first knuckle plate back.
Perhaps he should pattern over his glove/padding.

How are you going to get off the sticky street sign shit?
I would use my flamethrower.

Thanks for the update.

Hal

I'm not sure what it's called, but it goes on my angle ginder and looks like blue sponge, but it much stiffer. abolishes paint and leaves a fairly smooth surface.

I'm currently on the lookout for a decent propane torch.

Dave

I have known you for a long time here.
You sure are doing a good job on this breast and back armour.
I know the back plate is hard, with the subtle angel bone protrusions.
And creased in curved spine.

Thanks for the update progress pics.
Progress pics are my fav.

Best of luck on your quest little pilgram.

Hal

Well done Aussie, I'd say youve advanced well beyond the novice stage!

Hey there,

Nice job on the cuirrass. I like the bowling ball hammer.

Matthew...

(aka/sca Odeane)

coming along nicely!

How have you found working with steel that is painted? Is it harder to work out where the dents are?

Hi Damien,

do you mean the grey paint on the breastplate? No problem whatsoever.

If you mean the flaky paint, that's not a real problem either. I will scrape it off later to see the dimples and bumps. For now the paint helps keep the rust off.

Dave

Hi all, I thought I would show an abridged account of how to add steel to the edge of an otherwise too-small component to allow an edge roll, without a welder.

Step 1 - DON'T make my mistake. Make your pattern bigger than you think you need and trim it if necessary.

Step 2 - If you choose to skip step 1, drill a large number of holes along the edge of steel you want to add more to. About every 1.5-2" should suffice.



Step 3 - no photo of this. Get a large sheet of paper and stick it on the inside of the breatsplate. Then trace the outline of the current arm opening, adding a little extra at each end. Draw parallell lines to this, one about 3/4-1" to one side (the side that will be under the BP), and about 1/2" the other way (the side that will be rolled). Transfer to steel.



Step 4 - I slightly dished this lame and bent it to shape to sit nice and fluch against the BP. I then drilled a couple of holes in it and bolted it to the BP to hold it in place while I drilled and rivetted the other holes. If you cut your rivets to the right length, and are good with a hammer, you can mash the pein down quite flat.



Step 5 - I drilled and rivetted 2 holes at a time to allow for the unavoidable deformation. If you drill them all at once, you may well be horrified to find not all your holes line up anymore when it comes time to rivet them.



Step 6 - To tip the edge of the newly rivetted lame, I use a chisel bit from my hammer dril slotted into a hole I drilled in my dishing stump. This is not a lesson about edge rolling. Go somewhere else for that.



Step 6 - Roll the edge. You will be glas you made the lame extra long when it comes time to making the ends of the roll look nice.



Just for funzies:



Till next time.....

Dave

Great work.
Very inspirational as well.
Thank you for posting this and for the bungie bowling ball idea.

Amalric

A smidge of progress:

The breastplate looks wonky because of the angle of the camera here. The bottom lame of the fauld looks wonky cos it is.

Note on adding material when you don't have enough.

First, add more so it doesn't happen. You got that in one.

Next, for most periods - at least post 1490 ish, you can add a gusset if you need more in the arms like this case. They don't tend to use so many rivets, but the idea is the same. As you go a little later (post 1500) you can even make them move. I have lots of breastplates with gussets in the arms.

I have also seen breastplates (many) with an attached waist lame if the breast is too short and a small number with attached upper rolls if you are just a little short on the top.

Wade

After a far too long hiatus, I got back to working on this harness.

The fluting begins.

It's a little wobbly in places, but considering the number of errors elsewhere in this cuirass, a wobbly flute (which is present on many an extant harness) is the least of my worries.





I discovered that it is quite difficult to photograph shiny, curved steel.

Also, I was quite surprised that after fluting, all the holes still lined up, the fluting aligned...AND the lames of the fauld still sit very close to each other:





So much for the centre flute. As for the two flutes which will run into the tassets, I wonder if it might be more prydent to flute them from the bottom lame up. I had formed the centre fauld flute from the top down.

More tomorrow, me hopes.

Dave

Addenda:

I should add that I intend to trim the top of the fauld lames where the flute looks off centre. In reality, the apex of the curve is actually off centre.

Here's a quick shot of the tasset template:



D

Aussie, that fauld is looking might good. And it looks like the flutes have come out very nicely! Looks like the whole thing is really coming together. I'm looking forward to seeing more progress.

Today's progress.

I decided to go from top to bottom again. This time I roughed in each of the remaining two flutes on each lame before moving onto the next.

When I'd done the all I went back and tidied them up a bit. Still need a bit of work though.



Still reeeeeeeasonably happy with how the lames sit on each other. Will do a bit of touching up.



Still need to file the slots, rivet, and attach the leather strap down the centre (though not in that order).

Dave

Good work Aussie! Keep it up.



Take care

PB

Playing with how the fluting will look on the back:



Gothic backplates are a two edged sword. On the one hand they look mighty fine when done, but on the other hand there is soooooooo many feet of fluting......hours and hours of work that hopefully the enemy will never even see!

Dave

More progress in the last few days.

Without exaggerating, I am Supremely Dissappointed with myself.

I thought the flutes on the back fauld would be easy, as I intended for them to be straight lines. I also thought I would expriment with going from bottom to top.

So I did. I did all the flutes on the bottom lame, then the next one up etc. Did I check and align myself often and sufficiently enough? No. I did not.

When I got to the backplate, I realised I had got off line, almost horribly so. So. Very. Dissappointed.

Lesson: when fluting faulds, go from top to bottom, one or two flutes at a time, from the medial aspect out.

I was so dissappointed and disheartened I left the fauld flutes rounder than I had originaly intended.

Also, the Fluting Fail of the fauld put me off making the rest of the backplate as fluted as I had wanted. It turns out that was a Good Thing, as the fluting I have put in seems to have taken an age.

Nevertheless, I push on.



Both front and back together:



Still struggling with intercepting flutes:



D

I think supremely might be a bit of a heavy descriptor. I've learned lately that disappointment isn't so terrible. It only means that you're still holding yourself to a standard, which I think is supremely important to maintain if one expects to become skillful enough to make the armour they want and also to have it look the way they want. Not only that, but you're going on anyway in the face of that disappointment, which proves that you're not a quitter. Which is also super important. Maybe not supremely, but still important

And you said it yourself: there are several miles of fluting on those pieces, one should expect a whoopsie here and there on a first piece.

All considered, I think this is a fantastic effort and should be viewed as such. Well done! Can't wait to see the finished product.

A little progress yesterday.

I cut out and did some preliminary shaping of the front tassets.

Now, as for the pattern shape, that was easy. No worries there. Cutting it out was also a cinch. I even cut out extra around the outside for rolling and trimming as necessary. The problem I came across was the three dimensional shape of the tassets.

The steel I used was only 1.2mm mild. I wanted to increase the dent resistance across the whole surface, but more than that, I wanted to avoid having them be simply curled plates. I've not had a chance to handle real tassets, but I imagine that they're supposed to resemble the shape of the upper thigh.

So to that end, I resolved to touch every square inch of the plates with a hammer (actually I used my fly press on a solid flat chunk of wood). Instead of going in concentric circles, which would give me a bowled dish shape, I 'dished' in lines. Curved, tapering lines. Here's a shot of the back with the lines marked:



The result was that I ended up with tassets that were curved around the long axis almost perfectly fitted to the fauld lame at the top and almost the thigh at the bottom, but was only ever so slightly dished. Like, as little as 1/4" or less. Also, the dish shape was in a '(' shape, rather than the more typical 'O' shape.



I'm not sure if you can tell from the pic what I mean when I say the dish is in a '(' shape, but see what you think-


Progress so far:



Fluting, strapping and grinding next.

As it turns out, I think this was valuable practice for later dishing of cuisse plates and the top halves of greaves, each of which need a dished shape overall, in a bent longitudinal shape.

Peace out.

Not really progress per se, but it does show where the project is heading. It won't be long before I'll be able to wear this bad boy. About time. Well over, really.



The flute lines you can see are intended to end up tracing the same line that the cuisse crease will have, which (I think) bisects the width of the thigh, rather than being a straight line.

I wonder when this thread will tick over to a second page.

dave

armour aside(though its nice to see you still working on it)...

please tell me that is fake grass in those pictures. if not, i hate you. I hate you so much.