15th century helmet rivets: opinions/options

[Klaus the Red]

I'm thinking about jazzing up my new sallet with decorative "swirly" rivets. There seem to be two games in town, at least so far as I could find: Armstreet and Armour & Castings. (Both links below.) Does anyone have strong opinions about either product, or either merchant in terms of customer service? Alternately, are there any other craftspeople worth looking at for these?

https://armourandcastings.com/en_US/pro ... rivet-tn13

https://armstreet.com/store/accessories ... -12-rivets

[Sean M]

I think Tod Cutler also carries rivets with fancy domed heads. I would make sure to ask the alloy, I own some useless belt mounts of an alloy which does not peen like medieval latoun.

gaukler also sells some styles of domed rivets.

[Klaus the Red]

Neat, thanks! I know Tod's work from Etsy and I recently picked up one of his rondel daggers via Kult of Athena, but never actually went hunting for his website.

[Otto von Teich]

I got one of those rondel daggers as well, ordered a replacement chape for mine from Tod, as the one from cult wasnt as nice of quality as the rest of the dagger and scabbard and was VERY pleased with the result. Though with shipping I had dang near as much invested in the chape as I did the dagger with scabbard! LOL If you order rivets and a chape you could combine shipping. hmmm....wink wink nudge nudge.. I believe he would use a soft enough alloy to peen as he actually uses the stuff. I've had trouble peaning brass that was to hard, some buckles from KOA from India come to mind. The stuff wants to fracture and flake off before it "smushes" I think could have annealed by heating and cooling quickly. ( the opposite of steel) but didnt bother. I finally got them peened without resorting to that measure.

[Klaus the Red]

Yep, I've had the same experience with un-annealed bronze or brass vervelles, ditto stainless- though why anyone would want to use stainless for something that needs to be peened to function is a mystery to me. I've been eyeballing some of his scabbard hardware too, though I asked him to recommend the best match for his rondel (both size and timeline-wise) and he never responded. At least his website has measurements listed.

[Otto von Teich]

I used the chape #1 on mine, though I think many will fit. It fits flush on the sides (front and back) with a little less than 1 mm gap on both edges. I might have tweeked it for a perfect fit, but as it was so close anyway I feared to try. You really have to look to see the gap.

[Klaus the Red]

Good to know, thanks!