The Armour Archive

Derian le Breton

http://alphaofficium.weebly.com/ has some Roman stuff, and can cut dies to order.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Is this the coin making Derian I met at RUM? It sure is. :) Can't help regarding the surcoat, but it's not too unreasonable to think that their surcoats and their banners would have the same style cross. Now whether or not Matthew Paris's depiction is accurate is a different question (and he disagr...

Derian le Breton

In what context? On their coins? On their surcoat? At what point in time? Their heraldry seems to be a simple cross, but there's a c 1250 depiction in Matthew Paris's _Chronica_Majora_ that depicts a banner bearing a cross with slightly flared ends. Paris's _Historia_Anglorum_ from the same time per...

Derian le Breton

Excellent, thanks Robert!

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Cool. Looks like I'll be just across the road (Three Bears, N17). I'll have five gallons of tudor small ale that I'll be carting around during my brief visit to war (just the middle weekend). Hopefully we'll run into one another!

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Cool!

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

If you can point me towards period canvas I would consider it, but money is an issue, as well as enough space to hang dry after events. I think I would be rather more heartbroken unfolding a tent to find mold/rot than suffering the innacuracy of materials that last better and are lower maintenance....

Derian le Breton

I haven't actually tried it yet, so I can't give anything more than a vague suggestion, but pressblech might be a technique to look into. You can get brass shim stock in a variety of thicknesses and I'm going to be trying positive dies out of cherry end grain and the negatives of a thermoplastic I ...

Derian le Breton

20 gauge (0.032", ~0.81 mm) is a good place to start. You may need a little thicker if you want to do super high relief.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Another term that might be helpful in your research is "mechanical gilding". Electroplating is obviously well past 1600. I suspect you will want to get the steel extremely clean after polishing. Like, pickled in acid clean. This appears useful (and talks about using this technique on steel): http://...

Derian le Breton

The earliest I've found is the early 15th century, in a manuscript by Jehan Le Begue, but it ALSO contains galls. "89 To make black water Take a pint of water from under the grindstone on which knives are ground and place it over the fire and throw into it a glass of vinegar and ii oz of galls then ...

Derian le Breton

Are you sure they're in the palace museum, and not the Archaeology museum (which is on the palace grounds)? I spent several hours in the archaeological museum and took hundreds of photos. Part of the collection in the same building as the slight medieval segment (a grand majority was ancient materi...

Derian le Breton

Are you sure they're in the palace museum, and not the Archaeology museum (which is on the palace grounds)?

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Not exactly what you're looking for, but I'm quite fond of "The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England", by Barbara Hanawalt.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

"harnois de jambes" translates to "leg harness."

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Copper alloy armour! So weird!

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Perhaps it was intentional, rather than a mistake.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

I thought so, I remember reading a bit about that when I was younger. As I recall you need to neutralize the vinegar after though. I'm assuming a baking soda dilution, but do you have any advice in that regard? Not particularly. I did a baking soda dilution, and it worked quite well, my knife sheat...

Derian le Breton

Peter Baker wrote:Vinagroon is.... Vinegar and iron oxide, correct?

I used vinegar and a bit of steel wool (high surface area makes the reaction go more quickly).

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

I engrave steel regularly, and straight lines like this are quite easy and fast with practice. Do you do much work on highly shaped steel objects, like armor? I find that the difference between engraving a buckle mounting plate and engraving a knee cop is very great indeed. Not much, but some. It i...

Derian le Breton

Moneyers are usually shown sitting down while striking coins, often, but not always, on a specialized bench.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Why not use a graver? The original idea was to try to determine how they may have done this. Indeed. :) The errors made with a graver, and the character of the lines is wrong. I assume you are referring to the overcut? If this is cheap armour (as you refer to below), I suspect they wouldn't care ab...

Derian le Breton

Why not use a graver?

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/593/22678967622_7690a74ca2_c.jpg nik by Derian le Breton , on Flickr From big fat half groats, to itty bitty coins again. Small coins are cool. :) New coins for the King of the Midrealm, based on Russian medieval "wire" kopecks, with a rather beat up penny for referen...

Derian le Breton

This one looks external http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/novgorod/NovgorodMus235leatherCutWork.jpg It is hard to tell though, as leather does not survive history very well, mostly it is the fittings that exist. I'm not sure I agree. There appears to be the remains of a folded edge just inside of the ...

Derian le Breton

Values given in l. (livres) and s. (sols or sous), pounds and shillings by any other name.... Not exactly. The ratios are the same (20 sous per livre), but generally the Pound Sterling was more valuable. In 1464-1526, the Pound Sterling was 8.5x more valuable than the livre tournois. -Derian.

Derian le Breton

I'm not a herald, but this might be useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_ ... s_of_birds

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Robert of Canterbury wrote:for Michaelmass this weekend,

http://pbsn3.pbworks.com/w/page/100389741/St%20Michael

Lovely work! Your technique continues to improve nicely.

What kind of stone is that?

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

jester wrote:If you want some historical button examples (metal buttons) the portable finds scheme database is your very good, and very slow, friend.

It's SO MUCH BETTER than it used to be, and even more better than it was before that (when they released giant PDFs once or twice a year).

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Does anyone here know anything about what finishes they actually used on furniture in the 15th C? Wrong time period, and not furniture... but in On Divers Arts, Theophilus instructs one on how to use Linseed oil mixed with cinnabar to "redden doors." There is also a varnish recipe which is basicall...

Derian le Breton

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/488/19135668738_9df48500b5_z.jpg 1 by Derian le Breton , on Flickr https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/324/19323262595_6cedcea15e_z.jpg 2 by Derian le Breton , on Flickr https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3687/19135632210_fcd04771dc_z.jpg 3 by Derian le Breton , on Flickr Super s...

Derian le Breton

Gocauo wrote:
Derian le Breton wrote:Something like three or four hours, I think. I don't really keep track.

-Derian.
Yeah...I'd have *way* more hours than that invested...

My first coin die took me something like 20 hours.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

Did I miss what you are using as coin blanks? Totally depends on the project. I have done pewter, brass, fine silver, sterling silver, billon (20% silver), aluminum... Aluminum is by far the cheapest (<$0.02 / blank, pre-made), but of course it's not a period metal. Pewter is the next cheapest, but...

Derian le Breton

Baron Conal wrote:How much time do you have in that so far?

Something like three or four hours, I think. I don't really keep track.

-Derian.

Derian le Breton

My first half-groat in progress...

11356175_10153412948333919_1632913925_n by Derian le Breton, on Flickr

-Derian.

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