The Armour Archive

Thomas Powers

Cheaper than I expected when I looked it up (for a limited interest scholarly work that a few folks would kill for!)

Thomas Powers

Just saw mention of this posted on the Archeological Metallurgy list server: There is a new book on medieval pewter craft. It deals with the 450 stone casting moulds, excavated in the old town of Magdeburg, Germany. In two volumes.: Der Magdeburger Gießformenfund: Herausragendes Zeugnis handwerklich...

Thomas Powers

Road trip!

Thomas Powers

Wood ashes are a fine abrasive containing a bit of lye. Rubbing them on a greasy blade and rinsing works too. (I am of the reoiling persuasion as my blades don't tend to be in constant use.)

Thomas Powers

Modern propane tank valves for smaller tanks often have a "runaway" stop to prevent tanks from emptying if a line is cut or it's opened without anything connected to it. Gas forges that have a high flowrate by design can run into issues with this. Opening the valve slowly can help if you have a tank...

Thomas Powers

The basic problem is that there is not one thing that does it all, (Though Oxy-Acetylene is close; but expensive.) Heating can be done well by Oxy-Propane with the correct torch to use it---a gas saver helps too. For blacksmithing may I commend to your attention the massive amount of expertise over ...

Thomas Powers

Does your skillset include working real wrought iron or will you be using a material available after you can buy blue jeans at stores? I strongly suggest you work with modern materials; at least for the first go around!

Thomas Powers

Hey are you still in Southern New Mexico? I'm in Central NM, exit 156 on I-25 and get down to Las Cruces fairly often to check up on my Mother. I'm a smith rather than an armourer and a scrounger so I keep running over stakes and armour tool preforms---like there was a fire near here and 6 Oxy tanks...

Thomas Powers

Vulcans are the "Ford Escort" of anvils as such they do no merit Lamborghini prices. Their best feature is that they are quiet anvils going thwap when struck rather than TING! TING! TING! Of course better louder anvils can be made quiet too with proper mounting to the stand. They are made from cast ...

Thomas Powers

That book on India is a tad jingoistic, but has some interesting parts as they did a lot of "weird stuff" in that Region. Treat it like using research from the 1930's in Europe, read it for the facts and ignore the "Patting ourselves on the Back" parts. Can you ILL it and see if you need your own co...

Thomas Powers

Re Zinc: Scott; have you read Biringuccio's chapter in his Pirotechnia (1540) on colouring copper? Also metallic zinc was known in India centuries earlier than the 17th century using a distillation process where the zinc fumes were cooled in a reducing atmosphere yielding an impalpable powder of met...

Thomas Powers

Me too, I've wanted to make a Byzantine Chandelier like I saw in a Museum exhibit in Munich back a decade or so. It is a horizontal metal lacework suspended by chains holding multiple funnel shaped oil lamps. Unfortunately while my house has a room with double height and a hook connected to a beam S...

Thomas Powers

The Observatory I worked with, (NRAO ALMA project) was for radio astronomy, 16400' in the Andes. I never was at the high site after dark but the low site was really pretty at only 9000': coal sack nebula, southern cross, greater and lesser Magellanic clouds. (Had to get a heart stress test to go to ...

Thomas Powers

Out here many if not most events have an absolute ban on fire including lighting that doesn't have an on/off switch. This has bugged me a lot. With the current down time I decided to make a chandelier for my campsite that uses the LED votives. Here's the first go at it. Still needs to be tweaked. No...

Thomas Powers

I make super hacksaws by mounting a piece of bandsaw blade in a bow saw frame, punching the holes in the blade a bit closer together to get more tension. You can get quite wide blades doing it this way. Also the blades used in powered hacksaws are still available and tend to be much wider and a heck...

Thomas Powers

Fumes from stainless fluxes can be quite TOXIC too.

Thomas Powers

Pity you remelt them; they look like excellent ones to use when you offer cups of coffee with a spoon already in it...

Thomas Powers

Just saw this referenced on a blacksmithing forum: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/59648

I was surprised when they said that the lorica Segmentata was much more flexible than chain mail....?

Thomas Powers

Note that I've had good luck carving details into oilsand molds to deal with imperfections. Green sand is a bit more fragile.

Thomas Powers

Of course it was probably not painted with tempera paints for rust prevention; the standard base would have been a drying oil like Linseed oil.

Thomas Powers

As I recall Theophilus mentions it WRT things like book mounts mentioning that the plain dark colour was good for ecclesiastics. The Dover edition translated by Hawthorne and C.S.Smith (A big name in historical metallurgy) can be found over at abebooks.com for under US$10. Circa 1120 CE; it's one of...

Thomas Powers

IIRC, "A History of Western Technology", MIT press had a long discussion about a "red metal turner" in renaissance Nuremberg that kept inventing better and better metal lathes and getting squashed by his guild. BTW I've always used "smelting" for making metal from ore and melting or foundry work for...

Thomas Powers

Woods found in Texas appropriate for the use if not for the authenticity would include hickory/pecan and to be really egregious Osage Orange!

Thomas Powers

Not at home to check but looks a bit like the Wallace Collection Catalog to my eye. I'll check this weekend and post on Monday.

Thomas Powers

When did they start using mercury as a treatment for syphilis? pharmaceutical-journal.com mentions: "Mercury was the remedy of choice for syphilis in Protestant Europe. Paracelsus (1493-1541) formulated mercury as an ointment because he recognized the toxicity and risk of poisoning when administrati...

Thomas Powers

Has anyone tried making stake holders by taking thick walled square tubing and tapering it by forging? Probably need to do a final drifting to size but we taper a lot of pipe in blacksmithing by forging it square and then tapering it (and re rounding if needed). I may have to try this, though I don'...

Thomas Powers

Wish you were closer; the local scrapyard had 6 tanks come in after a fire! We used to get them from a place that did hydrotesting; failed tanks had to be "destroyed". Then I moved 1500 miles to a rural area...

Thomas Powers

Did you mean tempering it rather than annealing it after it was quenched?

Thomas Powers

It was funny; I was reading a bit of a California travelogue written by a Russian in 1891 and they mentioned things; like how in a town of 3000 people everyone want to stop and talk with them to hear the news from out of town. They missed a path and had to stay overnight with a farmer; etc. (The far...

Thomas Powers

Early traders used pack trains rather than carts/wagons and they stayed in use centuries past the middle ages in places with poor roads or difficult terrain. I've read about them being used in England in the 1700's in places. There is also a big difference between max speeds and typical speeds, don'...

Thomas Powers

Have you factored in the speeds of travel? Sounds like a multi year project for her... Have you researched how many concubines Charlemagne had *while* his 5 marriages were going on? To do this right you need to do a lot of research on the period and areas involved. You seem to have a quite modern mi...

Thomas Powers

Would her name be Jael? Viking/Carolingian times were pretty rough. You would need a good reason to be out travelling and going in a group would be pretty much the norm. Have you read some of the laws regarding prostitution in medieval towns? Not a good choice! Perhaps a pilgrimage? Not as common at...

Thomas Powers

I find the basic premise a bit off. When visiting a village it would be quite common for everyone to know everyone else by sight and a large number of the people living nearby. Riding up alone on a horse and doing nefarious things with perhaps children following the "stranger" around? (One reason fo...

Thomas Powers

Anybody still using welding tank bottoms?

Thomas Powers

Inns in viking era? Lady on horseback wandering around without a retinue?

Re: Pewter stuff...

Re: Pewter stuff...

Re: New Metropolitan Musem bequest promissory

Re: Steel Tableware

Re: Which setup for heating and welding?

Re: Which setup for heating and welding?

Re: Kastenbrust project

Re: Sky's Blog

Re: Thoughts on this anvil/tools listing on Craigslist?

Re: Looking for rivets

Re: Looking for rivets

Re: Fiat Lux!

Re: Where does one find soap stone?

Fiat Lux!

Re: Where does one find soap stone?

Re: Welding Advice

Re: Pewter stuff...

Lorica Segmentata find in Germany

Re: Pewter stuff...

Re: Technique of blackening armour using cow or goat horn

Re: Technique of blackening armour using cow or goat horn

Re: Pewter stuff...

Re: Anyone recognize this page of polearm makers Marks?

Re: Anyone recognize this page of polearm makers Marks?

Re: Element Differences between Nobles and Commoners

Re: Scott Martin Visited, Now I have More Stuff To Do!

Re: Dishing Forms

Re: Hardening and blackening a 15th C Sallet

Re: Question about horse "parking" in the early Middle Ages

Re: Question about horse "parking" in the early Middle Ages

Re: Question about horse "parking" in the early Middle Ages

Re: Question about horse "parking" in the early Middle Ages

Re: Question about horse "parking" in the early Middle Ages

Re: Dishing Forms

Re: Question about horse "parking" in the early Middle Ages