The Armour Archive

raito

I can't wait to write about it. Things got busy. Comtemplating a sidestep jnto the weapons.

raito

The Armour That Never Was: Somewhere along the way, I decided I needed something better than that red/yellow thing I was using. After all, I was older, done with college, and making at least some money. The late period solid plate armours never held much interest for me. Japanese armour is all abou...

raito

IMG_0737.jpg This was my first 'real' armour. Sadly, only the dou remains. The plastic piece got added along the way when I stopped being 150 lbs. soaking wet. The waxed leather was cut out using an exacto knife on the floor of the apartment where I was living. As the place was being renovated, I d...

raito

This will probably end up in several installments. It's a bit of a story though my own armours and how I came to be where I am. Most of the installments will have pictures. But not this first one. I started doing the armour thing because I started fighting in the SCA way back in 1977 (I was 15). For...

raito

Not exactly armour directly, but given the subject matter, it fits here better than in Off Topic. I just don't recall seeing any word of this here. Sad to see the factory shut down. Happy that we can still gets parts, blades, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1f_cMc3SA https://www.youtube.com/w...

raito

In my last post in this thread, I outlined my worries for myself. At my last physical, they gave me a memory test. I got 19 of 20 only because it was presented as a story problem and I was waiting for math that never came. Doctors probably think I'm worrying for nothing. Still not as sharp as I'm us...

raito

You're in the process of doing more than that, aren't you?

raito

The time has come to sell it. Since I got the press, it sits unused. I did pop the bearing caps to see how the bearings are holding up, and to clean and re-oil them. They're not perfect, but have a lot of life left. No motor, but you'd want something that works in your electrical setup anyway. Conta...

raito

The usual suspects all got old and have lives now. Including me. But I'm functionally retired and may take on a project or two in the near future. I have my own shop, to be sure. Still trying to get organized in the new (hah, 10 years old now) house. Henry helped move all the heavy stuff in. Looking...

raito

Say hey to Denis Gopan when you see him.

raito

I like how it's listed under cycling.

raito

I did my lower legs using plaster bandages for the negative and cement for the positive. I didn't wrap my legs in anything and I had no troubles with hair sticking (and trust me, I would have). It was a bit uncomfortable when the bandages got exothermic. One thing to note is that it'll take a lot mo...

raito

What's the diameter of the bar you're drawing?

raito

I would not recommend using aluminum, unless you have some you know will dish without cracking. For my daughter and her friend, I found a wire holder for a pair of stainless dog dishes and used those, but that was for a younger division. A lot less work, though.

raito

Just the thing if I was headed to the Underverse.

raito

https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/samurai-the-way-of-the-warrior/ This exhibition came to our city last summer. I took pictures. They can be found here: http://raito.com/samuraiwayofhtewarrior/ Nothing fancy, just a dump of what I got. But I did try to get pictures o...

raito

Bungees on bowling balls are for the weak. And it's not hard to dish an elbow out to a correct depth. The key there is to not only push on the middle of the piece. When I sold amrour, elbows were probably what I sold most. I'd run a pass of dishing across the length, and another perpendicular to tha...

raito

Probably not going again. My wife dislikes it a lot. And it's no longer my war.

raito

4-point chin straps are far better than cruder versions.

raito

I often use one. My most useful tools are: A bowling ball and a ratehr thick piece of fairly high durometer urethane. A bit from a farm tractor connector thingy (looks like a ball with a hole through it), and a piece of pipe with a round piece of fairly hard urethane in it. I use these a bit like ex...

raito

Hey Mikael!

I work with Denis. He says hi. Kinda freaked me out when he asked if my wife was at Gulf Wars. He just knew we did SCA and she was in MS.

raito

T6 is a heat treat, not an alloy.

raito

And this month I've seen parts of Labyrinth several times on Comet.

raito

If you wanto to see it under another perspective, try this: A customer want a thing done for him, instead of hammering just a piece of metal for him, you stack 3 or 4 , you sell your better piece to the customer and the other off the shelf, if you sell them, they are almost free money as most of th...

raito

Mykaru (not Myraku as you have spelled it -- think Michael pronounced Japanese) was Black Hydra Armouries. And as I recall, no longer in business to the general public. Hasn't been on since June.

raito

Building around safety glasses has been done. Master Giles has worn ones built that way since the early 80's. I do somewhat disagree with Sean on tools, though. Serviceable Japanese face armour can be made minimally using a set of ball peins and a vise to hold them. My first so-men was made essentia...

raito

Profit? Yes, I turned a profit the one year I was pro. That was the year I was done with college and looking for professional work. Got rich? No, but I kept body and soul together. Investment capital? Don't know, never tried. Possibly could have, given the documentation generated during that year. S...

raito

If you've ever bounced a soccer ball off your head, you might think it's no big deal. But pro (and even higher non-pro) soccer players really make that ball move. 60-70 mph is not uncommon. There's video of Pat McAfee, a recently retired NFL punter and college soccer player getting 124 mph. And a vi...

raito

Well, my other season is done for the winter. But I'm still looking at various coaching materials from sports that have multiple billions of dollars at stake. And here's one taken from a video of a classroom session for D1 athletics. There's 4 kinds of skill. We all have them in greater or lesser am...

raito

I figured that they just applied more labor to the problem. I've etched (in a non-armour context) with liquids using a brush or similar. Very controllable (which was good for my projects) but took a very long time.

raito

Baron Eirik wrote:Ran across this today

I'll bet the area under those curves is pretty close to equal.

It's not the maximum that perturbs me, it's the slope of those curves.

raito

Well, don't that stink. I have stories from my time down in Texas, too.

raito

I'm getting a sense of deja-vu here...

raito

http://pbsinternational.org/programs/se ... ng-knight/

Ric tells me he is making the material and Jeff is doing the armouring for this.

raito

Sideways to the topic... When I played HS football, our school had: 3 freshmen teams 2 sophomore teams (the school team, and the city league team) 3 junior/senior teams (varsity, jv, and jr/sr city league) They'd divide all the freshmen who wanted to play into teams. Sophomores had to try out. Good ...

Re: My journey through armour.

Re: My journey through armour.

Re: My journey through armour.

My journey through armour.

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