The Armour Archive

RalphS

How much does a drill bit cost? And a sixpack of your favourite drink? How much do you want to suffer from lack of drills with hundreds of holes to go? Buy a stack of the drills, and go for the 45 minute lifetime. High speed, enough coolant/cutting fluid, ease up on the feed if you want to take thin...

RalphS

A BBQ with regular charcoal should do fine. Heat until the rings are red hot. If you're doing this outside in sunshine, you won't be able to see the colour. When at red heat, just let them cool by themselves. There's not much you can do wrong here. If the rings won't get red hot, cover the whole thi...

RalphS

SEK 45000 is about 5000 euro/5500 US$. And I'm sure it will do cold work very well too! [img]http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

RalphS

If I translate "air hammer" to its Swedish equivalent "lufthammare" I get this really nice toy I wouldn't mind having in the shop: http://www.bryneselosmide.se/ No connections with the guy whatsoever. Just a nice tool that beats Halbers' little toy [img]http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

RalphS

Pro: steel becomes as soft as lead at red heat, even softer at yellow heat. Have you ever tried to bend a 16 gauge piece of lead? You can almost dish it with your fingers. Con: can't do that sort of thing with just your fingers on a red-hot piece of steel. Summary: definitely recommended to use heat...

RalphS

This type of articulation became popular when armour was losing its prime purpose of providing protection in battle. It's rather an expression of the skill of the armourer and the wealth of the wearer. But in a tournament with e.g. a limited number of blows per participant I think it would still fun...

RalphS

I've not had a chance to handle more than one (probably) period piece, and one 18th or 19th century replica, both on display in the Delft Armory in the Netherlands. (m and http://www.astro.lu.se/~ralph/pics/tmp_pics/scanned/Delft/SAVE0024.JPG, with apologies for the focus...) The replica was well-ma...

RalphS

Drills, saws, files, dremel, even homemade files for ye odde profile.

RalphS

[img]http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/images_gr/19093_c.jpg[/img] Is it just picky-old-me or is this helmet cracked and lumpy and uneven? When I try to make stuff like that (haven't got too much experience sofar...) I do a lot of fingertip feeling and check the profile from all directions aga...

RalphS

Forget about taking the alcohol out. Besides being close to herecy, the result is horrible. Play around with honey, applejuice, spices, and try to get that great taste this way. Now to good mead: Patience! And then some more patience. I never make mead below 10% alcohol, wine strength. I don't know ...

RalphS

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> A *REAL* armorer would make his own..... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Been there, done that, got the stamp! http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile.gif Heat treated tool steel, it works great, I mainly ...

RalphS

... gender? ... most of the sizing I do is done by feel. You're really asking for it, aren't you? http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/wink.gif There is some kind of a "standard" for taking body measurements, described in ToMAR, a whole chapter dedicated to i...

RalphS

Oval, dimensions around 5 by 3 m (about 17 by 10 feet). Something like the second last one, but with nearly straight walls.

Except for colours and some proportions, it's pretty close to the right tent in the last picture on http://midtown.net/dragonwing/gallery.htm

RalphS

At an angle... Sounds like forging related. Is the angle close to either the way you placed the blows on the blade, or the blade on the anvil? If so, then it's most likely forging at the wrong temperature. If you have another chance to forge on that piece, do the following (after having ground a tip...

RalphS

It's the most common way of carrying a ballock knife, tucked through the pouch. Just open any book with pictures of regular men doing their outdoor activities, you should be able to find a few. A good one is e.g. Les tres riche heures de duc de Berry, the January illustration: http://humanities.uchi...

RalphS

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Harold the Bear: Well skipping the wetting agent is not very wise you get a 1/32 penetration without it. [...] The wetting agent gives you a much deeper penetration. <HR...

RalphS

O-series steel should be hardened in oil, that's what the O stands for. 10-series steel should be able to survive a water quench though. In which direction are the cracks? The reason for cracks can be many, quenching is one of them, red shortness another, and just plain improper forging technique a ...

RalphS

There are more types of armour than just parade and munitions grade (obviously). I've seen fully functional field armours, complete with all the bells and whistles, including the occasional sword mark. If you're out on the field leading your army it's important to make a good impression on them. And...

RalphS

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Harold the Bear: What do you subsitute with? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Kilos for pounds, liters for gallons... Just kidding! I think "Dawn" is the same as "Yes" here in Sweden, ...

RalphS

It works all right. I had to make my own adaptation of the mix because of the lack of US ingredients here in Europe, but it still worked. You probably know the sound of hot metal being quenched. With this mix, it literally screams. If it doesn't scream the mixture has probably gotten too warm and th...

RalphS

I'm about to receive around 85 m of canvas any time now, and start on my new tent. I already designed the thing, taking proportions mainly from the golden section, but also strongly influenced by plenty of 14th to 16th century pictures, and one 17th century turkish tent, now in a museum in Stockholm...

RalphS

Only a few weeks ago I was at a lecture on meteorites, and the pet project of the lecturer was chemical composition of the metal. Meteoritic iron is basically a chip of single crystal. This is something you generally don't want in good steel, where you want crystals as small as possible. Next thing ...

RalphS

Has anyone looked into the typical size and shape of rivets in extant armour? I'm particularly interested 15th century, but would also like to know something about the general development before and after that century. On extant armour, how could one tell whether the rivets are original or if they h...

RalphS

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>It would be nice if some entrepreneur-ial spirit with a CNC lathe would produce the ideal dishinghammers - one that had a spheric strikingface corresponding to spheres of say 20 and 50 cms <...

RalphS

The emphasis of the book is on modern techniques, if you're interested in how they did things 600 years ago I'd say it's not worth the money. I bought the book a while ago, read it with pleasure, and even now occasionally pick it off the shelf. But it's mostly used by an armouring friend of mine (da...

RalphS

Oven and plenty of time, double temper minimum. I've played with low-temp salt baths as well, but never implemented any shop-worthy set-up. I will, some day

RalphS

Reminds me of: [img]http://www.jula.se/img/bilder_230/123000_b.jpg[/img]
For sale by mail order or off the shelf for SEK 1495, or about 175 US$. Haven't tried the thing yet, but intend to visit the shop with a piece of 2 mm steel to try it out.

RalphS

Interesting. Got any more links about the color filtering properties of the eye and brain? Its an interesting topic. Just a few more words about human vision, things I picked up along the way but which are hard to find good references to. The human eye ca...

RalphS

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by lorenzo2: That would be by weight in the English system and mass in metric. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just wondering, in the relatively constant gravity potential which we have ...

RalphS

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Jean Paul de Sens: Strange. I've always been told that it IS definitive. Items that are x degrees emit photons of y wavelength. huh. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's tru...

RalphS

An anvil is nice to have, but not necessary. I've heard a rule-of-thumb maximum price for used anvils is 1 $/lb. Your first anvil will be hard to find, but after that you'll stumble over lots of them for very reasonable prices. I have four of them now... I mostly use them for blacksmithing, for whic...

RalphS

Good looking piece, Jason! Evil, since you asked the question, be prepared for the answers! http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/smile.gif Raised from one piece, with separately attached neckguard: [img]http://www.astro.lu.se/~ralph/pics/sallet_2.jpg[/img] This one took about 70 hours of work, about 10 ...

RalphS

No, it's very unlikely that metal foil cracks. Once it's below a certain critical thickness, it will either rip or just stretch. Could be wrinkles...

That's how I think that helmet-like-object is made: take metal foil, undersized pieces, assemble, inflate a balloon inside it, deflate balloon. Voila!

RalphS

I've seen sallets with nice etchings or engravings, just limited to a few bands in strategic places. In "Ritterruestungen" (original title "Il convitato di ferro") is a picture of an italian tournament helmet with crest. The picture doesn't show much of the helmet, it's dated to 1450-1475 and could ...

RalphS

Chuck, keep us updated on the progress there! Signo, raising will give amazing control over the shape. If one can avoid cracking, with raising it's possible to take a piece of sheet metal and make it smaller and thicker if one chooses to do so. Or turn it into a seamless tube, or just about anything...

Tent design

Typical size for period rivets?