The Armour Archive

Old_bear

Actually, I keep a bucket of water near by and when the piece gets hot, dunk it. Another solution is to glue leather shims to your pliers. Keeps the fingers from getting burnt.

A.

Old_bear

carefully....

:{>

Old_bear

Oh yeah, I'll be there.... I'm the Marshall in Charge. See you bright and early Saturday morn. Definitely, bring what you've been working on, I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Aaron / Valerius

Old_bear

I'm working the crease from the inside with a low dome, radiused edge hammer with a diameter of about 5/8" - on the edge of the bickhorn, which has a very small radius, maybe 1/16"-3/32", just enough so you don't cut into the metal.

I'll try to get some descriptive text out there soon.

A

Old_bear

Wulfe, I went into the shop tonight and started a step by step photo-shoot on a metacarpal plate. Here's the link: m This is photo heavy, so it may load slow. I haven't added any text / info yet, but this should be a good start. I've got some more shots of variant types of knuckle details, I'll try ...

Old_bear

Hey Folks, A hearty Thank You to everyone who made the trip to the meeting! I think we had an excellent turn-out. Especially, to all of the presenters,(Marc, Talbot, Brian & Randall) we would like to extend our thanks. I know I had a great time. Getting to meet more of the Archivers & put face to na...

Old_bear

Hey Folks, A hearty Thank You to everyone who made the trip to the meeting! I think we had an excellent turn-out. Especially, to all of the presenters,(Marc, Talbot, Brian & Randall) we would like to extend our thanks. I know I had a great time. Getting to meet more of the Archivers & put face to na...

Old_bear

William, That was a very nicely done techniques drawing. Here's the tip to all the aspiring armourers and crafts people; keep a sketch book, practice drawing the armour or whatever piece tou want to make. The process trains your eyes to see better the nuances of the pieces, to visualize the forms in...

Old_bear

Hey folks, I hadn't check this thread for awhile, so it's good to see people posting on this one also. To answer your earlier question, no, we are not charging a site fee. Bring projects you've been working on, to show off, there will be plenty of experienced folk for advice and critique. The aftern...

Old_bear

Yes, please bring projects to show off, work on and get critiques. It's one big happy family. We're all here to learn and share.

I'm looking foward to meeting everyone!

Aaron / Valerius

Old_bear

Yeah, I understand... my phrase, after seeing Roberto's works was: time to quit amouring and go pump gas... Very fine treatment, nice extrapolation on the gauntlets. This is the wonderful results of studying the forms long enough to play in the styles! A pleasure to see. Glad the tutorial was useful...

Old_bear

Signo, For a first pair, they seemed to have turned quite well. Overall your treatment and techniques look consistant and they look like a matched pair! I know for us, that was always a challange in the early days. As you get used to looking at the original examples and do further work, you will see...

Old_bear

Hello, Just in case we haven't said so already, EVERYONE is welcome! Please bring yourselves, the projects you're working on or the ideas for the projects you'd like to be working on! We will be teaching some specific techniques, but it's a good sized shop, so we'll be able to help with patterning, ...

Old_bear

Which is why after 20 plus years of building armour, I made for myself, my 1st PAIR of gauntlets.... (matched, no less) Do you know how many left hand gauntlets I've gone through and never finished the rights. Do yourself a favor, build them at the same time. Good luck, happy hammering! Aaron / Vale...

Old_bear

Brian,
Thank you! That will be great. We'll put you down in the agenda. Do you want morning or afternoon? I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip. Will both you and Eric be attending?

Aaron

Old_bear

Hello Archivists, A date has been chosen for the 2nd Midwest Armourer's Guild Armour-in! Saturday, April 3rd, 9:30-??? with a lunch & dinner break. Sorry for the short notice. We're still working on an agenda. The first half hour will be meet and greet. We'll jump right into demonstrations after tha...

Old_bear

Hello Archivists, A date has been chosen for the 2nd Midwest Armourer's Guild Armour-in! Saturday, April 3rd, 9:30-??? with a lunch & dinner break. Sorry for the short notice. We're still working on an agenda. The first half hour will be meet and greet. We'll jump right into demonstrations after tha...

Old_bear

Thanks for the input so far. Can you all do me a favor? Get in touch with folks you know, who aren't on the Archive for input also.

Start thinking about what techniques you would like to see demonstrated and let us know. We'll try to line up the people.

Thanks,

Aaron

Old_bear

Greetings, Cad has graciously opened his shop for Spring Armour-In. This will be a hands-on get together. I know that we're pretty late on this, but this has been a crazy season. We were going to try to set up something for April but all the weekends are pretty full of events or real life obligation...

Old_bear

Since Claude Blair's book is not in print, I would recommend this as a good armour primer.

Try looking on ebay, I've been able to pick up copies for around $20.

Happy hunting.

Aaron

Old_bear

We set ours up at approx. waist height, but there were people of different height using the dish. Recently, we added a large steel plate 3'x3' to the bottom and it keeps it from really walking around the shop. I stuffed mine with old burlap coal sacks to deaden the sound. As a side note, I also used...

Old_bear

Pedro,
Did you set yours up for armouring or just for smithing. Did you make any kind of sinking tools for it? Post some pictures of it!

V.

Old_bear

Greetings, Here's a link to a photo of a Great Bascint I built quite a few years ago. m It is built as a standard fabricated (3 piece) shell, with the lower flaired plates and the side pivot visor. The bottom edge of the visor fits under the top edge of the front neck plate and holds the visor down ...

Old_bear

I'd be a little careful with using that painting as reference. It's was painted as an allegorical scene. The helmets might be an early armet or they may be romanized bascinets, or some such treatment. The allegorical depictions either went to the fantastic or showing an older form modified to resemb...

Old_bear

Garreth, Here's a possible method for holding your klappvisor down. I've been mulling this idea around for a few years. These are some quickie drawings that I did tonight, I hope they are clear. http://home.earthlink.net/~old_bear/id15.html Basically, the hinge is held onto the bascinet and the viso...

Old_bear

Max, The felt padding that we're using has an adhesive backing and sticks pretty aggresively. The rivets do go through all the layers; the glove, the felt, the leather and the steel finger plate, however they are thin, flat headed rivets and when they are peened the head compresses up into the felt....

Old_bear

I'm going to wade in on this one... forgive the first part of this note - it's a rant, but it's appropriate. When I was doing this professionally (15 plus years ago), I used to give my patterns out for all that asked (and probably would still do it, not sure), with the rational that most people didn...

Old_bear

Try e-bay. I've been able to pick up 3 or 4 copies of it all for under $20 or so.

Since C. Blair's book is out of print, this is the book I'd use as a course book on armour.

Good luck,
Aaron

Old_bear

Nice score! It's got a great shape. Even if you can't get it repaired now, it'll be worth doing when you can afford it. It looks like the chunk that fell out was an old break, any how. Grind the face & horns down and have fun! Remember, the fewer dinks and booboos in your work surfaces, the less les...

Old_bear

John, Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner. I've had very good luck with the Wells-Lamont "Gripper" gloves. You have to add a cuff onto them, but the fingers are pre-curved and they are available in both cow and occasionally elk hide. I've been able to find them at Menards and I think Farm Flee...

Old_bear

If you are looking to get vervelles on a budget, used cotter pins. You'll need to anneal them, cut them shorter and use a tapered pin to support them while splaying them out and peening them. but they work in a pinch.

Aaron

Old_bear

The Midwest Armourer's Guild meeting this last weekend was a great get together! I'd like to thank Brian for organizing an excellent meeting. It was a good opportunity to faces to names. It looked like a good mix of beginners to experienced practitioners in attendance. People asked good questions an...

Old_bear

Yes, the plates on the Churburg breastplate are made separate, but the front three plates are riveted together, very much like sliding gussets. The rest of the plates are floating on leather. Boy, if he can find some footnote for another piece similar to the Churburg breastplate, that would be somet...

Old_bear

Actually, it looks like it's in thouroughly usable shape. It will require some clean-up. One end can be used as a smaller anvil face - it appears to only have grooves on one side. Clean up the edges also, there is quite a bit you can do with it. The grooves work well for making hinges. It looks to b...

Old_bear

If you are making stakes to fit an anvil, do NOT put a taper on it, it just needs to be square, the size of the hardy hole, with a small amount of play, with a shoulder to keep it from slipping further into the hole. Needless to say, permanently wedging a stake into your anvil isn't good. Good luck,...

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