The Armour Archive

hi guys im new to the forum and these are my first pieces of armor (a pauldron and simple vambrace) made of 16g mild steel. i haven't done the refining touches yet. please try not too be to critical but any advice is appreciated. although im having trouble with the picture uploader for more then one pic so i'll just post it separately for now until i can figure out what im doing wrong...

Welcome and well come to the Archive, Antigoth. May your stay with us be long and profit you much -- and I think it's going to. You are setting forth to run with some big smart dogs here. Some of them may be a little snippy at times, but all of them mean well. Meanwhile, you're going to learn a lot, and fast too, particularly if you keep beating on metal while not being afraid to totally pester us with questions. We're here to be pestered, and we like to go on and on about our hobby and obsession. Which is which depends on the guy. Even a few gals, particularly Audax, who does leather and mail especially, and Tasha and Karen, who keep us honest about fabric and sewing. Didja know some armor can be sewn up from cloth -- and look genuine? -- because it is? Just not as shiny as steel... let me not forget teeny tiny Robin, a femme fighter about half my weight and three quarters my height, who battles in the SCA.

A great many armor making questions have their answers inside one vital book which we really like: Brian Price's Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction: the Fourteenth Century. There are some editorial booboos in it (Brian can't spell Higgins Armour Museum any too well, and the editor didn't catch it either), but it is packed with serious armor how-to for the early era of plate.

For dishing a large piece like the pauldron main plate, you'd do nicely with a dishing form and a heavy hammer, using a rounded edition of a hammer face for bigger, smoother curves.

As you've noticed, a scattershot smattering of hammer hits with a ball pein leaves a lumpy appearance -- the infamous bag-o'marbles look. A heavy hammer with its face filed or ground to a smooth curve, then sanded even smoother with emery cloth down to about 600 grit (get this stuff from an auto place in the auto body aisle) will do you well.

It doesn't even need to be a hammer per se -- a 4 to 6 lb dumbbell weight will do the job. Get the plastic coated kind with the ends that look like giant aspirins. Strip the plastic coating off the end you hammer with (it'll tear off anyway under the pounding), grab hold, and whonk on your metal like a cave man.

A dishing stump is nice to have for this, but you can make do with a bare patch in the dirt, which will beat down into a depression when you hammer the metal on it. A sandbox will do as well. Expect more scratching of the metal than a stump would give.

A chunk of wooden fence post would work well as an un-hammer too. Drive vertically with it imitating a pile driver. You may want to attach some nylon webbing or leather straps for driver handles.

It's actually kind of convenient you had to break these up into separate threads for each pic and piece. Allows concentration.

What kind of tools are you working with? I see evidence of at least one ball pein hammer, and didn't you curve those edges of the lames with use of an anvil's face (or that of a suitable substitute to bash on)? That's good work.

Cleaning up your cut edges will be essential to making your work look good rather than "Mad Max and in the dark." The piece goes in a vise and you file and draw-file on its edges until they are neat. Then go to forming your pieces. Start your file collection with a half-round mill file, for the most talent in a single item. Add others as needed. Get a file card with your first file, too; there's nothing like it for getting metal filings out of your file's teeth.

This site has a lot of articles you can read and ask Q's about.

i only used one ball pein for the whole piece but i pounded out a shallow "dish" into a big section of ashwood and sadly i dont have a beverly shear or other nice cutting tools so i used a chisel and hammer to cut them out. and thats all the tools i used for these projects. thanks for all the great advice its helped a lot i only just started learning a bit about armoring so what you said helped a ton. thanks!

Try taking a grinder wheel to the edges before you attach them all together.

It's better than my first piece of metal armour. I'll give you props for jumping into a piece like this with all of the compound curves and articulation, but you might want to start with elbow cops first.

Welcome to the armouring club.

Welcome to the Archive Antigoth!
For a first try I have seen worse. If you are serious about doing more work,this book is a wonderful resource:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158160 ... 1581600984
Good luck and keep the photos coming.

With what he's just tried, elbow cops are going to look easy. Though the devil's in the details.

A knee cop's bigger and blunter curve can be dished in one piece. To get a properly shaped elbow it has to go deeper and sharper than dishing can give in a single piece, though two dished halves brazed or welded can do 'er.

Antigoth, to see the difference, bend your knee tight and look at it: big round bluntness. Flex your elbow tight and look at that: this shape is more acute and conical, maybe conical with a rounded point. Knee cops and elbow cops look pretty different while being related. Fans may be in one with the cop metal, or riveted on afterwards, or left off entirely. Depends on the piece and on the era.

Redrook, please mouse over the URL button to see how to shrink that Amazon URL to something manageable, and make the thread easy to read.

thanks for all the help guys!

Not bad for a first piece.
You have an eye for 3-D shapes.

I would say... like Red, et al. has mentioned.
More dishing, planishing and attention to the rough edges.

You have a stump... this is good.
Perhaps you can make a planishing ball stake out of an old trailer hitch ball.

Grind a two pound sledge hammer rounded on one end, it's the dishing hammer I use.
I also use rawhide hammers to finish up the dish.

Hal

Split-head rawhide mallets such as Garland Mfg. makes are the tits for moving metal into smooth curves. Their size 2 or size 3 are popular with armourers.

Split-head weighted mallets

A deeper dish into your ash dishing block will help you get deeper curvatures. Most wooden dishes don't go deeper than the full depth of a circular saw cut, which is one of the usual tools to make the dish shape, using a slow, careful plunge cut with a spinning sawblade.

A couple feet of junked I beam or railroad track suffice nicely as anvils. They can even be torch-cut into rough anvil profiles, which are good for reaching into stuff for hammer work of various kinds.

if all you have for cutting is a chisel dont fret it, but read this post http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=47054

Beyond that ask listen and learn. By the scope of your first projects you've definately got the tenacity and drive to be a good armour.

The only helpful piece of advice I can offer, is to take a look at Arador.com for help with the dishing hammer and various other interesting tidbits.

Also, if you ever want some different tools, you should drop Halberds here on the Archive a PM (he gets raving reviews), he has a list of tools on Pitbull's site.


Not much, but all I can offer

thanks fof all the helpful hints

My advice would be for you to watch all of Eric Dube's videos on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SgtViktor

And welcome to the archive! Happy metal pounding to you.

I'm new to but dis is da place to learn armouring........enjoy your time here.

Since you are doing everything by hand, if you can't afford a good angle grinder, get yourself a good file set. It may not be as quick, but the results are very satisfieing and you have less chance of screwing up and grinding off too much material.

Get bastard and a smooth single cut file set, and a double cut round file. Single cut has parallel rows of blades, and double cut has the criss cross blade pattern. Stay away from rasp files, they are useless for doing clean work in metal.

A few rules about files...

1. Put a handle on it if it has a tang. You'll control your work better and won't risk stabbing yourself through your palm.

2. NEVER pull the file against it's cutting edge. Most people use files like they are saws, dragging them back across the metal before starting the next cut. BAD! This action sulls the fine cutting edge of the file and ruins the tool.

Only put pressure on the file in the direction of the cut. Pick the file up off the work and move it to the start of the next cut that way.

3. Get a file card to clean your files after use.

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