The Armour Archive

A friend of mine asked me to put his Zweihammer Val6 together. (He doesn't need it in a hurry as he recently purchased a pretty from Icefalcon.) As I went through the parts, making sure nothing was missing, I noticed that the rivet holes seemed a bit.. huge.

Now, every rivet I have ever set has been fitted snug. Hole being the same size as the rivet, usually within a few thousandths. But these are more than just naked eye different. They're Stevie Wonder naked eye different.

Are the holes always about 1/16th bigger than the rivets in these kits?

Yup! And you will be quite thankful for the slop as you try to get all of the plates to line up just right. No one EVER shapes all of the plates exactly as the original armorer. You could undersize all of the holes and drill them out to a close slip fit... but that would be a pain for different reasons.

Don't worry the rivets are longer then necessary and will squash down and fill the space creating a rigid connection with no difficulty.

Sean

Ok, that makes sense. My normal way of thinking was "If they don't line up right, you ain't done with the hammer yet"

But I suppose it's also handy as each rivet allows for about 1/16th of an inch of wiggle room when fitting it to different melons.

Yeah, ditto what Sean said. It should be a fun build, though. I enjoyed mine. I even got another kit to make a helm for my son.

Yes, I learned from the first few production runs that making the pre cut rivet holes only a 32nd over had the students match drilling more often than I was comfortable with.

Some of the least experienced stopped trying to line them up at all and started drilling through paired holes almost half a hole off, which set up the next part to fit even worse. Loosening up the tolerances proved more forgiving, so did only allowing a class of 15 access to one drill motor.So I have erred on the side of loose, with longer rivets to fill the void.

I have two more helm kit patterned and ready, waiting for sufficient capital to offer them. I am considering only providing the top plates with all the rivet holes undersized, with only one matching hole, or a pair, under to align. Then let the assembler match drill them all for a tighter fit up. I have observed ten people each shape the same exact spangen panel, with access to the same set of hammers, forms and stakes ending up with ten different parts with different final dimensions, this makes kitting a challenge.

I do hope the larger rivet holes are not making things too difficult.

wish you offered more versions of the valsgarde kit,like no holes and possibly kits of 75% of the kit,just the top cheeks and back.

Oh, no, it shouldn't be difficult, I just wasn't thinking things with the right mindset. I looked in the bag and was like "the fuck..." and grabbed the calipers.