Some new tools, and a new project - hourglass gauntlets

[Jason Grimes]

Keegan - Those are looking very nice. Are you going to have a knuckle rider?

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Mac - thanks for the link! I very well may have to treat myself. And in the meantime, I'm going to reprofile my makeshift gravers with the tool's axis in mind.

Thanks Jason! They have knuckle riders made and waiting to be installed with the fingers, yep. Here's an older pic that I took that includes them.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Resurrection!

I had a spare day at the house, following a tornado that tore through our area last night, and I was sick of these partially-finished gauntlets staring accusingly at me on my desk.

Following a bit of clean-up around the property, and a couple tuckloads to the dump, I got into the shop-shed. After taking some time to clean up my tools and my work area a little, I finally made some progress on the gaunts...first time since October.


The brass on the left has now been engraved, and waxed against corrosion. Sorry the image isn't clearer; the wax has made the polished brass look very clouded. It'll be cleaned up after final assembly.




In addition, the fingers for the right gauntlet are about half-assembled.




Finally, I was able to rivet in the leather tabs on the right gauntlet. After that, the rain started up again, and I closed up shop for dinner. I hope to head back out to the shed later this evening, to try and finish up the fingers.





At this point, I've come to a decision on these. I was so bogged down looking at the errors, I was making no actual headway on these. So, I'm going to focus on just getting these finished, and take what I've learned from the process to make the next set better. It'll be nice to just have these all in one piece.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

More progress on the fingers for the right gauntlet.




After attaching the gadlings and main lames, I went back and tapped each knuckle to taper them. I have Mac to thank for the idea, over in his Dusting off the Cobwebs thread. It greatly improved the overall lines of the fingers, in my opinion.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Snagged a few minutes this evening before the dark and the rain coaxed me back inside. I took the opportunity to document a fix to a problem I've been avoiding.

I had initially punched the articulation rivet for the left thumb too far out to the side, as you can see here.




To better illustrate the issue with this, here is the position this forces my thumb into.




In comparison, here is my normal grip.





So, my solution for this problem was to punch a new articulation point to rotate the thumb to a more comfortable position.





After filling the old hole with a countersunk rivet, I filed and sanded the face smooth to hide the error. Hey, just adds to the authenticity, right?

[Halberds]

Very nice gaunt progress pics thanks.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Thanks Hal!

Oh, forgot to mention. Probably about 20 minutes of work tonight moving the articulation point. I also marked the second arc on the thumb's trunk for the other rivet. If I still like it tomorrow, I'll go ahead and get it punched and filed.

Last night was split between cleaning up tools, and working on the gaunts...Probably about 10 minutes for the wiggle work, 15-20 minutes riveting in the leather tabs, and about 3 hours on the fingers. It would have taken less time, but the finger lames had to be cleaned up and repolished, and the brass gadlings needed their edges trimmed and filed, their outer faces polished, and their shape tweaked. Also, riveting speeded up considerably once I found my correctly sized drill bit, and didn't have to widen the diameter of each rivet hole with a needle file. If I'd had it from the get-go, I probably would have saved myself at least an hour from not having to file the holes wider. My knockoff Whitney punch didn't have enough clearance for the lames; it would flatten their shape before it would punch the holes.

Also worth mentioning, I think. All the holes had their outer faces counter-sunk slightly, so as to give the peened rivets a better chance to grab hold.

[Mac]

I have a trick for you, KI.

This is the 3/32" punch set I use for putting holes in finger lames and scales. I have ground the face of the die so that it will not deform the lames. This is easy enough to do by hand. You just have to be careful to leave a small area around the hole unground. Sure... this weakens the die a bit, but that's just not an issue in this context.

You can also see that I have taken some metal away from body of the tool where the die is threaded in. This is for finger lame clearance as well.



Sometimes articulated finger lames will get cocked and stick on the punch when I try to remove them from the tool. This leads to frustration, bad language, and deformed plates. For those, I have made this cheesy little "stripper". (sorry about the focus)



The stripper gets inserted between the work and the body of the tool. It functions by supplying a surface to pull against that is only just barely wider than the punched hole. It also "takes up the slack" between the work and the punch body. This is important if you are punching an articulating hole from the outside of a lame. Without the stripper, a small lame would bear against the bottom of the tool body while the punch was retracting. This would make it cock on the punch and probably spread open as well. It might even endanger the punch. You mostly don't need the stripper, except for the smaller lames.... and then you really need it.



Mac

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Hey, that's a great modification! Thanks for the trick, Mac! It'll be interesting to see the difference in assembly time between the left and right gauntlet fingers after this.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

A little further this evening. I decided I was okay with the placement of the second arc on the left thumb, so I went ahead and punched and filed it. This time, I was much happier with the orientation of the thumb.




The orientation is almost ideal, for my normal grip. So, I riveted in the thumb. I accidentally over-peened one of the articulation rivets, so I freed it up a hair by tapping on the peened head with a center punch.




So, for this evening, both gauntlets have their thumbs in place. Once the leather tabs are in the left gauntlet, it will be up to speed with the right.




Total time tonight, with punching, filing, test fitting, riveting, and tweaking: about an hour.

[Kristoffer]

I accidentally over-peened one of the articulation rivets, so I freed it up a hair by tapping on the peened head with a center punch.

This should go in The Little Book Of Tricks for armourers.

[ManOnFire68]

Wow. amazing thread and tutorial!

[Mikhail]

THIS thread convinced me to register. MORE please!

bumpity.

[Signo]

Welcome, there are plenty of thread like that already here just to discover. One is called "the making of a suit in picture", another is "dusting of the cobwebs".
Then your life as you know it will cease to exist.
Welcome.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Welcome, Mikhail! Glad you're enjoying the build, and thanks for bumping the thread. I thought I had updated this recently, but apparently I had rolled the update into another project I was working on. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=139024

I had noticed that the wrist portion was too tight to fit my hand through once the glove and padding had been added, so with great trepidation I cut them open.




That issue taken care of, I tried my hand at a project that has stymied me a couple times in the past; the brass decoration for the wrist. I wanted a roped decoration, and for one reason or another it never worked out. The first time, I had too much brass, and too large of tools. The second time, I had thin enough brass, but still didn't have exactly the tooling necessary to pull it off. Today, I tried to work around the lack of tooling, and ended up cracking the brass piece halfway through. Fed up with my dalliance with insanity, I stepped back and made myself some tooling to help make this phase of the project possible.





The initial corrugation laid in successfully, I annealed the piece to hopefully prevent any cracks from forming further into the process.




Then, I worked each ridge over a tiny little ball stake to turn the flat corrugation into rounded roping.




There's more work to be done to further round out and deepen the roping, but here's how they currently look.




And a shot of one after a little bit of work with a file and the wire brush.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

And I thought the gap between posts on my other thread was embarrassing...

Pulled these bits and pieces out of the storage container today. Going to try and get these finished up in preparation for the overall harness build.
Before I'd put these into storage, I had coated everything with a generous layer of paste wax. This worked admirably well, with only some mild tarnish to the brass and a few pinpoints of rust on the steel after 4.5 years.

Moved ahead with finishing up the roping for the cuffs. Just about 3 to 4 hours of quality time with me and the needle files...


(click for full size image)


Painful and tedious, but it sure laid the groundwork for a nice finish after buffing.


(click for full size image)


From there I cleaned up the rest of the gauntlet body, riveted in a few leather tabs for sewing, and got one of the two brass cuffs riveted in place. I need to trim the other brass cuff to length tomorrow, and then I'll get that one riveted in as well.


(click for full size image)


After that, the next step will be to begin assembling the fingers for the left gauntlet. Everything is ready to go, so hopefully that won't take much time.

[Mac]

Allrighty! It's good to see you pick this project back up!

Mac

[Scott Martin]

Guess I should provide some photos and a build description for my gauntlet fingers

The most useful piece of advice I can offer is to make sure that you countersink your rivets, because you really don't have a lot of room for rivet "bumps" on gauntlet fingers. I now cu the plates, punch the holes, countersink them and THEN curve the plates, since this gives me more "countersink space" than if I shape and then countersink.

Scott

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Guess I should provide some photos and a build description for my gauntlet fingers

Any additional information is appreciated! Even if it might be too late in my build, anyone else who comes across this project will benefit from the knowledge.

The most useful piece of advice I can offer is to make sure that you countersink your rivets, because you really don't have a lot of room for rivet "bumps" on gauntlet fingers. I now cut the plates, punch the holes, countersink them and THEN curve the plates, since this gives me more "countersink space" than if I shape and then countersink.

Now, see. THAT information, right there, would have been really useful. I do countersink the rivets, but it never occurred to me to do so before shaping the plates.


Got the left brass cuff trimmed and riveted on during my son's naptime.


(click for full size)


I then went to pull out the fingers to begin assembly for the left hand, and discovered that when I bagged them up, I hadn't had the presence of mind to wax the pieces.


(click for full size)


Ughhh...at least I had labeled the pieces, or I would have had a real challenge. I will say, some of these pieces show how much a highly polished surface can resist rusting, even when bagged up and in contact with other actively rusting pieces.

So, instead of assembly, I got to spend some more quality time with my wire wheel. I'll need to bring all the pieces back up to a final polish before I start assembly, or I won't be able to reach everything.


(click for full size)


Hopefully I can get that done this evening, so tomorrow I can focus on assembly.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

After digging through—and subsequently organizing—four boxes of materials, I've come to the conclusion that my pattern for the leather strips for the fingers got thrown away at some point. Most likely during the final mad dash of moving out of the old house.

So, I drew up a new set of patterns based on the leathers that I've already installed on the right fingers.




After that, it was just some quality time reacquainting myself with the buffer...put on some music, pulled up a stool, and polished for about 2 or 3 hours.




I've still got the finger tips and knuckle bows to polish, but everything else has been brought back up to a full finish. Also, having learned my lesson, all of the newly-polished pieces were coated with wax before I shut down the shop for the night.




I would have gotten farther this evening, but my shop assistants were really laying down on the job.

[wcallen]

We generally aimed for pretty flush rivets on our finger plates. Sometimes we really cared and cleaned them up to be almost hidden, often just pretty flush.

I finally have something that applies:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-236.html
Those heads aren't very carefully done.

I expect that a modern eye would insist on something a little less lumpy, and a little more intentional looking.

Wade

[Keegan Ingrassia]

We generally aimed for pretty flush rivets on our finger plates. Sometimes we really cared and cleaned them up to be almost hidden, often just pretty flush.

I finally have something that applies:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-236.html
Those heads aren't very carefully done.

I expect that a modern eye would insist on something a little less lumpy, and a little more intentional looking.

Wade

I love all of the anatomical details that went into those to make them work; the domed areas on the lames, the tapers to allow clearance for the knuckle flexion, the longitudinal taper to all the plates...I had done some of that to my plates, but looking at these it's clear that I could have been much more aggressive with it, and ended up with a better product overall.

No progress from me this weekend...I was laid up with a 3-day migraine. Taking it easy today, but maybe I'll be able to get out to the shop this evening to finish polishing those last few pieces.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

No picture, sorry, but the pieces have been polished and waxed, and all of the left-hand finger lames center-punched in preparation for drilling.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Alright, now I've got a picture. All the lames have had their rivet holes drilled and deburred. Next will be riveting to the straps, which will bring the left gauntlet pieces up to speed with the right.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

All the leather has been marked and punched for rivets. All 14 (2 extra for a thumb tab) rivets have been hand filed to remove flashing and oversized tips, and annealed to prevent splitting during peening.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Stopping here for the night. Everything is ready to get clipped and riveted. I might trim the leather for the pinky, but otherwise everything went together very smoothly.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Another hour, another step forward.

Finger lames have been riveted. Also filed the heads to better match the shape of the lames, then planished, and walked the pieces through buffing and polishing again to even up the surfaces.




The next step is the knuckle gadlings, but before I attach them, I'm going to alter the profile of the openings that sit over the lames. At the moment they're smooth arcs, but that causes some odd gapping when they sit on top of these peaked lames. On the right gauntlet, I had filed the openings of the brass gadlings to a shallow gothic arch, which made a much better marriage between the pieces.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Work has been crazy, wrapping up the year. Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Knuckle gadlings have been attached. More importantly, the knuckle riders have been fitted, articulated, and bolted into the gauntlets. This took a little longer than I expected because both knuckle riders required quite a bit of alteration to get a decent fit...something must have changed from when I initially created and fitted them. They need to be trimmed, and then the next step will be to attach the finger strips to the knuckle rider, I suppose.

The step after that should be an exciting one — I'm going to attempt a small inward roll to the cuff edges, then begin work on the broad brass band for the cuffs.

After that, I'll have to snag a new can of leather glue; my old one has solidified into a hockey puck, and I want to glue my felt padding along the back of my gloves before I start sewing them in.

[TLantMagnus]

Awesome! What a thread.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Glad you've enjoyed it, Magnus!

With the opening of the Spring semester, work has had me swamped, but I've managed to steal ten minutes here and there to tinker on these. I went ahead and got the inward roll finished on the cuffs this evening. With only 1/4" of material, these were some of the more fiddly rolls I've attempted. My respect to those of you who primarily build later pieces, where inward rolls are more common.

Here's the initial pass to set the line, bringing the edge over about 45 degrees.




This was about the limit of the chisel-edge stake I have...edge is just about 90 degrees. A dog-leg stake would have greatly simplified this stage.




From there, I switched from a broad, flat-faced hammer to a mushroom-headed one. I primarily worked almost straight down on the inside edge, between 0-10 degrees, in order to upset the metal and coax it over into a roll instead of a fold. From there it was a familiar process to close up the roll, though working on the inside proved a much tighter area to effectively hammer. I found myself sticking my elbow out like a chicken wing to try and get the proper line of attack, more than once.




All in all, they didn't turn out too badly, and I'm happy for the additional support they'll lend to the edge of the cuff. Compounded with the brass border over the top, (inspired by these early 15th c. gauntlets from the Met: viewtopic.php?p=2837923#p2837923) they should hold up rather well.

[Mlanteigne]

Very nice!!! It is shocking how much structural/shape strength a rolled edge gives.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Thanks Mlanteigne! Agreed; definitely worth the time and effort (as long as there's historical precedent).

Began patterning out the brass for the cuffs; I'd done this a long time ago, but figured I should make a pattern off the newly-shortened cuffs and avoid putting myself in any unnecessary trouble.
Also unbolted the knuckle riders and trimmed them down flush to the metacarpal plate, then finished off the leading edge with a slight bevel.




I'm a bit torn on the brass cuffs; while I technically have enough brass to make them out of a single arc, it will eat up both sheets I have on hand...with a great deal of wasted material. However, if I were to piece the cuffs together—say, in three short arcs—I could be much more economical with my material. Though that does introduce an additional challenge of matching the pieces up without gapping. What's more, I've never seen an extant gauntlet from this period that took this approach to its decorative border.

[Johann ColdIron]

You are doing a great job on these. I really like the wrist brass.

Why not make the cuff strips straight and work them into the appropriate shape? Looks like you already have annealing down so it should not be too bad of a job.

I doubt a Medieval worker would intentionally use up sheets by cutting arcs when straight can do the job. Or they would have had the rest of the pattern pieces take up the negative space when laying out all the shapes at once.

[C. Gadda]

Can you find other uses for the brass sheet to mitigate the waste? Esp. since no extant gauntlets are built this way. Historical accuracy, given how perfect every other detail is on this project, would be my ultimate deciding factor.

Alternatively, perhaps shop around for some brass stock that is more suitably shaped, to minimize or eliminate waste? McMaster Carr, for example, has a fairly wide range of raw materials available in all sorts of sizes, and dedicated metal suppliers might have even more choices.

[wcallen]

Mac showed his process for bending straight strips of brass into fitted borders in his PDB thread. He seemed to get very good results.
I vote you give it a try. Should add to the fun. And save a lot of material.

Wade