Thank you, Konstantin, it is appreciated.
And while I can ride, the theme of the Big Day is trending towards Art Nouveau rather than d'Art Moyen âge.
And, as promised, here are pictures of the current state of affairs. They were hastily shot, I'm afraid, but should provide a fair frame of reference.
First up, gauntlets.
As can be seen, the majority of the steel pieces are in a final, polished state. The brass pieces are coming along. The most troublesome pieces are, unsurprisingly, the roped brass cuffs that encircle the wrists. Its a combination of no heat source and too large of tools to raise the details...I need to pick up a smaller jeweler's hammer for that. Barring that, however, these are more or less ready for assembly.
Following that are the greaves.
These have been largely untouched since I updated them oh-so-long ago, other than cleaning up the surface and waxing to prevent rust. Progress on these are on standby until I get my welding mask back. Additionally, plans to build a small raising forge are in place, which would make the finer details on these vastly easier to achieve.
Final project on the table is a refurbishment of what should have either been loaned out, or shot.
Don't let this image fool you. It was taken from the absolute best possible angle that hid as many flaws as it could. When I bought this helm, it could have easily fit a 30" head and left room for 2" of padding. A potato would have mistaken it for a slightly rusty cousin. The panels were vaguely dished, then welded together. I ripped out the old yellow foam liner that was glued to the interior. Upon removal of that, I discovered a heavy caking of rust to the inside; it had not been painted before the foam had been glued in. After much burning, cursing, grinding, and eventually sandblasting, the majority of the rust had been removed. A few cracked welds were repaired and reground. Believe it or not, the worst of the dents were removed and the dishing on the panels improved. Then, in an effort to shrink this boat to a size that my shoulders couldn't fit into, I cut a swath out of the back of the skull and began reshaping it to possibly fit a human instead of an ogre.
Until I get my welding mask back, I can't do much else to it yet. I actually need to remove more metal from the bottom third of the skirt to suck it in even further, but I need to weld what I've already cut before doing any more shaping. Even once the helmet gets to a reasonable state, the grill will then need to be rebuilt to fit the smaller size. I'd probably be better served just to cut my losses, toss this, and build a new helmet from scratch, but I'm stubborn and this is practice for...something. A lesson in perseverance, perhaps.
More often, it looked like it was a roughly chiseld line, describing the nail. But, extant fingertip lames are also a lot shallower than these pieces.
Thank you very much, Glaukos!
), and along with that came a restructuring of schedules for the new year. What this means as far as shop time: I'm going to be able to make it over to the shop once a week now, instead of once every one to three months. 
That is a very stoutly made bargrill -- I'm impressed. The welder seems to have known his business. Again, being stubborn -- I'd go after the welds with a rattail file and smooth them, blending them into curves from one bar to the other.
