The Armour Archive

Looking for advice on Measuring, shape, design, construction, tips, tricks, recommended tools/jigs, do's and dont's for making an SCA legal Bar grill.

Welded, riveted, or cut from a single piece of plate?

Welded type It's worth the money to use anti spatter spray and clean the welds.
A file and grinder are useful to adjust fit and tune things as you go.
Expecialy if your going for a flat look instead of bars layed over each other.
"Big" bolt cutters are useful but shape the bars when they are longer before cutting them down.
Bending that little 4" section just right is a lot harder then when you have a 5' lenth.
Forms or bending jigs can help when your bending several pieces the same way.

If your doing anything fancy use some thing for a model or to layout your plan.
BigPipe cleaners, and heavy wire work well. I think it gives you a decent visual plan.

Pratice your welds first, tack things together and adjust before welding things together.
Just because it was set perfectly does not mean it will still run the same as when you left it.
Plan to run a few beads and tune it each welding session.

Use clamps and check your spaceing after each bar. I like T shapes made from fender washers screwed on 7/8 plastic rod Some use 15/16" . As long as the bars aren't to hot.
Work from the top down if you need to replace a bar its a lot easier if its on the bottom.
Take your time being in a hurry will lead to ugly welds when starting out.

More elaborate jigs and templates can be faster if your makeing a lot of the same item.
I see this a lot with basket hilts and Helms Like those on eBay listed every week.

Clamp your helm down if your grinding and avoid the coarse wheels.
The faster it removes material the more likely to grab, or remove to much.
Die grinders or dremel tools with carbide burs can work between bars.
Or you can just use a small cold chisel and chainsaw file strips of sand paper also work well.
I prefer the shop rolls or plumber rolls if available. its bit more money but they last longer.

If it's your first, don't have any part of the bargrill fix to the inside of the helm. Especially if you're welding. You want any impact on the bars to be transferred to the outside of something else. If bars are fixed to the inside of your helm, and your attachment isn't 100% solid, there's a chance of a greatsword popping one of those bars loose and driving it into your face.

Also, I'll tell you that I've done all my barwork in the last decade with a gas welder. It takes longer and requires much more skill. But the end result is cleaner (often doesn't require cleanup at all to look decent) and I'm a lot more comfortable with butt joints on bar work that are gas welded than electric welded. With a little skill you can get filler rod to flow into the cracks and then heat it up to weld it solid. Fitting bars that were cut with a bolt cutter isn't as big a deal when you can carefully and exactly puddle up just the right amount of metal to fill those voids.

Jigging the spacing of the bars is a good idea.

I tend to make a frame first and fill in from there. PLAN your bar locations based on eye level so you do not place a bar right in view just because the math works that way. Build from eye level out to the top and bottom (if horz). For vertical builds it is important not to have bars that obstruct the direct view of an opponent at normal fighting distance. It will block at some distance but human stereoscopic vision can ignore it for the most part.

Try to plan to not end up with a thin bar spacing at the top or bottom as well. It looks like you ran out of room when you have to throw an extra bar in at the top/bottom to make it SCA legal. Better to adjust the frame size or between bar spacing to even them out.