Greenwich Buckhurst armour

[Kristoffer]

If I ever get close to this armour in person, make sure you guard it well because i will try to lick it. If it likes me, things could even go further then that.

[Mac]

Looking splendid, Chris!

Mac

[Gerhard von Liebau]

Just superb, Chris! I was thinking the other day about how things might be going with this project, but failed to get online to check... Looks like I came around just in time for the update! I'm really excited to see how the components will look when all displayed together. I assume that all of the actual armouring must be completed?

-Gregory

[Chris Gilman]

Mac,
Thanks

Gerhard,
Yes, all of the pieces have been completed, the etched areas are all in sunken areas and some of this is still being finished.

[Tom B.]

Looking great Chris!

Here are various Hemp Tape & webbing suppliers I have found
Hemp Tape & Webbing
Hemp Tape
Hemp Tape

[Chris Gilman]

Looking great Chris!

Here are various Hemp Tape & webbing supplier I have found

Splendid, thank you.

[dr.charlemagne]

Incredible. What is the procedure for removal of the copper residue? I am surprised the shellac and asphaltum are miscible. No solvency problems with alcohol and mineral spirits? Also, perhaps this is a dumb question, have you tried a pre-plate flash with nickel or something under the gold? Isn’t that usually recommended for gold over steel ?

[Chris Gilman]

Incredible. What is the procedure for removal of the copper residue? I am surprised the shellac and asphaltum are miscible. No solvency problems with alcohol and mineral spirits? Also, perhaps this is a dumb question, have you tried a pre-plate flash with nickel or something under the gold? Isn’t that usually recommended for gold over steel ?

Thank you.
No copper residue, charcoal is the trick.
Yes, the asphaltum and shellac resist being mixed, but they do eventually "get along". I'm looking for a better alternative.
Not using alcohol or mineral spirits
As noted a couple of posts back, nickle is added before Gold using "Woods nickle strike" @ 7volts

[Indianer]

Hello Chris, thank you for the gilding guide!

May I ask: The black background colour. It has a far deeper black than my oven paint (the one I put on my forge). What is it?

Best, Indi

EDIT: Oh, you used the "Rustolium/Rust Oleum High Heat paint", right?

[dr.charlemagne]

I got the impression it was a hot salt gun blue

[Chris Gilman]

The black is Rustolium High Heat paint
The blue is bluing salts.

[Signo]

This is really a fine artistic and research work. Now I have to go to find my jaw that just fell somewhere under the desk.

[Chris Gilman]

Thanks.

[Otto von Teich]

Fantastic work!

[dr.charlemagne]

Chris,
It would be my guess that the paste would retain activity better with longer etching times if it was prevented from drying out with a covering of plastic food wrap or something. Did you try anything like that?

[Chris Gilman]

While I have not covered it with "food wrap" I have experimented with keeping it moist, and yes it does help. The older paste with the charcoal added works better.

[Chris Gilman]

A couple of updates:
First parts of the Garniture done.

Gauntlets are finished.
16th century leather gloves made by Karl Robinson










Legs have been gilded and blued.
Here are some of the pieces fresh out of the oven.



I had some issues with setting the my industrial convection oven (we bought it to heat plastic for forming spacesuit helmet visors) to the correct temp, and as a result I "burned" the right greave. So, I had too clean it down to bright steel, re gild it and reblue it. (PITA)
In the end, the legs came out pretty good.





For assembly, I have some hardware to make. Turn pins, swivel hooks and pins, buckles and straps.
For the buckle, It turns out there are only 6 straps on the armour, and I have 6 original steel buckles (I'm guessing early 20th century reproductions) from the Met, that had been used on 1950"s movie armour. These are the same style of buckles used in the reconstruction of the Scudamore Greenwich armour at the Met. So I'll gold plate them and use these for the suit. If it turns out I need any more, I already have a mold on them to make waxes. The straps will be velvet covered and edge bound with 24k gold wrapped thread. I lucked into some antique silk velvet and gold thread.
The other hardware I started making and installing on the legs.
First hardware to make are the turn pins for the cuisse / greave connection.




Second piece of hardware are the swivel hooks or sneck hooks.
I need 6 for the greaves and a couple for the helmet.
I made a tool to form the hooks and it went through a few modifications.
Here is the first step- Tapering pins.
These turned out to be some alloy of steel and after heat, they got extremely hard, I ended up breaking 3 of the five test hooks. I switched to black iron wire for the others, which was smaller in diameter, so I had to swedge the "heads" to get more material to make the flat swivel / washer section.

Pins & Flattening side of the tool, with a tapered groove to make the transition from the "washer" to the shaft of the hook.



The flat washer section flattened.



The flattened area punched for the 1/8" rivet, sitting on the flip side of the hook tool. It has a hole for an 1/8" pin for the pivot. A 3/16" pin for the first bend and a 1/4" pin for the second bend, into the curve.



The pin ready for the first bend. Because of the thickness (and the hardness of the test pieces) I used heat to make this bend on all the hooks.



Here is the finished second bend (I have removed the 3/16" pin after I formed the second bend) Because of the hardness of the test pieces, I used heat on all bends, but with the Iron wire, this was not needed.



Once I switched to the iron wire, all but the first bend could be done cold, and in fact, the bend around the 1/4" pin was done by pulling the hook stock with pliers, around the 1/4" pin and then using the flat of a hammer to just press the hook stock along the remaining curve. My original tool had a lever with a roller that I had planned to use to perform this operation, but I drilled the 1/4" pin hole too close to the edge, causing the curve of the hook to be concentric with the inside of the hook, not the outside. Because the hook stock has been tapered, the roller would need to be on a different center. If I had a lot of these to make, I would have remade the tool, but instead I just removed some material so I could form the hook along the surface of the tool. (If you look at the tool in this final shot, you can see where I removed material)



I made far more than I needed so I could pick the ones I liked.

[Scott Martin]

Thanks for this Chris (and Mac, and Jeff) - while I prefer the 15th century esthetic, this harness is gorgeous!

Thanks for your "tutorial" on the sneck hooks - I have a few of these to make for sallet closures, and yours turned out very nicely. My original plan was to pierce these (with a jewellers saw) out of 14-16 Gauge sheet and then file the "hook" part round - this is a much nicer methodology (and final look). Some of the hooks n the middle row are really quite fine!

What thickness of iron wire did you use for the final hooks? I was considering carbon steel (I have some 1070 and 1090 bar) but given your experience I'll stick to something decidedly low-carbon!

Scott

[Rene K.]

nothing to say, simply phantastic!

[Chris Gilman]

Thanks for this Chris (and Mac, and Jeff) - while I prefer the 15th century esthetic, this harness is gorgeous!

Thanks for your "tutorial" on the sneck hooks - I have a few of these to make for sallet closures, and yours turned out very nicely. My original plan was to pierce these (with a jewellers saw) out of 14-16 Gauge sheet and then file the "hook" part round - this is a much nicer methodology (and final look). Some of the hooks n the middle row are really quite fine!

What thickness of iron wire did you use for the final hooks? I was considering carbon steel (I have some 1070 and 1090 bar) but given your experience I'll stick to something decidedly low-carbon!

Scott

I think you want these to be a bit malleable so you can tune them.
I used iron wire from McMaster-Carr , it was .148 in Diameter. This it the stuff I used. https://www.mcmaster.com/8870k71

[Mac]

I usually start with 20d finishing nails. The extra material in the head gives me just about enough to make a pad for the rivet hole.

Mac

[Chris Gilman]

You had mentioned the nails and I considered it, but I'm cheating a bit here by sanding the taper on my pins, not hammering them out. Using the nail, I can't hold them in my drill chuck without some type of collett. Which just occurred to me may work fine with a dremel 1/8" collet.

The cutting out of the hook seems to be one approach taken on some of the (I assume replacement) hooks on the Buckhurst armour. There is only one hook I have found on the Buckhurst that looks original, (uppermost on the right greave) and that is the one I was coping.
However, in looking at the ones I made (after a day or so) I think I'd make the straight section off the washer a bit longer, say 40 to 50% longer and the first bend closer to 90 degrees, so the hole and shaft line up a bit closer to the center of the curved hook.

[Scott Martin]

Chris, that's really useful info - I had simply assumed that you hammered these out (and were a Greek god of hammer consistency) - turning these on a drill press and filing the material down seems much easier!

I think that I'll need to try both methods and see which one works best for me - the 20d nails will have fairly high carbon, but should remain "soft" enough if I let them air cool instead of quenching. (Mac, is this your methodology? have you had any issues with brittleness?)

Scott

[Mac]

----- the 20d nails will have fairly high carbon, but should remain "soft" enough if I let them air cool instead of quenching. (Mac, is this your methodology? have you had any issues with brittleness?)

Scott

I think you'll find that the nails are relatively low carbon, but cold-drawn to make them stiff. In any case, I flatten the heads using a torch, and have had not problems with brittleness.

Air cooling is always a good idea when the carbon content is uncertain. I once had some hot rolled rod become too hard to drill when I quenched it: which I did because I "knew" that it was mild steel and it would not harden

Mac

[Chris Gilman]

Chris, that's really useful info - I had simply assumed that you hammered these out (and were a Greek god of hammer consistency) - turning these on a drill press and filing the material down seems much easier!

I think that I'll need to try both methods and see which one works best for me - the 20d nails will have fairly high carbon, but should remain "soft" enough if I let them air cool instead of quenching. (Mac, is this your methodology? have you had any issues with brittleness?)

Scott

Specifically, I chucked them in my cordless drill and held them against a disc sander.

[Scott Martin]

Thanks Mac (and Chris)

I've actually used nails to make chasing chisels, they have enough carbon to heat treat, but don't get brittle enough to shatter (I only tempered the ends. not the striking end). This might be an issue if I chased as much as Ugo, but it's been long enough that I don't even know where I put them...

I'll stop the thread hijack now and eagerly await pics of the complete harness!

[Chris Gilman]

For the 2 or 3 of you that are still following the "Sistine" (taking forever) armour project, here is some of the recent work:

I made up the straps for the legs using some buckles I recovered from old movie armour which seems to have been made by one of the armourers from the Met. These buckle copies (cast in steel) are from one in their collection, it appears these same reproductions where used in the restoration of the Greenwich, Scudamore armour (Currently on display at the Met.)

This is the original 16th century buckle in the Met's collection



Here are the strap components I made up, using the old reproduction buckles (which I have gilded)






The completed legs, with their silk velvet linings, pickadils (Made from antique French velvet ribbon) and silk velvet covered straps.



I also finished etching and bluing the arms.

Here they are fresh out of the oven


I have temporarily assembled the arms with #5 screws. The oven I'm using is an industrial convection oven, but it still has hot spots. The temp needs to be with-in 5 degrees of 290 c. Too cold and the parts are purple, too hot, the blue is a lighter shade (a bit grayer) and gold plating discolors. The arms got a little hot and so I have to re-plate some of the gold.



The decoration (etching, gilding & bluing) involves 40 steps for each plate:

Greenwich armour Decoration steps (after heat treat)

1. Polish with 400grit greaseless compound
2. Polish with white “stainless” compound
3. Pattern sunken areas for artwork with masking tape
4. Scan masking tape patterns
5. Draw or modify decoration artwork (on computer) for unique areas of the plate to be masked.
6. Cut vinyl decoration masks
7. Weed vinyl & add peel cover
8. Clean steel with acetone
9. Apply vinyl’s to steel plates. (Figure 8, wavy and vine patterns)
10. Adjust vinyl, trim overlaps
11. Clean surface with alcohol & window cleaner
12. Add dots and any missing artwork (averages 100 dots per inch of decoration)
13. Let dry 10-15 hours
14. Mix paste batch let sit for 3 hours, remix
15. Apply 1st paste batch- let sit for 2 hours
16. Remove paste
17. Apply 2nd paste batch- let sit for 2 hours (fix dots as needed)
18. Remove paste - rinse with water & dry
19. Apply 3rd paste batch- let sit for 2 hours (fix dots as needed)
20. Remove paste - rinse with water & dry
21. Apply 4th paste batch- let sit for 2 hours (fix dots)
22. Remove paste - rinse with water
23. Clean off vinyl decoration masks and dots (very hot water and soft metal scraper)
24. Dry part and remove large area masking
25. Assemble part to check artwork alignment
26. Power wire wheel etched areas (from all four directions)
27. Thoroughly clean with acetone, window cleaner and alcohol
28. Paint black paint (Rustolium high temp black) onto specified areas (let dry for 12 hours)
29. Wet sand etched areas with 2000 grit paper removing over-paint
30. Mask areas not to be plated, with nail polish (dots and edges)
31. Electro clean surface to be plated (Heated to 160 degrees F.)
32. Rinse with distilled water
33. Nickle plate
34. Rise with distilled water
35. Gold plate
36. Strip nail polish masking with acetone
37. Tape off plated areas with masking tape
38. Re-polish areas to be blued
39. Put in oven at 290 Celsius until correct blue color is achieved then remove
40. Spray with surface protectant.

Part is ready for straps, linings & assembly

Here is the size of the dots needed. (and the ones shown here are a touch larger than the original)
These are added one at a time with a needle bottle with a 27 gauge needle. (McMaster-Carr PN-1902T341)
I was using nail polish, but recently, I have switched to a marine paint made by Duralux (purchased - Home Depot-online)
The paint seems to be more durable (against the salt paste) and flows better with the needle bottle than the nail polish.



I just finished etching the pauldrons and now I'm adding the black painted background (step #28) then on to gilding.

I'll re-plate the gold on the arms once I have my plating equipment set back up. Then I have to assemble the arms and pauldrons, which involves lining the pauldrons and adding pickadills.

Edit: I just realized in reviewing my post, I neglected gilding the sneck hooks and pegs on the legs. DUUHH! I'll have to go back and plate those as well.

[Chris Gilman]

Also, unless I missed it, I don't think I posted this video of the greaves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69whKzV3wQ

[Croquart]

beautiful!

[Gerhard von Liebau]

Hey Chris,

I hope you and Pia are doing well. I just decided to log in here and wander around a bit since I'm not on social media right now. The finished legs really turned out great, and of course the obligatory (yet often overlooked) velvet lining captures the essence perfectly. Very well done. Cheers!

-Gregory

[Ilkka Salokannel]

Hi Chris:

Beautiful work.

What are you using for surface protection?

Curious minds are interested.
Ilkka

[Chris Gilman]

[RWWT]

Beyond words. Amazing work, Chris.

[Chris Gilman]

Thanks

[Indianer]

From page 1, about the timing:

Did some new tests. I have made a few different batches of paste with the 5% and 50% vinegar and there is not a noticeable difference. I have tried 60, 90 & 120 minutes etches, as well as a few in the 4-6 hours range. It seems multiple 60 minute sessions are better than fewer longer sessions. The issue is the copper build up on the etched surface, which needs to be cleaned off between applications of the paste.

I guess this is no longer up to date? I kept meticulous account of your reports