Mac's blog

[John Vernier]

Hi Mac, when you say "homogenized" with 180 grit on a cotton buff, are you speaking of a greaseless compound like Formax Satin-Glo or do you mean a set-up wheel preparation or something else? I'm quite interested in the finishing methods you have been trying out, and unless I'm misreading it seems that you have been avoiding buffing compounds and perhaps the greaseless compounds in favor of Scotchbrite wheels/belts and wire wheel burnishing. The results look beautiful. Am I wrong about the compounds?

[Mac]

Hi Mac, when you say "homogenized" with 180 grit on a cotton buff, are you speaking of a greaseless compound like Formax Satin-Glo or do you mean a set-up wheel preparation or something else? I'm quite interested in the finishing methods you have been trying out, and unless I'm misreading it seems that you have been avoiding buffing compounds and perhaps the greaseless compounds in favor of Scotchbrite wheels/belts and wire wheel burnishing. The results look beautiful. Am I wrong about the compounds?

I'm using 180gr greaseless on a cotton buff to blend out the patchyness of the 320 wheel. A fine Scotchbrite flap wheel would work OK here as well, and I've used that in the past.... but my wheel is worn down to the hub and I can't seem to find a suitable replacement.

On these recent projects, I have only been using the greasless in the direction I want the final scratches to be.

The fine wire wheel blends out the unevenness of the greaseless.

Mac

[Mac]

The first step in assembly was to rivet some heavy leather "hinges" onto the underlapping edges of the flank plates.



Lining the parts up, I was able to mark the locations of the other rivets.



For a while, I had just presumed that assembly would start from the central plate, but then I realized that it would be much easier to make up the side assemblies first.



The circled holes in the leather are the ones which will take the rivets which also hold in the lining.



In order to get the cerntral plate ready, I had to rivet on the stop rib. I thought this was going to be easy, but it turned out that I needed two extra long round head rivets. The quickest way was to turn them out of some 5/16" round stock. Please don't judge me harshly for the wallowed out wrenching hole in the spindle protector. That's the way it was when I bought it. There's a neater hole (which I drilled) on the other side. On the other hand, if you want to accuse me of not sweeping the chips off my lathe, I must answer "guilty as charged".



The real one has flat head rivets on the upper ends of the stop rib, so that's what I did as well.



There is an interesting thing to be seen here though. On either side of the stop rib, there is a rivet in the row of lining rivets that doesn't actually do anything. If the went all the way through the lining, they would interfere with the sliding rivets. They are dummies on the real armor, and they are dummies on mine as well.



Four rivets complete that basic assembly. The two on the bottom are pivots and the two at the top are sliders. This is a feature that rarely (if ever) gets reproduced.



A view of the sliders. I should probably have used a rivet with a smaller head for the dummy, but it works anyway.



Here it sits, waiting for the lining.



Mac

[Galileo]

Do you have a pattern laid out for the lining, or will each piece get its own lining?

[Mac]

Do you have a pattern laid out for the lining, or will each piece get its own lining?

Behold the following post.

Mac

[Mac]

The first thing I did was to stretch the hide over the armor and pin it in place with spring clips. That's a 5gal bucket supporting the armor.



I wanted some way to mark the edges of the leather which would not be permanent. Sticking down strips of painter's tape was a nasty kludge, but it worked OK



Spread out flat, it looked like this.



I cut it out with a generous margin. Some of that is just to be on the safe side, but much of it will get turned under.



I knew this was going to be "fun" but I didn't know just how much. For each hole, I began by passing a sharp awl through a hole. The leather was usually backed up with a little chunk of end grain pine in the other hand.



Then I opened up the hole as much as possible with a long tapered awl.


It turned out that this will not make a big enough hole in the leather because it's so damned strong. In ended up grinding a crude point on each rivet so I could force them through the leather and into the hole in the steel. If one did this all the time, it would be worth a lot to have pointed rivets.



Once the rivet was insinuated into the leather, I usually had to give it a couple of taps with a hammer to get it to go all the way.



This pic shows all of the interior rivets in place, but none of the edge rivets. This marks the transition from the horrifying phase to the tedious phase.




All the edges needed to be trimmed and turned under as the rivets were put in place. I also needed to decide what happens at the various corners. On the extant armor, all the corners are pretty badly degraded and It's not at all clear how they were supposed to be handled. The only thing that was certain was the the straps ended up under the lining.

When it was all said an done, it came out OK, but it was a bigger pain in the butt than I expected.... and I did expect it to be a pain in the butt. I think I spent about eight hours putting in the lining.





I'll move onto the straps in a day or two.

Mac

[Sean M]

What kind of hide did you line it with? I would have guessed they use sheepskin or goatskin, maybe tanned.

[Scott Martin]

It turned out that this will not make a big enough hole in the leather because it's so damned strong. In ended up grinding a crude point on each rivet so I could force them through the leather and into the hole in the steel. If one did this all the time, it would be worth a lot to have pointed rivets.

Of course if you had used annealed roofing nails, they would have points already and you would have saved a lot of time PAss them through, trip to length and tappity tap. This is another reason I like roofing nails for anything coat-of-plate or brigandine like.

Scott

(Edit) Some wise words of advice from some guy I met at the hammer-in in Texas (he was hanging out with Wade Allen)

"If it's hard you are probably doing it wrong. Medieval armourers always did things in the easiest way possible".

That advice has made my armour *much* better. Now that I think about it, I seem to recall that the fellow's last name was Macpherson... (end edit)

[Mac]

What kind of hide did you line it with? I would have guessed they use sheepskin or goatskin, maybe tanned.

I started out thinking that a modern chamois might do the trick.... but no. The ones I bought were way to weak. This is a bit strange, because the last time I used chamois leather for a project, it was plenty strong. Now.. that was nearly thirty years ago, and the standard of the industry may have changed. Perhaps strong chamois is still available if you know the right words to look for in the description.

The skin I used is a deer skin that was tanned by David Meyer. I was pretty skeptical or the whole idea of traditional North American tannage.. what with the brains and smoke and all.. but it's really quite good leather. My only objection is that it was thicker than the original lining: perhaps twice as thick. That made it a bit clumsy to turn the edges under like they are on the real armor.

Mac

[Mac]

It turned out that this will not make a big enough hole in the leather because it's so damned strong. In ended up grinding a crude point on each rivet so I could force them through the leather and into the hole in the steel. If one did this all the time, it would be worth a lot to have pointed rivets.

Of course if you had used annealed roofing nails, they would have points already and you would have saved a lot of time PAss them through, trip to length and tappity tap. This is another reason I like roofing nails for anything coat-of-plate or brigandine like.

Scott

(Edit) Some wise words of advice from some guy I met at the hammer-in in Texas (he was hanging out with Wade Allen)

"If it's hard you are probably doing it wrong. Medieval armourers always did things in the easiest way possible".

That advice has made my armour *much* better. Now that I think about it, I seem to recall that the fellow's last name was Macpherson... (end edit)

Touché !

Mac

[dapmeyer]

It's really nice to see the leather being used in this way. Next time I can send you doe hides that are a lot thinner. I even tanned a few antelope that are REALLY thin.

Here are a few pictures of the process, for those who are interested:

https://buckskinpictures.shutterfly.com/pictures

I've been tossing around a question: why did CH13 have a liner in the first place? It makes it look more like a luxury item (like the latten trim), and could make it a bit quieter on top of the maille, but is there another functional reason?

David

[Keegan Ingrassia]

If the interior of the original plates were tinned or painted, the liner could protect it from the mail abrading it, maybe? With the original leather thinner, it's not likely there to act as any sort of reinforce or additional puncture resistance...

[Woodswork Armory]

The armor is looking real good Mac, good job!

[Mac]

It's really nice to see the leather being used in this way. Next time I can send you doe hides that are a lot thinner. I even tanned a few antelope that are REALLY thin.

Hmmmm....

I've been tossing around a question: why did CH13 have a liner in the first place? It makes it look more like a luxury item (like the latten trim), and could make it a bit quieter on top of the maille, but is there another functional reason?

David

That's certainly an interesting question. The lining doesn't seem to do much, really. I wonder if it's a throw back to the armor's lineage. If they thought of it as a very "up to date" sort of coat of plates it might just seem like it has to have a lining. Now.. when I say "coat of plates" here I'm thinking about the ones we sometime see in art that have the plates on the outside.

Mac

[Mac]

If the interior of the original plates were tinned or painted, the liner could protect it from the mail abrading it, maybe? With the original leather thinner, it's not likely there to act as any sort of reinforce or additional puncture resistance...

The pics I have don't seem to show any trace of tinning inside.

Mac

[Mac]

The armor is looking real good Mac, good job!

Thanks!

Mac

[Mac]

The next step is making the fittings for the shoulder straps. This blow up of one of the published pics shows some, but not all of what we need to know. The left strap is original, and retains some of the brass discs which are presumably there to make the leather harder to cut. These discs are about 5/8" (15.8mm) in diameter and have ten angled bumps which form a sort of "rope". In the middle is a dome which is made of a separate piece and is about 5/16" (7.9mm) in diameter.



On the back side of the strap are brass washers of the type I call "bagels". They are of verying sizes, but the larger ones are similar in size to the domes in the centers of the discs in the pic.

I will be using a similar process to produce both the "domes" and the "bagel washers".

The brass stock is 0.020"( .5mm) . The punch is 5/16"



The punched discs are dapped up in three steps.





The ones destined to be domes go directly to the punching bolster.....



.. and are punched with a 3/32" (2.4mm) punch.


The operation depresses the centers a bit. This is like the real ones, and I have countersunk the hole in the bolster to get this effect.



Driving the punch all the way down to where the taper begins does two things. It opens the hole a bit so the part is easier to remove, and it drives the slug down to where there is a cross hole in the bolster so that it can be cleared out.



The ones that are destined to be "bagel washers" have an intermediate step. They are placed in one of the depressions in the dapping die and the centers are driven down with the same punch that will be used to make the hole.



This shows the difference between finished "bagel washers" and "domes". I've got about 30 or each, and expect to need 26 in total. I hope I don't lose too many.



Ordinarily, I would start by making the tooling for the main discs, but I didn't have any of the right size drill rod stock. That's on order and should be here in a couple of days.

Mac

[Rene K.]

For me the fittings look like one single piece on the photo, but maybe i have to less infos about this breastplate. But all in all your process of making them is very inspiring. To make such things is no secret, but very mind opening to make such things in future ! Very nice

[Christian Wiedner]

I guess Rene is right. To me it looks like one piece too and the little dots are the rivets (shafts/holes?)

Bildschirmfoto 2021-06-22 um 10.52.33.jpg (61.05 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

[Mac]

For me the fittings look like one single piece on the photo, but maybe i have to less infos about this breastplate.

It's difficult to tell, but I am sure that the central domes are a separate piece. One of the pics I have shows a defect in the edge of one of the domes. It's the sort of crescent that you get if the starting disc has a flat place along its circumference.

But all in all your process of making them is very inspiring. To make such things is no secret, but very mind opening to make such things in future ! Very nice

I wish I knew how these things were really made. The process I came up with is working, but the initial blanking out of the discs is done with a modern punch, so that part can not be exactly right.

Mac

[Mac]

I guess Rene is right. To me it looks like one piece too and the little dots are the rivets (shafts/holes?)

Bildschirmfoto 2021-06-22 um 10.52.33.jpg

Those are certainly rivets. As far as I can tell they are brass. The ones that are still present each have one of those "bagel" washers on the back. There are also some empty holes where fittings used to be.

Mac

[Scott Martin]

I wish I knew how these things were really made. The process I came up with is working, but the initial blanking out of the discs is done with a modern punch, so that part can not be exactly right.

Given that Crescent, it suggests that the discs were made with a punch. The easiest (period) punch would be a short roll of sheet (steel) stock with a sharpened edge, like you see with large diameter leather punches. Heat treat and temper, then punch the brass stock on end-grain wood (not sure if softwood or hardwood would work best) similar to how Albert Collins punched his articulation holes.

Brass is soft enough that it could be worked this way, and a tool this simple can be "sharpened" with a grinder or file back to flush without requiring retempering. I have made a punch like this (for leather washers) with a piece of 1/2" diameter electrical conduit, and it works nicely for cutting leather circles. It also has the artifact that mac describes if I am too close to an edge

Mac, if you want to experiment, I'd recommend that you simply ream out a section of drill rod on your lathe, temper it and bevel the striking edge (45 degrees will probably work, 60 degrees might be better). Temper and try punching out discs on end grain wood. If it works, you have your process, and you can go back to your metal punch, because not all of us need to be Albert

The punch end (as a cutaway) will look like this:
|| ||
|| ||
\| |/
(Brass goes here)
(End grain wood to support)

Scott

[Rene K.]

That is the same question of how they made all the roundish washers beneath the octagonal ones.

[Rene K.]

Hi Mac,
here some pictures from the GNM with tools for making stamped pieces which were manufactured once in large numbers in Nuremberg.





maybe i have more and better photos.

[Galileo]

Those hammer heads in the back corner of the first picture look interesting too.

[gaukler]

These might be of some interest. They are Thames finds, with a typical river patina. See also Dress Accessories 935 and 936. As usual, I can take more photos if they are needed.

[Rene K.]

Those hammer heads in the back corner of the first picture look interesting too.

made a new gallery for tools on pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.de/kohlstruck/antique-tools/

[Mac]

Thank you, guys for keeping this alive while I took a little break to be a pewterer.

I did some work yesterday on tooling for the round shoulder mounts, and I will post more about that in a bit.

The nature of these mounts is making things difficult. Here's the problem. The bosses have a rather sharp line down the middle (blue). This suggests that they were punched up from the back. On the other hand, the lines between the bosses (red) are also sharp. This suggests that they were punched down from the front.





Mac

[Mac]

Hi Mac,
here some pictures from the GNM with tools for making stamped pieces which were manufactured once in large numbers in Nuremberg.



maybe i have more and better photos.

It's great to see pics like that!

Mac

[Mac]

These might be of some interest. They are Thames finds, with a typical river patina. See also Dress Accessories 935 and 936. As usual, I can take more photos if they are needed.

Number 5937 has a lot in common with the shoulder mounts of Ch 13!

Do you suppose that 5934 is a failed mount, or manufacturing waste for "bagel washers"? It it's the later, I'm clearly going about it wrong, even if I'm getting roughly similar results.

Mac

[Rene K.]

I'm shure 5934 is a piece of sheet with one mount punched out and one left unfinished in the strap.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

The nature of these mounts is making things difficult. Here's the problem. The bosses have a rather sharp line down the middle (blue). This suggests that they were punched up from the back. On the other hand, the lines between the bosses (red) are also sharp. This suggests that they were punched down from the front.

With sharp impressions both front and back, could that suggest a male/female pair of die? Or would a two-pass process be more likely?

[Scott Martin]

Hi Mac

If you are only making a "male" die and striking into lead, you can get the "female" die by striking the die into lead first. With thin material (0.030" - 22 Ga and under) this gives you crisp lines on the "ridges" despite this being from the back. My gauntlet knuckle gadlings are done this way, and if I use 22 Ga I get very crisp lines. Unfortunately when I do this (and heat treat) I invariably polish through some of my points - so I have gone back to 0.040" material.

Brass is very forgiving, so striking into lead (or Pewter, which IIRC is a bit stiffer) may give you the results you want.

Scott

P.S. Rene, could you start a new thread with your pintrest link please? I don't want to hijack Mac's thread more than I already have

[Mac]

So... the most obvious thing is to punch up the bosses from behind with a punch and a tin block.



This gives the whole thing a sort of a dished shape in addition to the bosses.



That's easy enough to fix by punching the center down with a bit of 5/16 rod.



While that's "not bad", it's really not right either. In particular, the lines between the bosses are not well defined.



So... yesterday... against my better judgement, I made up a punch that I intended to use from the outside.



The results were (predictably) disappointing. In addition to being (predictably) sort of anemic, the part was (predictably) difficult to remove from the tin block and the impressions were (predictably) jumpy.



So... that' ain't gonna' cut it.



I'm going back into the shop to make a punch that will work from the back side and see if that's any better. If nothing else, I will make all ten bosses at once and I won't have to fret about layout every time.

Mac

[gaukler]

I think that 5934 is a waster. I don’t know if it is for two different mounts or one- the hole isn’t quite the same size as the domed section of the remaining mount.