The Armour Archive

I have been asked by a customer to age a 15th century sallet helmet that I've made in order to make it look like an authentic piece .Does anybody out there know any techniques in order to acheive this effect?

Let it sit around for 500 years

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Thanks ,very helpful.I'll try that. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bacchus:
<B>Let it sit around for 500 years

Sorry, couldn't resist...</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Some hobby shops sell an acid patina wash to age metals. You may could try that.

Bleach.

You could bury it in damp soil for a few days/week etc... That may give the desired effect. Or it could ruin it horribly I am just brainstorming here and have no experience in this matter.
Sasuke

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www.oaksarmoury.com

I have a hard time believing that an armourer could accomplish the feat of a fifteenth century sallet, and not be able to figure out how to age it. I would assume the case to work in the opposite. Not to be too harsh, but is this somewhat silly?

Anyhow, no master-ager am I, but all that is required is that you subject the helm to any number of "conditions." You could "brown" the helm in a large rubbermaid, using vinegar or urine, ammonia possibly? You could use Guinness, producing a thicker, stickier effect - kind of like a gum laquer. Or, you could strip it of greases or oils and simply handle it repeatedly. Or toss it in my trunk for a week. I like the burial idea, personally.

One thing about proper aging - it takes time. Don't try for the finished look all in one step. Allow rust pits to form during burial, then super clean the helm, pits and all. Again, subject the helm to burial. What should happen is that places on the helm will be stained; i.e., cleaning won't remove some of the blackness or pits. When the helm is weathered sufficiently, start rubbing it with a good oil between phases of abuse. This should help with that deep grey, old metal look.

Hope this helps, rather than infuriates.

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Idëval
The Huntsman of
I-Nossë Lúmëvanwa
My mind opens wide when I roar

I can tell you much about making a helm rust nice:-)

get a black plastic trash bag, put a bit of water in it and set it out in the sun. the condensation from the sund heat will put pits all over the helm. ( may want to wax the inside a bit so they dont eat through. ANd watch it grow for a week.

wash it off with dish soap and a rag in the sink after its nice and rusty. and put a spot of motor oil on it and rub it in good.

that should make it look ( not smell ) like an old helm.

Bleach !!
This was Black Swords trick for aging. You just soak it in bleach a day or two till you
get the desired look.
Muriatic acid works well too, just soak it for about 3 hours then take out and watch it turn
green and rusty, then you can use a torch to dry and partly blue with will give a fair effect.
Don't forget rinse before with clean water before torching, then oil.

ABHAMMER

And my problem was to try and stop it looking like it was 500 years old!!!

Just wear it and don't clean it and in a month it will look very old and crappy

I have made a few suits but they have all been stainless till now, i am currently working on a gothic suit in mild and decided i wanted an aged look. i know this probably doesn't help you much but i made the armour out of steel which had been left in the weather for about 6 months, my hammering took off the excess rust and left the cool looking pits.

Ideval (how do you do the umlaut, anyway?) - Knowing how to build something that looks nice, shiny and new doesn't necessarily and automagically bestow the ability to age something as well. I didn't learn how to age mild steel until I needed to know how to do it, and that wasn't until I'd been beating on steel for almost ten years. At that time I found out that there was precious little information available on the subject, and I made it up as I went along.

As an aside/addendum to the above and a roundabout answer to Tauler's question: I just recently learned about using vinegar to de-scale hot rolled steel and to de-rust (or cause rust) any mild steel. It may seem silly to you, but I've been de-scaling (whilst cursing heavily) with a wire wheel, sandpaper, surface conditioning discs - whatever worked at the time - and wishing there was a better way. Somebody posted about vinegar a couple weeks back, and now I've got five gallons of it in the shop and am a much happier armourer, especially as how there's very little cold rolled available up here and I have to use hot rolled (or special order CR and pay extra). That bit of information led to my new-found knowledge of how to make rust quickly by either hanging a piece over the vinegar or dipping it and either hang drying or torch drying it. Nice to know - and with all my years of experience I'd never come across a reference to it or stumbled upon it myself. Now I'm really looking forward to dipping things in bleach! Anybody got knowledge of other chemicals that might be fun to play with?

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Steve Belden
The Hammered Wombat
armourer@hammeredwombat.com

I can't believe all you "expert" armourers have missed the obvious! TAKE IT TO PENNSIC!!!!! In ten days it will look five hundred years old!!!

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Virtus vincit invidiam
"Virtue overcometh envy"