The Armour Archive

Forging takes a significant amount of time and I'd like to keep this more oriented towards armouring as opposed to blademaking. I plan on firing up the forge(s) at night with the primary goal of hot-raising. This will be a coal/charcoal forge. I also have propane forges for bladework I will light up (as well as a crucible furnace for some casting). However, if you've never done any forge work before, you will not be able to simply pick up a hammer and bang out swords, daggers and spearheads. Rather than devote three days to teaching specialized forging projects, I'd much rather help person's interested make a single edged medieval dagger in the 8-10" bladelength range. This will teach you the basics of forging and takes far less time. 5/8" round drillrod is perfect for this. Other choices are 3/4" x 1/4" bar about 12" long...or something similar. I have lots of old leaf springs. if you plan on using my leaf spring stock, bring a 3 1/2" cut-off wheel fr a die/angle grinder to cut it out with. Send any specific questions to me via email.

I made my first substantial *bloom* of iron last night. Weighed about 1/4 lb. I'll save it and mount it for posterity. Lit up some thermite as well .

There will be some definite fun at the armour-in!


Who want's crash space and who plans on camping?

bump

Ok, looks like we won't be bringing any forge projects or machineguns.
Their may be only 3 of us.
We will be camping and bring charcoal "Kingsford" for the BBQ.
The directions on your site seem clear enough.

Looking forward to a good time.

Hal and crew.

Ps: I will bring this:
http://home.armourarchive.org/members/h ... jects1.jpg

At least with the rain lately we'll have grass and not just dust! There shouldn't be any sign of a burn ban either!

We'll still do some forgework at night, I just didn't want to try and do a half dozen different projects. I moved all my forges/furnaces to the front of the shop Friday...but they still heat it up!


My grill is propane...but Kingsford works in the coal forge .


Anyone done any casting of aluminum greatsword hilts? I have ~80 lbs of Al for casting. I know how to melt...not how to cast, though!

Lost wax works quite well.
I can bring some casting wax and some plaster of Paris.

Be sure to model in a good sprue and risers and it will work just fine.
They are trimmed off after the casting.

Hal

I am a aprentice to Patrick Thaden here in Denton. I would be interested in showing up if I can foot the trip and get the time off. I am always looking to expand my skills and meet new people. I also am a member of Glaslyn of the SCA.

I thought cooking on the forge was verboten...

We got our hamburgers for supper.

Is beer drinking allowed?

Thanks for the porta-potty.

Hal

Cooking on the forge.....eeewwww! I'm not sure what would be worse...ancient coal ash on my hot dogs, or hot dog grease in my knife steel! Kingsford is what I used to forge my first few items, though. Yes, beer is allowed.

Ronnin,
Come on down.......

Mr. Krag,

Is it permissible to bring a small "black powder" beer can mortar?

It is a real blast......

Just thought I would ask.

Hal

Yes and no......We are out of city limits so I have no problem with loud bangs, however, there are lots of livestock and houses within range of any type projectile. As long as it's blanks or wax/paper wads, no problem, but no bullets, balls sabots or any other true projectiles. It'll depend on a couple neighbors as well. We have a horse ranch next to us which will have some foals any day now as well as another neighbor much closer with an old horse.

One of my friends who should be there lives about ten minutes away. He has several mortars and a civil war cannon which he shoots at his place. He used to build them. I'm sure it wouldn't take much to get a field trip out to his house one afternoon!

Ever launch any anvils? I've always wanted to get some cheap anvils and try this!


P.S. You're not gonna call me "Mr" all weekend are you? You'll make me feel old. Just plain "Don" or "Krag" works

"I'm Mr. Krag, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Krag."

Hopefully on Dec 16, 2004 it will be "Dr." Krag .

So, someone I work with needs this weekend off, therefor My vacation has been cancelled. If we don't have to work overtime this weekend I will still be there. However Dell seems to take a keen interest in screwing me over, so I am guessing that I will have to work. I will know for sure Thurs.

Well I am totally out. My mother in law decided have surgery. How unthoughtful of her eh?

Imagine, canceling my armouring weekend just because she has a ruptured disk. Humf, I'll remember this.

Out. I'll be enjoying my summer visit with my son. Have fun, guys.

-Robert

verminaard wrote:So, someone I work with needs this weekend off, therefor My vacation has been cancelled. If we don't have to work overtime this weekend I will still be there. However Dell seems to take a keen interest in screwing me over, so I am guessing that I will have to work. I will know for sure Thurs.

No problem. If you get it off last minute and decide to come, don't worry about tents and such, I'll keep a bed open with your name on it.

Robert,
We'll catch you next time. Have fun!

Edric,
Hey, I didn't watch ER for a decade for nothing. bring her on down, I'll hook her up. I don't take medecaid, but I di take Paypal .



Who is coming in on Friday and is interested in diving around in the scrap yard? We have a quite lovely 100 acre scrap yard. Stainless is up to $.75/lb and mild is $.15/lb. If someone wants new sheet steel I can get prices on that as well. They come in 5' x 10' sheets.

I reorganized the shop and set up the pavillion this afternoon. I'll be fixing up some dishing stumps tomorrow. I picked up some 1/2" x 5" x 14" pieces of steel plate if anyone wants to make a stake plate...or anything else out of it.

P.S. Fireworks are fine. In fact, our warehouse here is having a 1/2 off sale on the 24th! How about a bridge battle complete with "mortar" fire

Hal,
Dennis says "bring it on down, we'll make some noise" with regards to the mortar. He's a 1" bore 1/4 scale cannon as well.

Well, looks like we're down to about 8-10 persons. In that case, I won't bother renting port-o-cans. Our two restrooms in the house can keep up with the flow!

We're supposed to have intermittent thunderstorms. I have plenty of crash space indoors in case of bad weather. Tents can be set up under the carport as well (grass/dirt ground...not concrete). I'll be dragging out dead wood for a big ol' camp fire, so hopefully the rains will hold off. I have about 12' x 30' of open space inside my shop (25' x 40' shop) and a big vinyl carport set up in front of it for another 10' x 25'. I'll have a welding area set up next to the house with another 10' x 15' of covered area. I'll save the 2 car steel carport for tenting coverage! With all this, the only damper rain might have is on campfires and fighting across the creek. Hopefully, tomorrow will be the last of the rain!

Krag:

I'm still planning on comming. I was hopping to bring a friend, but that fell through. I'm hoping to get my rivits for my gauntlets by then. I'd like to get some help shaping them. I will be out there Saturday, and will have to leave early on Sunday. (Gotta be home by 3 or so). I'm going to bring my leather and I'll teach a little bit about leather tooling as well as some examples of my work.

I plan on coming down Friday, arriving early in the afternoon. I'll bring some tools, a pair of gauntlets in-work, a few items of 4130 steel that are shaped and ready to harden/temper, and some examples of recent leather projects hardened using rabbit glue. I'd be glad to go along on a scrounging trip Friday afternoon.

I'll also bring fighting gear in case a melee breaks out.

How long does a complete hardening and tempering cycle take? If I finish the gauntlets on Saturday will there be time to get them hardened on Sunday? I had hoped to have them all shaped and ready to harden but...life happened.

To get them hard, you just start rubbing. Some items take longer than others...depends what mood they are in...

On a serious note...it takes 20 minutes for the electric furnace to get to temp, 2-5 minutes for most armour to come to temp, 5 seconds to quench, 2 minutes to wipe off the oil and 30 minutes in the houshold oven to temper. I was thinking of doing a heat treat session saturday night and Sunday mid-day.

HOLY SHIT!!! I just got some pricing on new steel and almost had a heart attack!

16ga mild HR steel 4' x 10' $72/sheet
14ga mild HR steel 4' x 10' $90/sheet

It used to be $28 and $36!!!

Luckily, our scrap yard always has large sheets laying around. You have to remove rust...but sandpaper is cheap compared to these prices!

Even if I have to work (more likely by the minute) I can get there late afternoon to early evening sat. And I would love to be there for a tempering class. In that event I won't be there till 6ish, but I will be there.

Cool,
Heat treating won't be until about 8-ish probably.

Saturday evening will be rattlesnake chili night as well! We have rabbits and skunks if someone want's to bring a crossbow. I have spotlights!

Does anyone want to make a scrapyard trip Friday early? I'm going to the dump about 8am. If I don't hear from anyone by friday morning, I'm going straight to the scrap yard from the dump. Unfortunately, our yard is no longer open on saturdays. I'll try and pick up lots of sheet and any oddity type shping forms I find. last time I ended up with 80 lbs of wrought iron!

Woo-Hoo! Manager changed his mind! I'll be there before lunch!

Off to the fireworks outlet! 1/2 price on all fireworks until midnight tonight!


We will have combat archery, roman ballistas and roman candles for the creek battles .

I'm still planning on going, despite the weather. You said there was a possiblity of camping under cover? If so, then I'll still be spending the night. Otherwise, it will be a day trip for me.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go....
The truck is waiting outside the door....
Already she's so lonesome I could cry....

I'm leaving on an armour-in
don't know when I'll be back again...
Lord.... I hate to say goodbye....

Hey where's the beer?....

Hal

Oh Yeah...I forgot to put my # up.

979-589-3281

If any of y'all reading know anyone who's already left, shoot them a call and let them know my #.

Yes, we have plenty of indoor space as well as a carport you can camp under. Should be a pretty large turnout both sat and sun. 5 of us so far.

OH crap I just realized that i was going down there.I have been sitting in my shop working my arse off and worked my way right thru the weekend.
On the plus side of things I have two helms done know I have to work out a pattern for Morgans half gauntlet.
damn I feel stupid right know
ROC

Well, the Central Texas Armour-In is now a thing of the past. We had a decent turn out wih about 10-15 people. Lots of armouring, story-telling and general fun. It was quite literally a "blast". Friday was pretty light, while Saturday was pretty intense...as far as armouring goes. We did heat treating, hot raising and microwave killing Saturday, ending with good food including some rattlesnake chili . Sunday had a few others show up and we did quite a bit of welding on helm tops and such. We did quite a bit of tool making as well. There will be lots of photos and AVI files available sometime this week. I have lots of general pics. Halberds has quite a bit as well. I have video of him hot raising as well as his beer can motar/cannon blowing a hole through an old microwave. Lots of fun!

Krag:

I had to leave pretty early on Sunday so I did not have a chance to thank you for hosting this. It was great fun and I learned so much. It was really great to meet you all and put faces to some of these names. Thanks!

Just wanted to say thanks to Krag for hosting this. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet was that Krag had rounded up a number of old cylinders so anyone who wanted to went home with a new dishing form. Thanks again, Alexis

Yes, I confirmed that I still can't use a torch worth a crap...but I did get an awsome set of MEGA-windchimes out of the deal!

Damn, I left Saturday night and I did not know he was giving away dishing forms.

Damn!