The Armour Archive

Hi,

I have made a folding bevor, and only needs to add a spring pin for holding up the top of it.
I know that the spring pin is placed on a small leaf spring, and all that
So here is the question: I only have mild steel available at the time, but would a thin strip of that work for the spring?

Martin

Probably not. I used a small piece of banding when I did the last set on a local knight's helm and it is still in service.

Banding? what is that?

Martin

The black metal stuff that they wrap crates up in. Works ok. I have not had much luck with it. Not stiff enough for my tastes. May just be the banding I had. This is actualy getting harder to find as everyone switches to nylon.

I use monster bandsaw blades from the scrap yard. These need a little cooking or they're a little too stiff.

Old hacksaw blades could work. May want to cook them too.

I use a good will toster oven, cranked up all the way, (like 550) let it bake for about half hour turn the oven off and let it cool with the peice in it. Takes some of the stiffness out, but leaves it springy.

I've had a friend use ABS plastic. These are harder to make and don't work as well. The one advantage is that if you get someone who likes to dramaticly slam their visor shut the abs holds up better, springy steel ones will snap on occasion doing this.

if you have a hack-saw blade, break it with a pliers and use the existing hole to rivet it to hour helm. Grind the head flat on one of your rivets. Place the rivet flat head side against the blade and *POOF* the blade uses spring pressure to hold the rivet in place. I've been using that set up on my helm for the past year without any problems in SCA fighting.

I have been playing around with the idea of using feeler gauge strips as spring pin strips.

I bought one that was made of spring steel (some appear to be made of aluminum) and have been playing around with the tensile strength and if they bend easily - my initial experiments indicate that they would work well for no more than they are going to be pushed to allow a pin to release - I noticed that the thinner guages will keep some memory and don't bend back completely when really forced to greater than a 45 degree angle, but the thicker guages appear to do the job.

Helmut

You got pics of a spring pin I wan't to see what it looks like

Thanks, i'll try the hacksawblade idea.

Martin

http://home.armourarchive.org/members/a ... pring1.jpg

http://home.armourarchive.org/members/a ... pring2.jpg

Those were done on my very ugly arm harnesses. Don't pay attention to the ugly rustedness of the steel, rather look at the workmanship of the spring pin

ArtemisGreen wrote:Don't pay attention to the ugly rustedness of the steel, rather look at the workmanship of the spring pin

Actualy, a very clear picture, easy to see and understand.