The Armour Archive

Hello all.

I've been reading past posts all night long, looking for some information to help with a serious stumbling block of mine: Making my 14th C. elbows not look like knees. I've been fortunate enough to see the pieces at the Met in NYC, and I've been aiming for a shape like those I've seen. Trouble is, all the raising and dishing I do never seems to give me that nice "arched" point in the center of the cop. I blamed this on spherical shape of the ball stake, so I tried making a "cone" stake to help, but now my elbows are just coming out round, and funnel-shaped, and sort of flat and one-dimentional.

I saw some pictures of peices in other posts that have the shape I want, but they were all split, and were riveted into the pointy shape. I was hoping to execute these in one piece...that is unless you all tell me that cones were all forge welded in the old days, and that it's OK to weld them. That would be SOOOO much easier for me...since that's what I do all day for a living. It's the armour that's been stumping (sorry) me for some time now.

Thanks in advance to all who reply. I'm a blacksmith/weldor/fabricator all day long, and if I can be of any help, just ask.

IMHO, welding would not be a bad way to go. Obviously, forge welding is period, but Mit/tig/gas/arc welding is easier.

Go with what you know.

My knight, Jeffery FitzGallen, regularly raises 1 piece pointed elbows. The trick seems to be A) raising rather than dishing and B) most convenient over a stake that is neither round or conical but a pointed roundish shape.

The best I can describe the technique is below:
Start by dishing a regular elbow, don't focus on a rounded shape but focus on pushing the center down, typicly over a bottomless dish. Then begin raising over the pointed stake. Try to colapse the area around the cone in rather than stretching the tip up by bulling the cop down. Then finish raising the remainder of the elbow on a round stake and complete the wing.

I know this isn't much information but it is possible and sould be achieveable with practice.

Good luck, happy hammering,
Sean

Sean,

If you could tell Jeff (and Nan if they are still together) hi from Alaric/George, I'd appreciate it I only get to see them at Pennsic every now and then.

Thanks,

Alaric

I asumue you're talking about the big floating gothic couters with no lames etc?

It can absolutely be done in a single peice. To my knowledge it was how it was done.

Welding would indeed be MUCH easier. But it is a cheat. The riveted pattern here should adapt tretty well to welding.

Otherwise... I have no idea what sord of shape to start with. I rather suspect it is something of a cross between a football shape and a tear drop... but...

If you can find out how to do it in one piece please let us all know. This is my version of the big floating type elbow, http://home.armourarchive.org/members/rainald/newelbow.jpg

As you can see in the photo I had to do the split seam/rivited construction method from a pattern I designed.

I'm working on one now, I just used a bichorn to raise the point. Getting the wings to do that curved V was fun. I just didn't get it deep enough the first go , so I'll be making anouther one.
<img src="http://home.armourarchive.org/members/sedric/elbow1.jpg">
<img src="http://home.armourarchive.org/members/sedric/elbow2.jpg">
<img src="http://home.armourarchive.org/members/sedric/elbow3.jpg">

sedric,

technique? little "how to" maybe? specific tools?

God, I'd love to know how to do that when I finally have the tools to do it. (hence the request for specific tools. )


Angus

My bichorn is an 1 1 /4 round bar pionted at one end and rounded off on the other, welded to form a T stake.
To get the curved V , I need to do a picture tutorial to properly explane it. I'll put one together and post it in a seperate posting.
I use a cross peen hammer to leave a series of dimples near , but not on the edge. Then agressivly planish them away, the result is that I thin and stretch the metal in predictable diretions. You need to be carfull not to thin the metal out to much or to fast or it WILL tear.
Other than the bichorn, I use a raising hammer, an anvil like object, a cross peen and 2 different sized ball stakes.
I want to redisign the shape and make a new one anyway.

Thanks all. It looks like I'm on the right track with my raising attempts, and might need to look a bit more into what my Bichorn can do for me.

BTW, I'm sorry that I did not clarify: I am trying to make an articulated elbow. Sedric, it seems that you and I are headed in similar directions with the shape...and that I may simply have given up too soon.

I'm new to this posting thing (I mean totally new, not just armour) I will downres some pics of the transitional period vambraces that I am trying to copy. back in a moment...

I have returned. I have chosen two photographs that best illustrate the shape to which I was referring. These pieces are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC...my first and only viewing of actual armour.

No flash photography is permitted in the museum, and, of course, these peices were behind glass, with lots of mood lighting. Great effect for onlookers, but since I did not have a tri-pod with me, the photos are a bit fuzzy, and the color is way off.

Still, that's the shape. Not just a dish, not quite a "cone".....some kind of graceful blend of the two...and I'm convinced that the stake which was used to create it, was buried with the armourer.



Thanks to all who have/are replying. This is my kind of shop talk!

The pics are (hopefully) here:

http://www.foreverhalloween.com/armour/vambrace_1.jpg
http://www.foreverhalloween.com/armour/vambrace_2.jpg

Is THAT what your looking for? I thought you were wanting the more gothic ones like Rainald posted.

Go here.... this is awesome.

http://www.ageofarmour.com/education/index.html

Will show you everything you need for that. While it's actualy a knee cop that he's detailing, SAME technique and probably one of the best essays on it around.

ironman,

are the two pics you linked period pieces or modern?

Regards

Ivo

Can we receive some other info about the stakes and how use them?
I'm very interessed in this kind of shapes and how to develop them.

I was still going to do the tutorial, and I'll go over the stakes too. I don't know if I'm really qualified to do a tutorial, but I'll tell how I do things and if somthing I do is wrong or sombody knows how to do it better then I'm more than willing to listen and learn. It'll just take me till at leased this weekend to do the work.
I want to make a big gothic elbow. I have been working on that other elbow for over a year, I would work on it at demo's then throw it back in the shop, only to pull it out at the next demo.
Look at the pics from this site
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/raider4/austri ... g/germany/
DROOL!

OK...I hope I didn't skip anyone:

Mattmaus: That tutorial was great! The major thing I noticed (if I interpreted what I saw correctly), was that he did most of his major raising only at the pointed part. I know that seems like an obvious thing to do, but when I just went crazy on the pointy center of my elbow, I found that my outer edges were not coming around, and would never conform to the lames and the vambraces. So, to bring them around (down), I also began raising farther out from the center, and was probably erasing my "point" in the process. I think I'll do another one, and just whap the hell out of the center, and try curling the sides down with my heavy raw hide and anvil horn. Thanks for the link!

Ivo: OK, I have to plead stupidity when it comes to dating those pieces you see in my photos. I read the little display plaques when I was there, but made no notes. I suppose I was a bit psyched to even be seeing armour, and knew that I wanted to make pieces that looked like those...so I went nuts with the camera, and promptly forgot all the "info" that went with it. If memory serves me (and it never does), the trasitional suit they had there (it was a complete one) was composited of a few actual period pieces, and some of the "details" were filled in with reproductions. From what I've read, there are few examples from the 1400's that are "whole". The arms you see in the photos, I thought, were period. They had no suit to go with them...they were just arms in a display case. I don't even believe there were two of them....I think it was just the one, and all my pictures are of that same piece. Then again, I don't remember what I had for dinner last night, so don't use my info to place any bets. The MET has a really neat display, and I took about 100+ pictures. The problem is that most of their stuff is 16th C., and gorgeous. If you went out to the garage and tried to copy what you saw there, you'd get discouraged and give up rather quickly...well, at least I did back when I first tried this 13 years ago



Sedric: Those pics of the German armour are amazing...and so BIG. I'm making one of the pics into my newest screen saver. Are THOSE the elbows you are trying to make? Ugh. Is everyone sure that they didn't weld those back in the day? It would certainly be simpler...and they DID know how. Although, if you kept on raising that sharp cone down to a certain point, then I suppose the outer edges of the metal would already be flared outward, and the rest is us doing that miraculous reverse double curving...what's that called...anticlastic? Anti-possible? You've obviously got the hang of it judging by your photos. Still, our slip roller and my torch could turn several hours of numbing my left hand into several minutes of dressing a weld. What's the official "deal" on welding, then and now?

Thanks all.[/b]

If you have trouble with your point disappearing when you hammer further out towards the edge it can be because of the piece not being correctly placed on the anvil.
I made one like that:
http://w1.191.telia.com/~u19117195/Perarm2.jpg
http://w1.191.telia.com/~u19117195/Perarm3.jpg

And I dished it first and then raised just the point, but that included hammering almost the whole piece to smoothen out the transition between raised and dished area.

edited because my spelling got sloppy.

I love it!

That's it! Ambrogio, that is precisely the look I'm going for! So, did you use the bichorn method outlined above to make that point? That's my biggest question, what stake/shape/tool do people use to make the "cone" of the elbow.

Or, did you make a "cone" stake like I did, and perhaps my cone is just too broad/big/short?

Any advice very much appreciated....and NICE WORK.

Iron Man
you should use a round steak first, till you get the hight of the point you want. Then you go to a more pointed steak to planish it down to the point.
If you start with points you will break through or you will thin it to much, most likley bust through. Never use a sharp point, your hammer can make it sharper from planishing.

sedric
Thanks for that link (Heart go thump thump, Heart go thump thump,Heart go thump thump)

AB Hammer

I start with dishing the piece so it looks like the "generic sca elbow"
and I then use the horn on the anvil, it's not very pointy since it really is the raising I'm after. After I have stretched it out I hammer the shape, this is where I'm shaping the point with an almost flatfaced hammer.
The point isn't that deep really
I'm about to make another pair, I'll take pictures of the process.
I guess that's the easiest way and it gives me some time to think of what I'm doing..

OK
If you want to dish it first, work from the outer edge to the center. If you start from the center first you will be streching the metal a bit much before working a point.
Then use a small ball steak about an inch diamiter, from where you want the point. Then raise to the hight you need, now if you have a blunt anvil or cone steak you can work/plainish from the base to the center to define the point. (for the cone only) The rest should be on your larget ball steak.
raising the whole thing works best, then you don't have to bump the edge of the cop working up you point. If you prefer to dish and then raise points on a regular bases. Weld a cone on a ball steak, for your point work.
For people who don't know how to raise, LEARN. It is one of the most important things to know for armouring.


AB Hammer

That is a good description! The reason I dish the piece is to speed up the shaping part a bit, even though it may be just because I've gotten used to it. I often do it with silver and copper too, just to get the piece started.
The good thing about the anvil horn is that I feel it is easier to keep the piece in place over the horn compared to a small ball stake where it can be easier to "wander" away with the piece.

About learning how to raise metal: It's nice to see how armouring have changed in just the last ten years, from a time where it was sometimes whacking with a ball peen or a sledge and flat surfaces with lipped edges to todays insight in the techniques of moving metal.
And by this I do NOT mean to say that noone knew or used the methods, I just wanted to say that I am happy about the development of armour producers and armour standards in the SCA for example.
Let's keep learning, developing and producing shall we?