The Armour Archive

Hey all, Gruber here. I want to introduce the new guy in the shop: Mike or also known as Kiyo. His strong knowledge base is Japanese armour but he wants to learn European stuff.
Monday I worked with him on raising and planishing knees. Tuesday we did the articulation. When I say we did it I mean I did the first cop to lame articulation and stood over his shoulder saying " A little more here", "Why do you think that would work? O.K try it, see what happens." kinda stuff. By the end of Tuesday into Wed this is what he produces to show me:

http://members.armourarchive.org/gruber/Kiyoknee.JPG
http://members.armourarchive.org/gruber/kiyo2.JPG
http://members.armourarchive.org/gruber/kiyo3.JPG
http://members.armourarchive.org/gruber/kiyorough.JPG

The last picture is all work by Mike. I haven't touched it and it is all being done over a ball steak with a raising hammer, same as the finished cop in the other pictures. Mike told me to mention that he's not done with the planish or polish of the lames yet

Very nice work.

John, check your PM.

Gruber....Need...To...Resize....Your....PICS...!

Those rivet holes on the last pic look bad; how are you going to have him fix that?
Otherwise it looks great. (I personally have no experience, so I shouldn't complain, but there you are!)

Those rivet holes on the last pic look bad; how are you going to have him fix that?
Otherwise it looks great. (I personally have no experience, so I shouldn't complain, but there you are!)

Hi,
Gruber had me drill those holes to help with stress cracks in the area. The 1050 was work hardening pretty quickly.

That whole area will get trimmed down once i finish shaping the knee.
The articulated knee in the above pictures is its mate and was done the same way. You can compare the shape/size of the two to see what will get trimmed.

--kiyohara

Kiyo, excellent work! I'm impressed that you are raising (rather than dishing) with 1050 (rather than mild steel) right off the bat. I see good things in your future

~Wil

Wil- so do I. We figuired, the way Mike could best help the shop would be to articulate, part of articulating is moving metal in two directions at once; screw it! He's gonna learn to raise. This way he learns to stretch, compress, and planish all on the same piece- nice and easy, all in one step instead of learning the variouse techniques on different pieces. I think I will use this method of instructing with anyone who requests me to teach them. He very quickly got the hang of using the planish block along with the ball steak together to get the metal to do what was needed.
With all of us in the shop at the same time, we should turn out some realy high quality work in pretty good time....
Gruber
ps.. I'm trying to figuire out how to re-size the pics damn non hammercompatable computers

Regarding the raising: You know what, you might as well just learn it from the start. If I had come into an armory and everyone was raising and working with 1050, I suppose I would have just learned it.

Jehan, squire of Sir Vitus

It does makes sense. Sure I did dishing and just planishing too. You have to learn all the different techniques that make up armoring for their own merits. Each technique has its place.

The big thing with the raising is I really started to get the feeling of how to move, manipulate, and feel what the metal was doing. Only then did it start to click and i could understand gruber when he describes how he just...knows... how to tweak something to get it just right. Once i had a grasp of that i could see the fine details and subtlties to do the articulation.

Sure i still have ...plenty to learn to say the least, but the raising really helped get that first level of understanding in working the metal. I could see and understand what was happening to the metal as i did each step.

Im truly lucky to be able to work with you every day and hiting talbots once a week. Talk about two amazing resources for armoring.

And Gruber your an excellent teacher. You have just the the right balence of explaining things/helping and knowing when to let someone work through the process so they can have a full command of the skill.

Thanks for taking the time to spread the skill,
---kiyohara

P.S. Gruber, i finished the structural shell of the coppergate helm at talbots tonight. Pics to come soon before i do the finish , brass and attach the riveted mail.