The Armour Archive

Hello everyone,I'm assuming that the fact i'm here makes me someone who really likes armour, and because of that and because of seeing that there are alot of armourers here I wanted to ask - How does one become an armourer? I am quite young and I would really want to learn the great craft of armour making. I would like to hear how I can become one and maybe tips of how to start, thanks in advance.

If you have a source of income, you can buy the necessary tools and materials - and that is all it takes. There are also plenty of tutorials on the site to tell you what tools you need, and for basic projects.

Well lets start off with the basics..... first thing you are going to need is money... why ... because there are a few things you will need to buy. Before you even buy your first piece of raw material to work on. Before even considering the below mentioned you first must have the drive to do something very time consuming, teadious and hard. Patience is a must for this trade above all else. If you are still reading then you must really want to learn the trade.

1) Halbreds newbie armouring kit...... well worth the money and gets you what you need to start minus a few of the cutting tools.

2) Tin snips or access to a person or tools needed to cut heavy guage metals.

3) A place to perform your armouring in..... banging on metal is not for apartment livers.

4) A dishing stump.... this will help you to form large or small dishing in metals

5) An anvil.... railway works well and can be found almost anywhere with little effort.

6) A grinder.... you can buy one of these fairly cheap at your local hardware store.

7) A bench grinder.... a must have for smoothing sharp edges.

8 ) Paterns to start you on your way to making some armour pieces.... most of which can be found here in the AA patern section.

9) A drill with bits .... gotta make holes for rivets

The above is just a small list of what you will find in an armourers workshop... It is not meant to discourage you buy the amount involved and I wish someone would have told me this info. off the bat I would have liked to have known this stuff earlier on in my starting to become an armourer. I hope this little list helps you along your way and that you give it a try... it is after all one of the most rewarding things I have done in my life. Good luck and hope to see some of your work in the future.

well, thanks alot for all of that, but besides the tools and all, where do i learn how to make armour? how did you learn? by experience or from someone?

Several people learned from other armourers and some learned from the teacher of trial and error and some a little of both.

But the one thing most of all, just because you put a few plates together, doesn't make you an armour. There are only a few true armourers.

Brian Prices book Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction: 14th Century will get you on your way, as will following the many Tutorials located here on the AA and the Arador Armour Library (assuming our tutorials pages are untouched by last months hacker attack).

You're not going to be crafting a full suit of 16th century Gothic Plate any time soon. You must start small my young padewan....begin dishing a shield boss or making a pair of spaulders...you'll learn the basic skills...patterning, forming, cutting, grinding, finishing, assembly to name a few.

If you can find an armourer in your area, ask if you can hang out and watch, or better yet, offer yourself up as a shop monkey performing grunt work in exchange for shop time and lessons.

Ask questions, lots of them....however, poke around here and use the SEARCH function in the forums before you send a barrage of questions our way...doing some of your own homework before coming to us shows you're dedicated and willing to learn, not just leech.

Dave

Your Welcome..... to answer your question on where I learned how to do it.... the answer is from self teaching and some reading here on the AA. There are a few toutorials that you can see how things are done to be found here on the AA but nothing is more valuable than first hand trial and error. I just grabbed a piece of metal and started pounding away. From there the rest is history... you will make mistakes and lots of them but you will learn tons. One piece of advice I will give you is "measure twice and cut once". Start with something simple like spaulders with a few lames. There are a few patterns you can use from the pattern section and it will teach you the basics of hammer techniques not to mention planishing... oh how you will hate planishing...lol. The next thing I tried myself was a helm... I used Sinrics sugar loaf pattern from here on the AA. I made a few mistakes but nothing too noticable... most were impressed with how nice it turned out for my second piece of armour. I will however say this... armouring is very very addictive and most rewarding to those who have the time and patience. I hope you decide to give it a try and see for yourself how much fun it truely is.

Good luck,

I'd recommend that a copy of Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction: the 14th Century be the very first thing you buy. Not only does it teach, it also gives you lots of inspiration to get you through those tough moments. The book's expensive, but worth every cent, whether you pony up the full eighty-some dollars to Chivalry Bookshelf or Paladin Press, or fifty-some to Amazon.com.

It's got tools, patterns, shop organization, detail execution, technique, how to make an arming-cote. It's a vital work and the best resource out there for teaching a newb armourer short of finding somebody (usually in the SCA) who is already building armor in his garage.

The Society for Creative Anachronism is about the most reliable -- and widespread -- resource for finding an armourer to work with. Go to http://www.sca.org, find out which SCA Kingdom you're living in, go to that Kingdom's webpage and find the "locating a group near you" button. This should find somebody. Looking up the local SCA is most useful, of course, if it's SCA you intend to use the armor for. What is your intended use?

I learned by reading and then doing also. The essays and now the newbie topic have most of the basic info you need. I have no clue why so many people dont check them befor posting (welcome to the archive ). Now for the other question of what makes someone an armourer, who knows. Ask 100 diffrent people you will get 100 diffrent answers. For me its any one that loves armour, is willing to put in enough time to make it and can see the flaws in their work no matter how good it is .

BlackRain one side of a helm not being dished enough is nothing to noticable? Dont get me wrong you did a good job, just dont fall in to bad habbits. Only reason I can remember is I was working on my 2nd pice at the same time and it was the same helm.

I'm 31 years old and just starting to get serious about armoring.

If you're young, the hardest parts are:

1) Probably not having a large enough disposable income to invest in tools and materials.

2) Probably not having a space of your own, or living with someone who won't appreciate the noise, dust, little bits of razor-sharp metal that get tracked into the house attached to your shoe, etc.

3) Probably having a bunch of distractions, like getting out of the house, beer, girls, and medieval interests other than armoring.

4) Probably not having the drive to devote yourself to one thing long enough to get anything done.

Or at least, that's my experience talking.

Some other things that nobody seemed to mention that you'll need:

1) Analytical skills. I'm finding that it's really important to not make a version of a pattern, then make sweeping changes. You have to be prepared to go slowly, figure out what works and what doesn't, and keep notes.

2) Artistic talent. I took a lot of art classes when I was growing up, and it's paying off. It makes a difference if you've already had your eyes trained to look for subtle differences, notice places where a curve is off, fairly accurately eyeball measurements, etc.

3) Cleanliness. Expect to spend a lot of time cleaning. Not cleaning armor, cleaning up the crap you just got all over the floor from cleaning your armor. Cleaning up all the aforementioned razor sharp bits of metal before they get tracked into the house.

4) Common sense. I've met too many people who aren't armorers anymore because of a blown out elbow or some other repetitive stress injury. You have to know your limits and figure out a way that doesn't hurt you. Especially since you're young - although I don't think of myself as old, I remember being "quite young" and there are a lot of stupid things I'd have done then that would seriously hurt me.

Hope this helps!