The Armour Archive

It has been a good few years since I have had any time or money to persue my obsession. Back in the days I was working with what ever scrap I could get my hands on from both the tool and material end.

Old trailer hitches, rail road iron and spikes, what ever old hammer i could pick up at garage sales. Old dryer drums, flashing and so on.

I am thinking about picking up some new tools to make my life alot easier.
Top of my list is Bev. B2 shears. Any one have any personal reviews/information where I could pick a pair of these up or something similar that would be great.

Next on my list I am thinking some sort of whitney or like punch so I do not have to kill my drill making rivit holes? I am not sure how manueverable a punch would be on various shapes though, seeing as I have only heard of them and never used a pair. Info/personal reviews on this would be great too.

Is it just me or do hardware stores no longer produce drop forged hammers? I used to have a good few drop forged hammers that I lost. These casted BS hammers all of the hardware stores carry just "crunch" when used it seems. Any Idea where I could pick up drop forged hammers in these days?

Lastly, I am looking to upgrade from my shotput welded to a huge bolt, and my trailer hitch to some better forms. Any idea where I could pick some up?

I love my whitney Jr#5 punch, I'd say it payed for itself with in a couple of months as I didn't have to break any more drill bits. Best price for one I know of is from enco tools http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PMAK ... TPG=INLMK3

For hammers I personally have had great experiances with peddinghaus hammers, though there are a number of other good hammers on the market. here s brief list of book marks for hammers I've got.
http://www.progresstool.com/cat_peddinghaus.cfm
http://www.contractorstools.com/garlandrhmallet.html
http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/Templat ... ts/Hammers
http://www.centaurforge.com/departments.asp?dept=106
http://www.hammersource.com/Jewelers_Hamme.html
http://www.piehtoolco.com/

First, I'd try to post on the AA classifieds- i.e.- WTB( name of tool your searching for ). I posted for a bichorn a few months back, and MidnightRust( a public thank you by the way) gave me a FANTASTIC deal! 100% positive feedback to this man also. Someone could possibly have a tool laying around the shop. Some others may post to you with other answers to companys, but I suggest Centaur Forge. I order various items from them and they handle my orders very well and on time. Not to be pushy, but try to support the AA first. I hope this helps.

www.ironmongerarmory.com is the one place I know where you can get stakes and forms and hammers, but shipping from PA to WA might be a little steep...

Punches: I only have one Whitney #8 and one #5jr, and I wish I had two more #5jr's, another #8, and a #XX, so I didn't have to swap tooling all the time. IMO There is no reason why you would want to drill a hole - it's always done out of necessity. Pull lever, hole goes in metal. No bits skipping around the work, no cleanup afterward. C-Chunk, done.

I gave up trying to find punches on ebay. If you want a big one you may want to email ironmonger since he usually has a couple at Pennsic - not sure about the rest of the year. If you want el-cheapo, there's a metric version at harborfreight.com, but it is both a) cheap and b) metric.

Which brings me to the next point: the internet is the friend of today's armorer.
www.harborfreight.com
www.use-enco.com
www.wttool.com
These are the cheapo sites. The one that I know of that you're going to lurk a lot is:
www.mcmaster.com
This site isn't cheap, but if it doesn't have what you're looking for then what you're looking for is either really, really specialized (like tinsmithing stakes) or doesn't exist (like 10" american pattern smooth single cut half round files).

And even guys that have stakes and a stake plate sometimes wish they had a shotput welded to a bolt - hang on to that.

B2 - well, my life got a lot easier, that's for sure. I checked the classifieds board here one day last fall, and someone was selling one, and I bought it. You're not going to get a good deal on one unless you deal directly with someone.

Check out the harborfreight el-cheapo throatless shear. Every review I've read on it says that it's either junk and you exchange it, it's junk and you fix it easily, or, more like 80% of the time, it's a really good deal. In general, the Chinese junk they sell there is getting to be better quality every day ( I just bought their mini-lathe, and it's pretty sweet ).