The Armour Archive

Hello again all.

The responses when I posted pics of my conical elbow raising attempts were very helpful. Thank you all for your help.

I now present the full arm. My 2nd attempt to date. (not counting like 20 elbow attempts)

This is a prototype run to test my pattern and forming ability. Its not quite done yet, but getting close. Total time to get to this point approx. 9-10 hours. Probably would take another 1-2 to fully planish and polish up nicer. A few edges here and there need some filing as well.

My observations at the moment:

- It needed more planishing and edge finishing, but I was rushing to get it done to use as a model. Its a bit bumpy on the wing and at the vanbrace flare particularly.

- I wanted to make the vanbrace flare more subtle than my last arm. I think I made it TOO subtle, and the whole piece is way huge at the wrist, but fine at elbow.

- The modern buckles look ugly IMO.

- Next time I will use a single large hinge mounted on the inside.

- The elbow cop seems a bit soft. It was only dished for 2 passes (and I dish gently compared to most). Afterwards it was all raised and frequently annealed. It got boughing, and then light to moderate planishing, which I thought would harden the metal more than it apparently did. The sanding was very light, though there was a fair bit of scale after each annealing. Still, The metal should not have been thinned very much unless I majorly screwed up. I accidently dropped the arm from waist height onto concrete and the elbow dented slightly. Is that normal for 16 gauge?

I'm going to tweak the pattern somewhat for fit and try to address the above issues (hopefully with more useful advice from you guys!) and the next run will be a full pair of sale-able quality and finish.

I'm excited! I hope to have the finished versions in stock/ready to accept orders for the summer. I'm trying to work out as many bugs as I can beforehand.

Please critique away! All comments and opinions are encouraged and helpful.

It looks like you have the ear bent outwards. If this is correct, you have it bent the wrong way.

The slotted rivet articulation for the vanbrace is pretty much locked up.

It was working alright (not as smooth as it needed to be) until I got grumpy about a fairly sizable and wiggly gap between the last lame and the vanbrace lower. 3-4 taps on the middle rivet later, it takes way too much force to move the thing. Damn them articulation rivets are picky!

It moves if I grab it and twist, but while wearing it the vanbrace does not move, even if the arm is encountering resistance turning inside the plates. However, the rest of the articulation is effortlessly smooth and gives great range of motion.

I suspect the problem lies in the fact that my vanbrace lower is round, but my elbow is more V-shaped and the articulation lames couldn't make the transition. As it stands I had to make the vanbrace lower a little bit more U shaped rather than semi-circle to compensate.

Is this a common problem? Is the root cause the shape of my elbow cop? Any advice?

A picture of the articulation lame gaps may help illustrate the problem.

Alcyoneus wrote:It looks like you have the ear bent outwards. If this is correct, you have it bent the wrong way.

The ear?

I've not heard that term for any part of an arm harness before.

I'm going to guess you mean something about the wing, probably the V-shaped flare?

It protrudes to the inside of the arm, not the outside. It might be a trick of the camera in the picture.

I recommend:

Get rid of the center rivet that is impeding the articulation. Take a flat-headed nail. Stick it through with the head on the INSIDE and peen over the end from the outside.

Or, get rid of it altogether and use only the outer rivets. And move these further to the outside of the piece... near the other articulation rivets.

You don't need those big honking rivets in the way. There is no structural support provided in that location.

E-mail sent.

My suggestion on the vambrace articulation, from my own experience, is not to use round washers. Cut out a square of the same size, punch a hole in it, and use that. The round washers tend to dig down into the slot alot more than square ones. Also, get rid of the round rivets for it. Replace those three with roofing nails, and keep them as flat as possible. If its possible for you, countersink the outside of the lame to give the rivets a lower profile.

Over all though, great work. Deffinately far better than what I started out doing.