The Armour Archive

just trying to add details , any comments would be appreciated

Looks nice and clean to me.
The piece on the bottom... The rope is not as well defined as the top piece.

Did you just smack a rolled edge with a hammer and chisel?
I have never tried that.

Tell us a little how and what tools.

Hal

I just took an old chisel from a cheap air hammer kit and ground it to the radius of the bead , made it smooth and shinny and then beat away!!!

Where can I get a bead roller that will do armour weight metal around here?

The roped edges look great.

I didn't use my bead roller for these edges . They are done by hand . I made my bead roller so you can too!!LOL

looks pretty nice. Good work.
Two and a half minor points..
Did you counter beat the rolls before chiselling (once the roll is made, lay the chisel almost in line with the steel so that the blade is aimed into the gap of the roll, lift the chisel somewhat and tap) this gives a sharper definition to the edge of the roll and also lifts the centre of the roll a bit to give you that tube look.

Stuffing the roll is also an option. Copper wire is traditional, but I have had fun using cheap polypropelene rope. bend the roll a little over half way, stuff in the rope (hot glue may be your freind!) and continue beating the roll over. the rope keeps it nice and rounded and also offers some resistence to the shaping chisel that you use for definition lines.

The other nifty aspect of poly rope stuffing is that you can then heat the item and the poly rope ceases to exist and means you have hollow rolls, no added weight or galvinic corrossion issues and all you need to do is chip and peel off the black melted goo that has oozed out.


Sasha

Try Goggle: Jenny edger roller gear crank tool.
They are historical.

I have seen a bunch of them at the sheet metal shop; however they would only do 20ga. duct work sheet metal.

I suppose one with your natural innovation could look at the pics in the old paintings. Vulcan, Venus, Forge...

Then order a few gears from McMaster-Carr, cut-n-shape some roller wheels from 4140 bar stock and heat treat them, square up some shaft ends, weld up a cluged frame-work, Bend up something for a crank handle, add a wooden or plastic hand turn thing.

Then align everything , drill and assemble with shoulder bolts of the proper dia. and length. Make a C-clamp base to pinch on the side of the work bench.... Botta boom botta bing one 14ga. armour edge rolling Jenny Thingy....
It could also do some nice bead work. Just change out the wheels.

I am sure such a simple hand grinder thing is out there already. Yes?

Hal

Mad Matt wrote:Where can I get a bead roller that will do armour weight metal around here?

The roped edges look great.

http://www.lowbucktools.com/beadroller.html

Work well with 16g.
I like mine.

Cool link Tangent, 16ga too.
I have only seen that style for 18ga.

Thanks,

Hal

A friend of mine is a professional armour restorer, he once told me that the wire-rolling was a much later method (1800s+), original medieval (thbrough to English civil war) pieces do not have wire filled rolls.

There is a jenny in one of the many pictures entitled Venus at the forge of Vulcan, but FFoulks and others suggest it is more for de-burring than rolling edges?

As "the one that cannot be named" would claim, It's for sure to roll every edge of armour, because original armour had all the edges rolled! It's only in modern time, that people like your friend cutted away most of the rolls (this would explain WHY your friend know that they were empty!).

Sorry for the jokes that only who is a long time reader can understand


B..B..B...

Grancsay in his article on one of the barbutes in the Met mentions that the roll around the neck has an original wire in it that can be seen through a crack. Clearly then some armour did have wire filled rolls. Most medieval rolls I have seen don't have a wire but to say none did is not correct.

So, you say we should roll all of our edges and then cut them off?

About the wire seen through a crack, it is possible that this was a repair, and that the wire does not extend through the entire roll.

I've also used short, maybe 1/4" long, pieces of wire put into the joint where the ends of the roll connect in the back of coronets. It helps to keep the pieces aligned and it minimizes the appearance of any gap.

- Scott

Sasha wrote:The other nifty aspect of poly rope stuffing is that you can then heat the item and the poly rope ceases to exist and means you have hollow rolls, no added weight or galvinic corrossion issues and all you need to do is chip and peel off the black melted goo that has oozed out.

Neat trick!

Low melt solder does the same.... if you're working with stainless. With mild it tends to stick a lot more.

i use sand and wax mixture the same way, 'cept i melt it back into my pitch pot