The Armour Archive

While making the hooks and eyes I've been working on I am curious how they would have been made in period. I use a tapered set of jewelry pliers, and will soon be using bailing pliers. Does anyone know if they used something similar or have an entirely different technique?

Period? Pick a period.

14th cen. german:
http://eligius-hammer.blogspot.com/2011 ... rfurt.html
15th cen. Italian:
http://northernelectric.ca/medieval/hat ... quet14.JPG
16th Cen. Spanish/portugese ?:
http://inadiscover.com/blogs/finisterre/

Some of the extant wire pieces and paintings make them look nearly identical to ones you see in the fabric store.

Late 16th. I know they look the same then as now (nice to have the additional pics though), I'm looking for how they made them.

Sorry. I'm an idiot.
This is only a guess, but since they were made of drawn wire, they probably used a form with posts to wrap the wire around. Nails through a piece of wood. It would be like a mandrel,
where you could do a few at a time and then trim them off with nippers. The bend in the hook would probably just be made by sliding one end into a groove of a block or steel, and pushing it over.
No need for pliers (but a nipper), it's faster, and I would think more uniform size to them.
-Cian

Cian of Storvik wrote:Sorry. I'm an idiot.
This is only a guess, but since they were made of drawn wire, they probably used a form with posts to wrap the wire around. Nails through a piece of wood. It would be like a mandrel,
where you could do a few at a time and then trim them off with nippers. The bend in the hook would probably just be made by sliding one end into a groove of a block or steel, and pushing it over.
No need for pliers (but a nipper), it's faster, and I would think more uniform size to them.
-Cian

I agree that a jig would be the best way for the most uniformity. You could really crank them out once the system was dialed in. I've done the same for making oddball gunsprings.

Nice link on the Finisterre Project! I'm sending that to our conservator.

Have you looked at
Hooked-Clasps and Eyes by Brian Read
Its a bit of a catalog on pices, finds as well as clasification.

The bail pliers will be useful but size is a bit limited.
I have used the round nose pliers and the round/flat for S hooks and clasps as well.
I find larger handles or building up the handles useful if your makeing more then a few pair at a time.
It may also be worth investing in pliers with replaceable return springs or a warenty.
Makeing chainmail I use my pliers alot and when working in stainless the durability is tested.

Anthonye,

How many are you planning to make? Some sort of peg-board bending jig sounds like a great idea if you need more than a dozen or two. If that's not the case, it makes better economic sense to just move ahead with round nosed pliers.

I would have imagined that period professionals used some sort of jig, but the lack of uniformity in the corpus of specimens from the Finisterre site that Cian linked to does not strongly support that idea. It looks instead like the results that experienced professionals achieve when working by hand and eye at a high speed.


Mac