The Armour Archive

Guys,

I have been reading a thread about Atzinger sheilds, and I was just wondering about extinction testing of a sheild.

Please check my logic on this one.

It seems that the trick would be to get some mechanism that would swing a rattan stick with exactly the same force every time, preferably with a little ticker that kept track of how many times it was swung.

It works like this.

The Hypothesis is that Sir Vitus' construction techniques have allowed him to produce a durable sheild that does no more damage to rattan than a shield of the more traditional SCA types.

The Materials Needed are

Several shields, including one Atzinger sheild, as close to identical as possible.
A large number of rattan SCA swords, as close to identical as possible
A device that can swing a rattan sword the with the same force many times, and keeps track of how many times it has swung the sword.
Paper and pencil.


The Method for Testing is to use a testing machine. It involves a motor that spins some device that holds a randomly selected rattan stick, prepared like an SCA sword. the device is mounted a certain distance from a clamp that holds a sheild.

Two or more sheilds are prepared. For testing purposes, they should be as close to alike as possible. A large selection of rattan swords are prepared.

First, the sheild and the sword are mounted in thier holders, and the machine is turned on. The machine swings the sword at the sheild, a little ticker ticks off one iteration, and then the process repeats itself. An observer watches (with eye protection) and calls a "Stop" when either the sheild or the sword is damaged to unusability. when this happens, a note is made about how long the rattan lasted, a new sword (again, selected randomly) is attached, and the process is repeated.

This process is repeated until the sheild breaks.

Then, the overall testing process is repeated with each sheild.

This process would give an accurate relative picture of both the strengths of the sheilds, and the level of damage to rattan.

Are there holes in my logic?

f

The only Reality Check I'd offer is that a static mechanism will hit the exact same section of the shield repeatedly with the exact same section of the rattan, accellerating the rate of failure for each. Otherwise what you describe is a fairly logical testing rig.

Note: Author of this post has no material science or even science background to speak of, and may in fact be talking out of his hat, factually speaking. Your Mileage May Vary.

how would you take into account the movement of the arm behind the shield?

you wouldn't. this test is to compare the several types of sheilds.

As long as each one is treated the same, it gives an accurate comparison.

But, if the test could somehow be improved, please do so.

This is an exercise in Hypothetica.

f

Honestely? I'd fight Sir Bryan of Sacred Stone for about 10 passes.

If the shield is still in one piece, it passes.

I really wouldn't worry about it.

As an intellectual exercise there's some amusement to it, but in practical terms, I don't see any point.

And you just go borrow Iron Byron from the PGA (or whatever golf organization it is he belongs to) and put a piece of rattan in place of the golf club

I would use the same mechanism that I considered building to to test rattan, taped rattan of different styles, siloflex and other rattan simulators. The 'sword swinger' would be about what you describe (big spring, sleeve to hold rattan, gear-motor with cam to pull the sword back and release it and a mechanical counter. The shield would be where I proposed to place my 'helm' simulator which was a bowling ball with 1/2" of foam and a dished 12ga pannel hanging on a PENDULUM. The pendulum is the key as you can place a pen up against a paper cylinder (like a receipt roll in a store) and by slowly unwinding the paper you can see each impact on the target as the pen scribes a spike on the paper. (think lie-detector test here)

You calibrate the pendulum with a few 'good' swings by hand to an area that isn't going to be tested. The spring tension is adjusted to mimmic this impact. Failure of rattan is determined to be the first impact that registers less then 80% of the initial impact. This would be the point where my rattan has become a pell-only or train a newbie sword. Having a difinitive quantifiable failure point makes the test less subjective.

You would also need a statisiticly signifigant number of tests to insure that you didn't get a bad piece of rattan. You could try 'matched pairs' where each stick of rattan was cut in half and the end nearest the cut was used during the impact test. Since rattan grows with an up and a down,you could alternate which end of each stick is used (an interesting question about rattan in general). You could have tapers prep the swords in a double-blind arangement where they do not know which shields the swords they are taping will be used against and the tester dosn't know who taped each blade... there are a lot of factors to be considered in the test procedure... but the rig is generally simple.

Sean

I took an experimental shield made with fiberglass matte and epoxy. On the tester I was unable to get enough epoxy on the top edge, and when I bashed it as hard as I could, in about twenty bashes it failed. The center face was bulletproof, dude.

That is when I figured out that more epoxy on the backs -near the top edge- and on the top center edge itself was paramount. I just figured out a new technique to get even more shell on the edges....I can't believe I never figured it out before, either.

I also figured out that conventional plywood would never cut it. The amount of Shell needed to offset the price savings of a more economical core made me lose even more money on shields than I already do.

Core must be stronger. Turns out I don't block with the center top edge like the Atlantians do. I punch-block with the leading edge ala' Bellatrix with only occasional close-form Ebonwulfe moves.

This is why my shields last longer. Instead of my shield being beaten on it bashes into the incoming stick, bending the stick more than the stick bashes the shield.

I never knew that style had so much to do with it....but it does.

Nissan needs to chime in here. He's the man for destructive testing.

<~~Wonders if we could get the Mythbusters to pick that one up.

Q:"Hypothetica, how would you test an Atzinger sheild?"

A: The same way in which the man behind it is tested, under the brotherly and instructive strokes from other good men engaged in deeds of arms.

I understand the question really, but as Sir Vitus stated there seem to be too many variables that effect the outcome (blocking style, calibration of opponents, random blow placement, etc.....)

Dante della Luna wrote:Honestely? I'd fight Sir Bryan of Sacred Stone for about 10 passes.

If the shield is still in one piece, it passes.

What would the prove.

I would take two mid to upper level fighters who have fought each other for a long long time and are evenly matched. I'm looking for long fights.

Then tape up each shield with fresh tape and athletic tape for the blade strip.
Fight x Passes with one type of shield. then photograph the sword and shields displayed on a cutting mat (gives you scale).
Retape sword. Switch shields go again. Repeat through all the shields.

You get to see how the sword gets torn up in fighting as well as how the shields handle.

-Dietrich

Bury an Atzinger shield side by side with an aluminum shield with trimlok half way in dirt. Use two swords made from the same piece of rattan, and hit the edge with equivalent force until one shield or sword breaks or is unusable.

Take pictures of the evidence.

First I would have a large sample of fighters hit a pressure sensor with a rattan stick provided by you. have them hit using "good hit" power levels Use this data to come up with a median number for the kind of hits to be expected. Then you could test where shields are hit most using some kind of substance that easily marks (maybe chalk or wet paint) have a large sample of fighters fight each other using the marking substance on the swords so you can see where shields are being hit. This test would probably be optional as there are way to many variables.
Have the testing machine you describe hit with the median pressure you calculated on the edge of the shield at an angle to optimize shield damage. As was pointed blocking style can prolong shield life but what we want here is to prove that under the least optimum positioning for the shield that it will last longer and break less rattan. Having the rattan hit the corner edge of plywood and other shields with an easily defined top would do the most damage to the rattan. Aluminum I don't think it would matter as much as the width is almost negligible for the test. Now have sticks all taped under that same system (once again use a double blind and randomly choose sticks) and of the same length and probably from the same batch. Now test to see which breaks first, the shield or the rattan. If rattan breaks first you could stop the test there and use that number. If the shield breaks first then you know it is time to go back to the drawing board.
using multiple shields of the same construction will yield how many hits it take to break the rattan. In the end you will have the number of swings it takes for a rattan stick of x length striking a shield at y distance from the tip with z force.