Traditional Armor Finishing Processes

[Sean M]

From Roland Warzecha in DE: There is an ExArch page for Florian Messner's project https://exarc.net/issue-2020-1/at/reconstructing-medieval-polishing-bench He says he was not able to obtain emery, didn't we find a few sources for emery blocks and powder online?

[Sean M]

Celtic Web Merchant in the Netherlands sells powdered pumice https://www.celticwebmerchant.com/en/pu ... asive.html I don't recall powdered pumice being used to polish metal, but it might be worth a try. Their shipping is quick and not crazy expensive for pandemic-times.

[Chris Flagstad]

This tool came up in a fb group I am a member of. Perhaps it is an decendant to the sticks. In swedish it is called a "Pansarfil". It latest use is filing car panels and such.

IMG_20170501_122125.jpg

Does Pansarfil translate to "armor-file?"

It seems like just the right tool for the job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NkEsJZB7oU

[John Vernier]

This tool came up in a fb group I am a member of. Perhaps it is an decendant to the sticks. In swedish it is called a "Pansarfil". It latest use is filing car panels and such.

IMG_20170501_122125.jpg

Does Pansarfil translate to "armor-file?"

It seems like just the right tool for the job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NkEsJZB7oU

I think it does translate as you say. However, these are auto body solder files. They are meant for use on body solder which is used for soldering and sculpting body panels much the same way Bondo is. The solder is much softer than steel and the files have very coarse wide teeth designed to bite the solder, and they are also made from a steel which is flexible enough to take a curve when mounted in a special holder. I don't think they would function on steel as well as normal machinists' files.

[Sean M]

Its probably worth mentioning that Chris Dobson is coming out with a book Beaten Black and Blue on the surface of plate armour. Whereas JAG and Wade see middling armour in the 15th century as finished with 2 or 3 polishing media leaving scratches on a bright surface, Dobson envisions a lot of deliberately applied oxide finishes on a surface which had been roughly ground to remove the hammer marks.

I liked his book on armour from Piedmont. There is some Facebook drama about which of the armours in his sample pictures are authentic.

[Sean M]

Craig and Nathan of Arms & Armor (Minnesota) point me to this article by Jonathan Tavares, Jonathan “Arms and Armor in Ms. Fr. 640” https://edition640.makingandknowing.org ... _308_ie_19

They also have an article on Black Varnish for Armour which draws on different sources than I drew on. I need to get my big article on the surface of plate armour from 2016 published.