historical armour

Peikko · Post by **Peikko** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:05 am

If one needed a piece of accurately replicated 16th century armour, would mild steel be a reasonable choice if one were replicating a middling quality piece...anyone want to suggest a thickness, I was thinking 1.5mm.

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:45 am

JohannM wrote:If one needed a piece of accurately replicated 16th century armour, would mild steel be a reasonable choice if one were replicating a middling quality piece...anyone want to suggest a thickness, I was thinking 1.5mm.

Define "accurately".

Carbon content for much of the 16th century armour was dropping after having peaked in the 15th century. Instead, "mild steel" was used at thicknesses often exceeding 5 mm in the thickest places of the armour in order to be armour of proof, i.e it could withstand a shot with a gunpowder weapon at prescribed load and distance.

The quality of the iron/steel at that time is comparable to what nowadays is known as wrought iron, though the production processes were quite different. The composition in the end was somewhat similar.

The thickness of original armour can generally not be given in a single number, it varies by up to a factor 10 for some pieces. Thick where it needs to be, thin where it can be.

Lorenz De Thornham · Post by **Lorenz De Thornham** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:56 am

By the English Civil War what till recently was thought to be a single thick piece has on being x raid found to be a sandwich often with an older piece flattened in the middle.

Hope somebody has the article to post here?

The rest is like RalphS says.

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:46 am

As usual, a way too general question.

1510 has almost nothing to do with 1590 when we are talking about the design points in manufacture.

From memory (Tom has my copy of The Knight and the Blast Furnace), Italy, Germany and Greenwich all had a different curve in adoption and stopping tempering. In general, they didn't, then they did, then they didn't. It seems best to assume it had a lot to do with learning how to do it and then the change from dealing with swords/lances/maces/axes to bullets.

The 17th c. stuff does degenerate to almost no carbon.

(from memory), much of the late 16th c. stuff is still springy, but not by any means always tempered.

Thickness varies more by piece than period. The breastplates may tend to get thicker as they get later, but this is by no means a pattern that you should take as gospel. I have 2 breastplates that are both around 1590-1600.

Munition piece - .050-060:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-15.html

Nicer piece (shot proof) gets up to .260
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-79.html

Wander around my site and you will get some idea of thicknesses of some pieces.
http://www.allenantiques.com/Armour-Collection.html

Get "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" and you will have lots of nice information.

Wade

RandallMoffett · Post by **RandallMoffett** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:10 am

Lawrence,

I have heard it said before but never found any such article or testing. I even had someone else at our library staff help me look. I went though several articles on the subject and found nothing about sandwiching stuff. I did find a some articles regarding x-rays of armour including breastplates but none so far have shown multiple layering. I asked someone that has made their life work on the fabrication and metallurgy of armour and he said even a single plate can delaminate after time due to the heterogeneous nature of medieval and early modern iron and steel.

RPM

Lorenz De Thornham · Post by **Lorenz De Thornham** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:14 am

I have seen the article, it does exist, just don't know where it is! One of the things used in the sandwich was an earlier tasset in one case. I am sure somebody will know where the article is.

Lorenz De Thornham · Post by **Lorenz De Thornham** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:26 am

OK I found a bit on the web about it, but I have seen a full article, maybe the one mentioned; http://www.armouries.org.uk/what-we-do/ ... oof-armour

If you read the story of the german steel helmet they also wanted to do it in the first world war and the US did a version of it with the 'plastic' liner on the same principle.

Peikko · Post by **Peikko** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:55 am

Your right that was a wee bit vague, just curious if anyone would bit. Lets narrow it down then to the first half of the 1500's, maybe 1520's at the latest. I realize that a breastplate, for example, would vary in thickness. What I could use then is an idea of how thick and thin a piece might be...1mm to 5mm possibly? Finally for an average quality piece what would you recommend; spring or mild?

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:28 pm

Ah, now things get interesting!
Italian, German, Greenwich, low countries?

The Knight and the Blast Furnace is the reference here, and my copy is for now over 800 km away from me.

Choice of material is one thing for an "accurate" reconstruction. How about the design, finish, decorations?
Personally I think one of the easier ways to make something look like the real stuff, is to try and approximate the means of construction of the real stuff as well. Thus no pre-rolled sheet to uniform thickness, no welders, no jenny-rollers, no angle grinders, etc. A definite "yes" would be a couple of strikers and a big flattish anvil.

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:50 pm

First half of the 1500's. I would use a medium carbon steel. Given the lack of consistency in the authentic results, a nearly random mixture of anything between about 1010 and 1070 would do. Since we don't see steel that varies like they did, I play in 1050.

c. 1500 :

http://www.allenantiques.com/Armour-Bre ... ction.html

1550-60:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-61.html

1505-10:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-129.html

1510:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-56.html

1510-20:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-126.html

1530:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-130.html

All include thicknesses. None have been tested for carbon content, but at least some seem to be pretty springy. Not mild, but no reason to assume they are tempered.

I measure in inches, not metric.

Wade

Halberds · Post by **Halberds** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:56 am

Some 18ga. 4130 would be nice.

OK... add a little heat treating, quench and drawing back.

Perhaps it in not bullet proof... but it will have some glancing charismatics.

Hal

RandallMoffett · Post by **RandallMoffett** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:38 am

Lawrence,

Leave it with me and I will see about the full article. It might have to wait till Tuesday though. Very interesting. I'd doubt it was the most common type as so many other ones from the 17th are single plates but that they did it is very interesting in and of itself.

RPM

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:36 am

Multi-layer breastplates. Yes, I have read the article too.

It discusses mid-17th c. English breastplates. Most of the ones discussed are formed of 2 layers which basically look like breastplates. The article includes X-Rays of the breastplates which show some of the structure. One I remember also has a former tasset in between the layers to give it a little more thickness.

The article also discusses the metalurgical characteristics of the layers. There does not seem to be any pattern to whether the inner or outer layer is formed of higher carbon steel. Given the results, I think that this technique was really just a way to get more thickness than the piece of plate they had lying around. None of them are tempered. They all follow the design of using a lot of soft iron to deform and stop bullets.

After reading the article I wandered around my collection. I can't prove anything for sure since I haven't X-Rayed anything, but I think that I see a consistent line between 2 layers in this breastplate:

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-17.html

If this one really is formed of 2 layers, it would be somewhat earlier than the ones discussed in the article. Looking at the description I wrote of that piece - it provides a reference to the article that discusses these breastplates. -

"Duplex armour: an urecognized mode of construction" by de Reuck et. al. in Arms and Armour: Journal of the Royal Armouries Vol. 2 Number 1, 2005.

This seems to have been a pretty uncommon way of building breastplates. Most are still formed of one plate.

Wade

Peikko · Post by **Peikko** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:06 am

wcallen wrote:First half of the 1500's. I would use a medium carbon steel. Given the lack of consistency in the authentic results, a nearly random mixture of anything between about 1010 and 1070 would do. Since we don't see steel that varies like they did, I play in 1050.

c. 1500 :

http://www.allenantiques.com/Armour-Bre ... ction.html

1550-60:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-61.html

1505-10:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-129.html

1510:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-56.html

1510-20:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-126.html

1530:
http://www.allenantiques.com/A-130.html

All include thicknesses. None have been tested for carbon content, but at least some seem to be pretty springy. Not mild, but no reason to assume they are tempered.

I measure in inches, not metric.

Wade

Wow! excellent this is what I've been searching for. So medium carbon it is, thanks.

Oh and RalphS, due to the nature of the experiment I'm not recreating the entire piece so the finish is sadly not an issue...and since you asked the armour would be nominally spanish in origin (although being a munition piece I suppose it could be from any number of places in western europe).

Rittmeister Frye · Post by **Rittmeister Frye** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:08 pm

I have that article on multi-layered breastplates somewhere too. Excellent article! Now to just find the darned thing! It's here, somewhere...

Cheers!

Gordon

knitebee · Post by **knitebee** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:22 pm

i haven't read the article on layered breastplates but did watch it on TV (history channel I think). they found a tasset from an earlier time frame as the middle layer in the breastplate.

Brian

Thomas Powers · Post by **Thomas Powers** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:17 pm

"modern" steel starts being common after the American Civil War with the Bessemer process and then open hearth, BOF, etc running (bessemer: 1856)

However if you are not greatly concerned with the accuracy of the materials used then picking a simple (10XX series) steel of the carbon content you want would work well.

To be a bit more hardcore you could buy it thicker and hammer it to the thickness you want using forge and anvil and *strikers*!

If you are totally *HARDCORE* you would want to use a wrought iron of the carbon content you want---which will be pretty well impossible to find and a process of some difficulty to make. Probably pack carburizing folowed by a heating in an inert atmosphere to allow carbon migration to even things out.

Thomas

Lorenz De Thornham · Post by **Lorenz De Thornham** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:23 pm

Or you could import it from the Wrought Iron Company in the UK, but it is way expensive for Charcoal Iron

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