Open Shop 5-31-2012

 Nora sews her new dress

 Wyllow helps Julia select a time and place for which to dress.

 Abby lays out her gorget plates, marks and punches holes in the leather, and rivets the plates in.

 Frosti cuts out a leather half-gauntlet using my one-piece pattern.

 Link and Josh and Daniel and Frosti all finished their armour plans, so they can start marking out elbow and knee cops on sheet aluminum 5052 alloy pieces.  This stuff is dirt cheap at $1/pound at Metals4U in Pflugerville.  All of the aluminum will be hidden under sleeves or pants when the armour is complete.

 Ben lays out the fabric for his coat of plates while Toner supervises.

 Daniel learns to cut aluminum on a throatless shear.  (Not a Beverley shear but a cheap Chinese imitation.)

 Gunna and Evie practice period cooking.  Come over to Open Shop night...we have cookies!

Link, Daniel, Josh, Ben and Frosti show how much they got cut out tonight.  Wolf has been busily lacing his lamellar.

 Then everyone else gets into the picture too.  At this point Belle had left to take Nora home and Julia had left also.  Counting them and counting the guy (me) taking the picture we had 15 people at Open Shop night.  A new record!

I even found a few minutes to work on the cheek-plate hinges for my helm.  My son took the picture and my wife is "helping" behind me.  Isn't it great to have a supportive family who takes you seriously?  :)

Helm progress

I've been home for 2 days with a respiratory virus, so I've used the time to make some progress on my helm.



I've mounted the ridge to the brow band and trimmed the ridge to the correct length, then dished and punched holes and added the side bands.



I spent some time with a wooden hammer, adjusting the fit of the side bands so the fit tightly with the brow and the ridge. Then I drafted a pattern for the panels, made a prototype out of 18g. mild steel, tweaked the pattern a bit, and marked out the 4 panels on my remaining metal.


I'm going to need some more 16g. 410 alloy steel to finish this project because the pattern pieces do not nest as well as I had planned in my original layout, and it was always going to be tight getting both of the cheek pieces out of the available metal.

Helm progress

My lovely fiance got me some new swage blocks for Christmas, which I have used to complete the ridge for my new ridge helm. Now I need to set the final size of the brow band and begin marking and punching or drilling holes. I'm not sure how well the .062 inch thick 410 alloy steel will work with a hand punch, but I am about to find out.

Progress this weekend

We had a good turnout for Open Shop Day on Saturday with Aedan, Kansuke, Uther, Mary and Gracie all working on various projects. Those who didn't stay to the end missed out on the barley porridge, which was proclaimed to be delicious. Mary now has her own sword, gloves, half-gauntlet, gambeson, vambraces, rerbraces, aluminum elbow cops, and good progress towards a set of gamboised cuises with aluminum splints and aluminum knee cops.

We modified a mostly-unusable helm (the blue one with the really tall point) to fit an actual human being and after a bit of welding it will be ready for her to use. All she needs now is to finish these projects and add a gorget and a coat of plates in order to take the field in her own gear.

Unfortunately the elbow cops cracked a bit during assembly. I tried to use a dart and rivet pattern in order to get a deep point but the street-sign aluminum did not hold up to that tight of a curve. I am having better luck with dished knees so I may try a pair of dished elbows as well.

I cut and ground a new shield grip for a center-grip shield out of 1/8"x2"x7" steel bar, so now it is ready to be curled in around a 1/2" wooden dowel. I think I'll try heating the sides with my propane torch before I curve them. I've done it cold in the past but it takes a lot of force to get that metal to move. Once they are in position I'll just add a rawhide spiral-wound covering and the grip is finished.


I have made good progress on the central ridge for my new helm. I did a first pass of creasing the ridge with a blunt chisel, working with a 1/2" channel routed into a piece of pine board which I then clamped to the top of my workbench with side blocks to keep the metal band centered over the channel and a wood shim clamped in place to provide a guide for the chisel. This gave me a very straight first crease, but I could feel that a lot of the energy was being absorbed by the soft wood. So for a second pass I used 2 steel pipes about 1.25" in diameter, clamped into my vice. Using the initial crease as a guide I was able to place the chisel accurately and bend the metal band into a much deeper V. My son also helped a lot by coming out to the garage and holding the band while I worked with the hammer and chisel. Then for a third pass I placed this V inverted over a 1/4" rod that Gaston and I had welded to the side of my dishing form (the cut-off end of an oxygen tank) and hit it on both sides of the V with my customized peening hammer. My thanks to Halberds on the Armour Archive (http://armourarchive.org) for this idea. A bit more work to even up the shape of the cross-section and I will be ready to adjust the curve and begin marking and punching holes. This helm is made of 16 gauge 410 alloy spring stainless steel, and it will be pretty much bullet proof when it is finished.