Repousse

This is some more of the repousse that I have been doing all week. I don't think it looks too shabby at all, considering that I really have not done any repousee before. (its a French word, it means "to press out". In reality, it looks more like leatherwork such as you would find on a western cowboy's saddle rather than anything actually made from steel. Please click on the images to enlarge.

Properly speaking, these are not armour at all, but rather costume pieces. Just fun for a change, and of course, a real departure from the deep metallurgical discussions and the uphill struggle for authenticity we have been having this last few weeks.
But, it is metalwork same as any "real" armour, and tricky metalwork at that. Not hardly the same quality as, say, Wignacourt's armour in Malta, but that is a labour of a lifetime...this is just a few hours of fun. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Alof_Louvre.jpg for a REAL good looking bit of repousee. Someday...........)


Below is the belted loin cloth which I am making to support this costume. http://clydecaldwell.com/large_images/rose_sea.html


And a close up of the same....

This is a back plate, in aid of supporting this costume.... http://clydecaldwell.com/large_images/armed_dangerous.html

Below, this one was incomplete when I took the picture...it goes with the "Rose Sea" costume above. Lots of nice leatherwork. The hardest part (I think) was getting the rivets to line up and look nice.

Below, a vambrace with a snake peeking over the edge. Hammered into eighteen gauge steel with a cold chisel. Just a concept piece to see how it would turn out. Its not so bad, but again, hardly a "period" piece.

There were a lot more things made this week, a foot operated punch to do the above kind of work, the punches themselves which I made from some tool steel bits lying about, and a lot more layouts and work on saleable items like Iron Crosses. Snakes and dragons on the vambraces, that sort of thing. I'll show them off here if they end up looking either decent or at least, interesting.

Assay of armour in Malta

In 2002, an assay was done on some of the armour in the Palace Museum in Malta. This was carried out by D. Vella and C. Degringny, of the Diagnostic Science Laboratories of the Malta Centre for Restoration; M. Grech of the University of Malta, faculty of Engineering, and A. Williams of the Conservation Department at the Wallace Collection in London.

Most of the armour was northern Italian in provenance, and the purpose of the survey was to determine what form of corrossion control would be most applicable to protect this armour. The pdf file is quite long, several megabytes of download, and can be found in its entirety here...

http://www.nma.gov.au/shared/libraries/
attachments/publications/metal_04_proceedings/section_2_better_knowledge_of_objects/files/ 7837/NMA_metals_s2_p12_metallurgy.pdf

I have taken a bit of the summary from this assay because it is pertinent to the knowledge of how to make armour...which of course, is what this blog is all about. This is only a summary, mind you, and you should go to the above link for the whole story. I am reasonably certain that this abstract falls under the "fair use in publishing" and of course, I am attempting to give all credit where credit is due.

The first part is a table of the results of the assay.

This was table #2 in the study. They had surveyed ten separate armours, and discovered that all but one item were all 0.1% to 0.3% carbon. Of those, three are considered to be "wrought iron", and six of the remaining items were "low carbon steel", nearly iron. They had all been "hot forged", and were either "air cooled" or "rapid air cooled". None had been quenched in either the traditional water quench or in a "slack" quench, in which the item would be quenched in oil or molten lead.

One item, a pauldron was "hot short" due to phosphorus in the alloy...such an armour should not have passed a "proof" test. Dr. Williams points out that although metal containing phosphorus is fairly common in the day, it was almost never found in armour because it would fail in combat. He feels that the armourer must not have been aware that the armour was "hot short" or he never would have gone to the trouble to make it.

One of the pauldrons was made from not bad steel, .06% carbon by weight, which is similar to modern spring steel. Interestingly enough, even with the better quality of steel which went into it, they did not harden-temper the steel to take advantage of the high carbon. Instead, the armour maker let the steel cool in air. We know this because it was pearlitic steel. Fast quenching would have produced Martensite.


All the armour was laced with slag inclusions...likely from the ore (bog iron?) and from the elongation of the glassy slag, we know it was forged hot. Not like the armour I make here in this shop, which is universally worked cold, with some annealing from time to time to keep it from work hardening. These slag inclusions will instantly identify the armour as old, as opposed to, say, a Victorian era reproduction.

Out of the ten pieces, seven were what we would call "steel" and three were "wrought iron". The wrought iron was the most brittle, and it follows that brittle armour is inferior.

So there you have it...an assay of ten of the armours on display at the Palace Museum in Malta. Seven were steel, three were wrought iron, all were forged out while red hot, and none were quenched in water, lead, or oil.

Temperature versus colours

Erin emailed me this chart of colours which a fellow enthusiast had sent him. Mild steel sitting in an oven for a half hour.... this is what he found...

degrees color of steel
430 very pale yellow
440 light yellow
450 pale straw yellow
460 straw yellow
470 deep straw yellow
480 dark yellow
490 yellow brown
500 brown yellow
510 spotted brown
520 brown purple
530 light purple
540 full purple
550 dark purple
560 full blue
570 dark blue
640 light blue

My results varied a fair amount...I found that the steel I used did not really start to change colours until fifty minutes had gone by, then it was very quick after that. The actual temperature of the oven was not necessarily as important as the length of time it sat in there changing colours. I needed an oven cooking at a fairly high temperature...around 550 degrees...to get good results.

Different sheets of steel will behave differently, and the colours vary quite a bit. Like dye lots in fabric....no seamstress would make each side of a cote hardie from different bolts of cloth, and no armour maker should make complex coloured armours from different sheets of steel. Modern steel is made largely from melted scrap, the content of which varies remarkably from smelt to smelt.


My well thumbed copy of Bealer's "The Art of Blacksmithing" mentions these colours, but of course to be used to create the combination of hardness and toughness which make for a good chisel, knife, or sword. He suggests that the smith should forge out a thin piece of the chosen steel, and quench it properly, (that word "properly" involves a huge testing procedure itself!) then laying the metal on a hot block of metal, watch the colours as they progressed back from the hot spot. Then with files and "try" stones, he would see how tough or soft or brittle the metal would be at each colour. In the days of very inconsistent metallurgy, this was the only way he could create a tool which had the desired characteristics.

Armour in its own way has all the need for consistency, albeit different requirements make for different treatments and materials. I have seen the assays of metal from various armouries, and believe that medieval steel was so different from modern steel that almost nothing is the same. Well, maybe its tendency to rust....

Mr Edge from the Wallace Collection in London tells us that late period armour had a high carbon content, which allowed it to be hardened, and that very expensive armours were layered with high carbon steel on the outside backed up with low carbon steel. I can only presume these were made by forge welding two plates together, possibly right at the ingot level.... two ingots, one relatively high carbon and a second cheaper low carbon ingot would be forge weled into one single ingot, and then said ingot would then be hammered out by water powered hammers into a plate. (Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight, Edge and Paddock, page 134)

That being said, I do not believe that very late period medieval armour was made from high carbon steel in order to make it lighter and more effective. I will, however conceed that a better steel gradually replaced the dirty iron over the 15th and 16th centuries. By better, I mean a bit more carbon content, a bit less slag inclusions, better over all. Armour which was too hard would be in danger of cracking. I have never seen a broken armour nor have I heard of a broken armour. Therefore I will go out on a limb and state that they ("they" being Milanese armourers, the ones I am passing familiar with) usually did not make armour from metal which would break. I have however, seen several breastplates with holes in them from various impliments of destruction....the ones which were holed by British muskets in Malta for instance (during trials in the 18th century) show holes consistent with a composition of pretty much pure iron.

Obviously there are broken armours out there, because lets face it, anything in time will break. I am referring to armours which will have broken in use because they were made from steel which, like a sword, will break before bending.

The use of malleable steel or wrought iron would also allow for two things....easy repair of holes and dents, a reduction of cracks and stress fractures, and something like a crumble zone. That is to say, the creation of a dent will absorb an impact to a surprisingly large extent. I remember a couple of fights I walked away from because the people didn't feel the impact of my (simulated) sword, and on one occassion a fella came up to me later to apologise for not accepting my blow because his helm had caved in. The crumpling of his helmet absorbed so much energy that he felt it was "light". Since this happens with modern simulated combat, and quite frequently too, then I am certain that it happened in real combat, and that an armourer would pick and choose his materials to allow this life saving phenomon to occur. That material is not high carbon steel.

Thanks Erin for sending me that chart.
Bill

crocodile armour

click on images to enlarge These pics are of an armour made from crocodile skin. They were Roman armour, and as far as I know, unique. They were on display in the British Museum, and date from fourth century Roman Egypt.

Just thought my readers would like to see the incredible range of materials and designs which have been turned into body armour over the years.

I suspect that a standard spun bronze infantry helm was fitted under that.

So who would wear such an armour? An actual Roman legionaire? Unlikely a regular soldier. Possibly a special troupie...like say, a Chief Warrant Officer (Centurion). They generally wore a lion skin cloak with the head of the lion mounted on the helmet and the feet wrapped around the shoulders and tied in front. We know this from bas reliefs of the time. I would not for an instant put it past a creative commander to think to himself...."these crocs are pretty cool! Wonder if a croc skin could replace that musty moth eaten lion skin I was issued."

Personally I could see that happening with an auxiliary troup...say a small regiment of Egyptians who wanted to retain their distinctivness. Later in the forth and fifth centuries, such troups were allowed to retain portions of their distinct regional iconic dress...the Persian troops were allowed to retain their phyringian caps for instance.

Well, this is only speculation. Isn't it amazing how the mind runs wild with speculation when all you have is a suit in a glass case?

Three piece armour

click on the images to enlarge. This armour used some commercial shoulder buckles which I had picked up in a superstore. The side buckles are centre bar brass. The leather is a nice 5 ounce light duty leather that I had picked up just to make armour.

The backplate is flared rather than rolled. Although I normally charge a bit extra for this service, I did it just to show my student how it was done. The flare looks okay.

The faulds were as simple as I could make them. No frills here!

Yet they don't look all that bad all in all. Took two men working about 9 hours each to pull this one off. A full day, but a productive one!

Armour finished.

click on images to enlarge.
This is the new brass. Looks not too bad...I think it took about 4 hours all in all. But I think it was worth the trouble....it really makes the armour look nice.

Here is a nicer pic of the armour...with ME in the picture. As you can see, I am a little bit shorter than the client. And there are picadills behind the tassets and behind the faulds as well.

Not too bad...those oxblood straps really set the armour off well. That red lace. hmmm. Must tuck that away. The big round buckles are "home made", while the centre strap, buckle and lion are "off the shelf". I might let the outermost buckles on the tassets out one hole, allow them to hang more straight down.

The back has more than enough room for expansion...the client will cut down the straps when he sizes it to him. Right now, they are, like, way too long. But better long than too short.

The back is a little lighter than the front, not much, just a shade, and it has a high gloss lacquer finish on it. The shadow lines turned out really well. And of course the top tabs need to be bent down a bit.

So I can call this portion of the job finished.

Backplate woes

Above is the new version of the breastplate. It is not as dark as I would have liked, but its a LOT darker than the first one. Its the alloy.... thats as dark as it'll get. Thats from the batch of new steel I picked up on Wednesday. I will have to make the other two pieces from the same piece, just to make sure they all match.

This was the best I could get with the first batch of steel...sort of a streaky blue. This is a weird material....can't be a steel alloy. It just simply didn't match the rest of the armour, so I made a new back plate. And come to think of it, that middle piece will have to go as well....I am sure the client won't want horizontal stripes....more work on a Friday morning....grin!
So, anybody want a nice backplate?
The more you heat this stuff, the "lighter in colour" it gets. strange stuff. Can't be "steel". I have no idea what it might be other than steel though! Maybe some alloy of stainless which snuck into the pile.

Erin S's armour, blued again

Erin wanted blue armour, and here it is. Sort a dark greyish,blackish dark blue.

The original one was this colour, blue-purple. By going an extra twenty minutes at a 25 degree higher temp, it turned a deep dark blue. Have to watch it close though....it goes grey really quick once it starts to turn, so it behooves one to keep an eye on it. Below is a side view of the new armour.

above you can see the fine roll lines the different stress levels in the steel result in different colours.

click on all these images to enlarge.

Erin's armour, brassed

The brass bits are kind of fun to make...in a finicky sort of way. They have to be made out of cardboard first, then transferred over to brass, then they all have to be cut out, polished (takes hours that polishing!) than punched for the rivet holes. after drilling the rivet holes, they are countersunk. That big drill bit is just there to clean up the holes! The next step after this is to lay the brass into a divot in the wooden stump, and carefully dish it all out so that it will fit the curve of the underlying steel. Ya gots ta take yer time eh!

Clamp city! We leave a couple of the holes accessible to the drills so that we can drill the holes through the brass bits, and through the sixteen gauge steel underneath.

This is the finished cinquellette from a three quarter's view...

And below is what it looks like from the front. All that is left now is to finish file the edges to clean them up, and of course to replace those pop rivets with brass rivets. The plaquart is the same but different...I didn't want to duplicate the front design too much, though I suppose it would have been good design practice to do so.

And to give credit where credit is due, most of the bull dog work here has been done by Mark, under my close supervision. I just fussed about, correcting a line here, fixing something there. He can take credit for all that work. I'll take credit for the design.

Tassets

The client wanted some nice period tassets. I like tassets, often they are removed because they are annoying to wear while on horseback. So much so that much of the parade armour doesn't have any tassets at all. This is particuarly the case with Gothic stuff. Oh well, these are very English, and don't look too bad withall.... (click on images to enlarge) Above are the tools requrired to flute sixteen gauge....a honkin heavy hammer, a blunt chisel, and a block of wood to shove the metal down into. Above is the back of the armour, and below you can see what it looks like from the front. Clearly it is a work in progress. But already you can see the nice sweeps and crisp lines.

Of course, it will need to be sanded clean, then blued like the rest of it, and then have some nice buckles added onto it. And possibly some more passes with the chisel to deepen and fair out those flute lines.

Normally fluting is a really expensive proposition....and this is no different. To this point, there is about an hour into it. And of course this is onlyly one side, I estimate four hours to finish. And another hour to make the buckles, and blue the tassets. So all this custom work will likely add about a hundred bucks to the price but unlike most customizing, this will really turn heads.

Erin S's armour, blued

This is the same armour we saw a couple of posts ago, Erin just wanted a crease in the front to define the line. This is not a true flute, and to my surprise, it went a lot faster than I expected. So, while some of the armour was turning that nice purplish-blue colour, I battered in a centre keel.

above is the breast plate, all blued and ready to drill to mount the leather.

above is another picture same as the top one, but from a different angle. Clearly, depending on the light, it looks either blue or purple. One thing is for sure, it looks fire coloured.

More sexy armour...the finished product

This is Tracy. She has graciously allowed me to photograph her in her sexy armour, and in return, we ask you not to copy them.
Click on the images to enlarge.
This was a "fitting" photo shoot so we didn't use a lot of props like high leather boots and such. Furs will have to do for now. The fancy boots will come later. For now, I figure if I can get one or two pics I can use, then "bonus", but that was not the real purpose of the shoot. It was to try and see if we could get it to fit and what I will need to do in the future to get it to fit correctly.
The results were pretty good. Above, sexy armour, inspired by the incomparable Clyde Caldwell.

Above, rage against the chains.... I know...the joint between the cup and the strap needs work...but then, thats WHY we do fittings!

Prrrrrrrr... And yes Karen, those I DID line those cups.

Above is a wallpaper. click on it to enlarge. This picture, like all the pictures on this blog are not public domain. email me at stag@southtower.on.ca if you desire a download.

And this one will be going on my web site.

(now to get back to Erin's armour. )