Well, in the lead up to Rag, I have been quite busy getting some armour done to help offset the cost of me attending this year. Let me tell you, that I look at the prices of armour on line, and am a bit baffled as to how these vendors can sell these pieces at such a low price. When I was working at Medwedeff Forge & Design, it cost Duff (my old boss) about $100 an hour to keep me employed. This was to cover not only my wages, but insurance, energy consumption and the like. At that rate, I would have to finish any number of pieces in an hour's time frame to even make them salable at a Dag (or any other) event. Even if I was just charging at my old pay rate, I really have to move quickly to make any of this worth my time. I guess it is good that I love to work metal and like the challenge of making these pieces... because, lets me honest, If I was charging what any armour should be priced at, then no one would want to spend that kind of money even on the simplest of things. Just a caveat though, I want you to understand that pretty much all that I am making is with the bare minimum of power tools; Belt sander, Jig Saw and Electric Drill. Everything else is done by hand, even the planishing.
This is what I have accomplished so far. Everything cut and formed and cleaned. Two sets of spaulders have a brushed metal finish. I am not sure how I feel about it... not quite the same as a good satin or bright finish, but I just lack the tools required to take it from the brushed to satin finish. What is going to be required is a bench grinder that can accept 8" wheels so I can put on finishing / buffing wheels that are 1" wide and that can accept paste grit stuff (not sure the technical term, but hey).
One thing of interest that I did come up with is how to clean off the carbon deposits that are built up when hot working sheet. I read an article that states that you can use vinegar to do the trick. Well, I am just not interested in purchasing that much vinegar, let alone the awful stink that will entail. Being in that I am a jeweler as well, and have a large quantity of Rio Pickle, I though I could give that a try. The stuff acts as an acid on Steel, so I had to be careful on how long I left it to pickle. Hot tap water pickle will clean off the black oxides in about 5 minutes, leaving a medium gray finish. I did this with the Kettle Helm, Spangenhelm and a set of spaulders. One thing that I did realize, is that I had to heat the pieces that I worked cold so as to get the same gray color. The sheet is naturally pretty bright, and putting bright pieces next to gray pieces just wouldn't work. So, I heated them in my forge to build up the oxides and then quenched them right away. While, you cannot harden mild steel this way, at least they won't be dead soft and will be able to maintain the punishment they will receive while not deforming.
Back to the Kettle Helm. As I have stated before, this piece is for me. It serves actually two purposes, one for me to wear in the sun... the second, and more important, as a test piece for techniques and tools. I cannot stress how handy having clecos are. These are aviation sheet metal tools that you place in holes that you will eventually rivet. By putting one in every hole on the line that you are riveting, you ensure maximum alignment.
As you can see here, this is exactly what I have done. I will state, however, that this is not an entirely perfect system, as it did require me to run a drill through most of the holes as the alignment was off at least a little (about a finger nails width). The close tolerances of the punched holes just required me to wallow them out a bit. I also had to make a new stake for setting the rivets. I found in my bag of tricks a 1" dia piece of stainless that I had to forge a taper on one side, an oval on the other. I dapped and drilled a divit on the top of the oval for the head of the rivet to set inside so as not to mar the rivets. I am used to using a ball piece for peening rivets. However, I found while assembling the helmet that a ball peen just will not reach the inside properly. What I ended up using was my custom forged dishing hammer, made from an old jack hammer bit. This actually proved to be the best choice as the quality of riveting went up by a lot, as well speed up the time required to set each rivet.
I think that by looking at this photo, you can see exactly what I mean.
On the right, you can see the completed kettle helm. There are some issues that I found working this particular piece, especially the pattern that I found on the Armour Archive. I am not certain how the author intended the piece to go together, but, honestly, it just isn't quite right. Or, maybe it is just me. :p Either way, it was a good experience building it, and will certainly keep the sun and arrows out of my eyes.
