Planishing

The dreaded "Planishing". This step alone takes more time than all the rest up until now! A planishing hammer is lighter than a bouging hammer, and just as shiney. Working from the inside, the armourer places the workpiece on a hard piece of shiny steel and hammer mark after overlapping hammer mark back and forth on the workpiece.

Most anvils are not polished enough to do this, so I use a piece of highly polished hardened steel which sits in a neat cout out in one of the wooden anvils. I have met people who have polished anvils for this job. It takes a couple of days to polish and anvil good enough, and then you can't use it for anything else BUT planishing!

The hammers are moved in a quick little wrist flick, and the elbow is held beside the body in order to provide precise control. Then, placing the workpiece over a ball (a cannon ball would be nice if I could find one), the armourer smooths the outside of the workpiece. For the outside, a flat faced hammer is often used. The faces must be very shiny, little mirrors. When every square centimeter is covered with overlapping hammer blows front and back, the worker will examine the surface carefully by oblique lighting, and by feel...often with eyes closed, looking for flat spots, high spots, and textural problems. I have been known to re-bouge and re-planish spots which show up at this point, so I tend to do a cursory once through with the planishing hammer just to take down the big bumps and fill the worst dents before really going to town with the "finish" planishing.