Building a back Plate, finish rolling

An armourer's anvil is a bit specialized. It has to have sharp edges, rounded edges and be longer than the usual range of anvils. The metal is pretty thin by blacksmith standards, so it does not need to be nearly as heavy as a standard anvil. Some weight is needed though! A modified railroad track is pretty good. Because it is not made of hardened steel, it has to be dressed frequently. As usual, I lay on a nice thick layer of duct tape to protect the metal. I have to replace the duct tape from time to time or else the wrinkles in the duct tape will transfer to the surface of the steel! The top picture shows my homemade armourer's anvil, welded to a big old chunk of I beam, with a dishing stump (wooden anvil) acting as a counterweight. This set up is pretty much what you would find in most workshops of the Middle Ages.
You will notice from the second picture that the anvil is quite sharp on the left edge and nicely rounded on the right hand edge. It is bullnosed to a 3/8 inch radius. That bullnosed edge is the one I use here.
The edge of the steel backplate is placed over the rounded side of the anvil, and pushed down with a soft hammer. (lead is common, nowadays we use urethane faced hammers) Because I am an un-repentant steel man, I use my trusty ball peen for this job, and use care to avoid weird dents. This is the point where you should install a wire if you are going to do it. In this example, I have not bothered. When you are all done, top part of the workpiece is totally flat (as shown by the square). That is the part which goes to the inside of the armour, against the body. No sharp edges! The bottom picture shows the roll from the inside. Smooth as a baby's bottom...

A further step is often used in medieval armours, and that is to take a dull chisel, and tap in diagonal dents all along the edge of the roll to make it look like a twisted rope. That process is called "roping" and for some reason is considered to be very fancy. I consider roping to be remarkably easy (compared to this rolling part!) and a poor reason to double the price of an armour. But yes, it does "make" the job look finished all right! I'll leave baling and roping for you to figure out...grin!

Rolling the edge, intermediate stage

You can see the metal gets neatly curled over the mould. I am using a brick chisel here, but there are specialized tools which are often made by the blacksmith. Sometimes I use the wedge shaped end of a cross peen hammer if that is all I have at the time. The most important part of course is the ball peen hammer. It is hard to see in the illustration, but the hammer face has been sanded until it is slightly rounded, then buffed to a mirror finish. That is because any scratch or dent in the hammer will be transferred to the work piece. For a similar reason, the anvil is faced with duct tape to protect the work piece. (Polishing the anvil would take a long time, but know people who have done it!)

In my workshop, there is a big sign up saying "Use claw hammers to drive nails and punches....use ball peens to hit steel". The "peen" part of the hammer is what you use for this job...the "ball" part of the hammer is used to peen over rivets. This terminolgy makes more sense when you think of the whole hammer being called a "peen". I'm sure it comes from an Anglo-Saxon word which means "Lump-o-iron". Blacksmiths in their normal every day to day work use a hammer called a "cross peen" hammer that has a wedge on the back of it, the striking line of the wedge being 90 degrees to the handle. A "straight peen" hammer would have the wedge in line with the handle...rather like a stubby hatchet.

Claw hammers are for nails, usually they are much lighter, and you don't polish the faces...in fact, some claw hammers are intentionally scored to grip the nails. Often claw hammers have steel handles. I hate steel handles. I shape the handles to fit my hands with the belt sander.

So now you know all about hammers. Well, not ALL about hammers, but enough to know that if you talk to an armourer about the most common tool of his trade, you will know that the armourer is the one with the balls....

Making a back plate part 2, Rolling the Edges

The reason you roll the edge of a piece of armour is so that it doesn't cut into your body. Generally you roll the armour anyplace where it touches the skin. Some exceptions exist, the gorget bib or the shoulder tabs on this backplate for instance, but when you have such an edge, you should line it with leather for simple safety reasons.
Safety is a funny concept. It is closely allied to liability. How much liability does the armourer have? According to my lawyer, anybody who purchases an armour from me has a "reasonable expectation of performance". Same as if he bought a car from me, he expects the engine to start, and the brakes won't suddenly fail on me. People that purchase armour from me expect it to be comfortable, long lasting, and capable of shedding weapons strikes. There is also something called "armour bites", where the armour causes damage to the person underneath, often unrelated to the weapons strikes! My job (among others) is to minimize armour bites. Rolling will help. Designing out 90 degree corners, and making space for underlying leather or padding is also within my perview. On your template, you must leave a half inch "roll allowance".
The first step of course is to determine which edges need to be rolled, and push it down over the heel of the anvil until a half inch flange of metal is sticking out all around the edge you want to make safe. Then using your nice shiny ball peen hammer and a big old brick breaking chisel as a mould, you curl the metal around until it it goes from 90 degrees to 180 degrees. It is best to not hit it too hard, or you just flatten it all out. You want it to have a space inside the roll. When I do this job right, I can slip a wire into the space from the end. The guys in the old days used to put a wire into the roll. This wire is called a "bail" and as far as I can see, it serves no useful purpose in heavy armour. When you are done, the edge of the armour should look and feel like the top edge of a metal bucket.
This rolled edge is very sturdy....and will be hard to push around.

Making a back plate part 1...Templates

First draft of a book tentatively entitled...."To be an armour maker like me" Please comment freely, this stream of consciousness needs to be corralled.

Part 1....Making the armour! Templates.
The first step is to develop a template, and then the pattern. This can take a lot longer than you think, and you have to make the piece over and over again, modifying the template every time until you have perfected it. Some of my templates have been modified 8 or 9 times, and I still have not got them right. To make matters worse, each template, after it is made, also has to be sized to the individual. A template sized to an individual is called a "pattern", and each pattern is pretty much disposable. The pattern contains a lot of personal stuff, like the kind of decoration, style of fluting or grooving the client wants, whereas the template is the bedrock design upon which you base the pattern. The artwork is in the pattern. The engineering is in the template.
Changing the template is hard. Changing the pattern is easy. Since most armour is customized to a greater or lesser extent, it is best to change the pattern rather than the underlying template. You can go broke pretty quickly by trying to make armour you have never made before! One time I fell for the line a client spouted.... "yeah, I want you to make the tin man from the Wizard of Oz. How hard can it be...you make much more complicated armours!" True, it was a much easier looking item, and in fact it is. However, it required 3 templates, and when I finally made the item it didn't fit him. "I waited almost a year for a simple costsume that doesn't even fit me! No way I am paying for that!". And lets face it, how could I charge for all that templating work. I was foolish to not break the job into two parts....the development and the production. As it was, I wasted weeks of effort, all a dead loss.

It really helps if the client knows what they want. And that they realize that if I custom build a job it will cost a lot more. A recent helm was heavily customized, and the client suddenly refused to pay for it. Too expensive. "Dude, you agreed to the extra work! Too expensive. I'm going elsewhere. "Fine" I said, I'll keep it here. Two weeks later, another fellow contacted me, wanted a helm customized just like the one I had lying around, and so we made a deal. It was about 30 bucks less than what I was going to charge the first guy, so I took a hit just to move it out of the showroom. (you know where this is going eh?) Turns out they were brothers, and they played this silly game in order to get a cheaper helm! All that hassle for three sawbucks!

They don't know what they want... the dreaded "Well, what does an armour cost"?
I just recently turned down a potentially high profit job....a local engineering firm wanted me to make a hardshell for military EOD armours. (EOD...Explosive Ordinance Disposal. They already wear expensive kevlar suits....this would be an extra shell. I guess every little bit helps!) Their thought was "hey, why re-invent the wheel...there are people who actually MAKE armour...we can just get them to pound some out. Again, price was no object if I could make what they had in mind. Trouble was, they wanted, like, 40 of them. In a month. They didn't know what material would be best....aluminum, steel, or stainless.....they didn't have a template made. I told them it would take a couple of weeks to define the template and make a couple of testers, and another couple of weeks to get the specialized aircraft aluminum delivered. I have no regrets about missing out on such a good contract. They didn't know WHAT they wanted so how on earth could I possibly give a completion date and a price!

Morning coffee

These pics are from Nederlands Championship for Latte Art 2005. http://www.latteart.nl/fotos_etching.asp

The Pitt Rivers Museum

Oxford. My what delightful memories. Not at all the stuffy academic town you might think, it is a pleasant place to visit. My memories include the river with the pretty thatched building beside it, the old sheep shop (of Alice in Wonderland fame!) and of course, the remains of castles (three of them) scattered about the city. I never knew about the weapons museum, the "Pit Rivers Museum". The museum was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers gave a collection of more than 18,000 artefacts to the University of Oxford.
Its collections include 150 objects collected on Captain Cook's second voyage to the South Pacific. The battle shield above is from Papua New Guinea.
(It caught my eye because of the mask in the centre of the shield....it is a spitting image of the comic book character "Ghost Who Walks" from my childhood. Anybody remember the comic? It was one of my favorites since the lead character did not have super powers, but, like the Batman, did it all on his own. But I digress....)
That shield is remenicent of the Roman Scutum in shape, but is actually a fairly light framework of willow wood, with cowhide stretched over it. I doubt it would stop many missiles, but might be useful enough against rocks and sticks, sort of like a modern riot guard's shield. I have seen a mannequin wearing Papaua armour....it is wicker armour, with a high collar to prevent rocks flung from your own side (from behind you) from braining you! Must have been an interesting time!
So, that gives me yet another reason to visit the auld city of Oxford.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4888944.stm

Drills

Drills are different to form; they are short sequences repeated a number a times, and always focus upon a very limited application.
They take a form posture and consider small circle applications that might extend from that movement.Focussing in this manner enables you to see hidden possibilities of further application suggested by the form posture.
A drill is just one possible application but can lead you to see more choices within the posture.Drills are usually two person sets but should be trained solo as well.
If you want to train speed and power, perform the set as slowly as you can. The responses become second nature.It would be a mistake to focus too heavily upon drills, for they only represent a slither of form.

posted by Dynamic Balancing Tai Chi

http://dynamicbalancingtaichi.blogspot.com/

IT Professional!

Global registration at British Airways clearly tries to be as inclusive as possible. When you register, you go to a registration page, which has the most complete "drop down" menus I have ever seen! Under "personal details" you have your choice of 104 titles, including Commodor, Pastor, Wing Commander and yes, Mister. The list of countries is double that of the usual list of countries. I think someobody was paid by the hour for this job....

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/inet/public/en_gb

Month in the Middle

When the border patrol pulled me over last summer when I was visting New York, they were highly suspicious of the Canadian way of stating the day-month-year as written down in governmental shorthand....in the US it is always written month-day-year, except sometimes when it is written year-day-month. (Yeah, I shake my head too!) For instance, my birthday is the twenty first of August, 1956. So my drivers licence has it as 21-08-56. My US importers permit has it as 08-21-56. More to the point, my driver's licence tags expired on my birthday, 21 Aug 05. Its written right there on the little sticker...21/08/05. Right....this was sometime in July, and according to them, the tag had expired in May. They eventually decided there was a problem when they suddenly realized that THAT meant the YEAR it expired would be 2021. Or maybe 2008. Hmmmm...... An hour later, they told me to move along. I noticed that the BP turned into the nearest pharmacy...no doubt to pick up a bottle of aspirin for the headache STAG always seems to give people!!!

This was my only real experience with the Border Patrol on the US side. Very nice people, but woefully untrained in cultural differences which apply to the people they have to deal with. I can only imagine the difficulty they face in dealing with Quebecers. Or Mexicans. Or Chicanos. Or Chinese.

Anyway, here's a little tidbit...

3 minutes after two in the morning of the 4th of May will be

2/03/04/05/06

Only in the British Empire...of course.

STAG....

More on Bob!

Yet more stories on the fight to free Bob the Moose Head! (Gosh, I remember when Moosehead was a beer, not a misdemeanor...) (as usual, click on the image, etc.)


http://www.torontosun.com/News/BobTheMoose/2006/04/05/1520809-sun.html

Free Bob!!!!!

Former moose head owner Ken Procyk, left, and Mark Bonokoski take their campaign to Queen’s Park yesterday. ( photo....Craig Robertson, Sun)

Bob is a moose head.

Specifically a family heriloom which he sold, like so many people do, on eBay.

Ken Procyk ( like me, a Ukrainan-Canadian!) had been given the moose head by his father, who in turn had been given it by a hunter. But Ken didn't have a licence to "export pelts". Bob was impounded at the border, and Ken was served with a hefty fine. 250 bucks from the Canadians, and 560 bucks in "storage fees" from the Americans.

In fact, armed officers arrived at his home, and served him papers!

I think you should check out Mark Bonokowski's column in the Sun. It will certainly challenge any residual ideas you might be having that "bigger government is better government".

http://www.torontosun.com/News/BobTheMoose/2006/04/04/1519108-sun.html

Go Ken. Go Mark. Go Bob!!!!

Greetings..

Shamelessly ripped off from the "Daily Nooze" My fave is the name of the cat...grin!

Rejected ideas from the staff of Hallmark Cards, as reported by The Associated Press:

Christmas
Front: Spread some holiday cheer.
Inside: Or drink alone. Who am I to judge?

Front: Christmas just wouldn't be the same without peanut brittle.
Inside: Or Jesus.

Birthday
Front: My ex-girlfriend had a cat named Love because she said that's what it gave her.
Inside: So I called it Bloody Forearms. Hope no one gets YOU a cat for your birthday.

Front: I wanted to give you a body piercing for your birthday.
Inside: But I didn't think I could get you drunk enough to where you wouldn't feel the stapler!

Wedding & Engagement
Front: Marriage is a bond that is unbreakable except by two-thirds of the population.
Inside: But it's you top-third couples that give the rest of us hope.

Miscellaneous
Front: When I think of you, Mom, I swell with pride.
Inside: At least I hope it's pride. Otherwise, I'm pregnant again.

Front: (Picture of Happy Face)
Inside: Hi! Welcome back from your coma!

Canadian History

Just when I think I have heard it all, I find out another "factoid" which sets me on my heels! This one concerns the fellow who wrote my national Anthem, imaginatively named "Oh Canada". Oh sure, I knew he was a Francophone, and that the first time it was ever played was at a Jean Baptiste Day party in Quebec City. American Blog readers should know that the Separatist Party in Canada, based mostly in Quebec City, always holds a bit separatist rally on St. Jean Baptist Day. Its their day to chant secessionist rhetoric and so the fact that it was first played There and Then is really kind of ironic. What I didn't know is that the author, Calixa Lavallee, though born in Montreal, moved to the USA where he joined the blue coats in the War of Northern Aggression. (as my friend D'Arcy calls it) where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant. This was through the ranks, so you just KNOW the road to promotion was paved with the bodies of those superior in rank to him. If he was a bandman, then he was also a medic and ambulance man...and would have seen the results of secessionist rhetoric up close and personal like. So it must have been a labour of love to create a "bring together" song for the "The Con­grès Na­tion­al des Ca­na­diens-Fran­çais". Must have...it became a national anthem.
Lavalee died in Boston in 1891, and his body was re-interned 30 years later in Montreal.

Spring!

(click on image to enlarge)

Dance then,
wherever you may be
"I am the Lord of the Dance" said He
"I'll lead you all whom ever you may be
I'll lead you all in the dance" said He.

I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced with the moon and I danced with the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on Earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth.

I danced for the Scribe and the Pharasee
But they wouldnt dance and they wouldn't follow Me
I danced with the fishermen James and John,
They came to me and the dance went on!

I danced on the Sabbath when I cured the Lame
The holy people thought it was a shame
They stripped me, they whupped me, and they hung me high
They left Me high on a cross to die

I danced on Friday and the sky turned black
Its hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone
But I am the dance and I still live on

They cut me down and I leapt up high!
I am the light that will never never die
I'll live in you if you'll live in me
I am the lord of the dance said He!

So dance, then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance said He
I'll lead you all wherever you may be
I'll lead you all in the dance said He.

The words and musical arrangement to this hymn are under copyright. If you wish to print, copy, cut/paste or duplicate these lyrics you must obtain permission from Hope Publishing Company (800-323-1049).

You deserve a great map made of Jello....

Had a rough night.....my faith in humanity was shaken but perhaps regained. I feel like ranting, so I left something on my rant blog. Nothing very interesting though....
Sunday morning....a gorgeous day. Sunny. snow melting like crazy. It rained all night....most of the snow is gone. Brenda took me to a play. Community theatre. It was very impressive considering it is all volunteers. Heck, I have seen professional acts which were not as good!

A walk in the sun seems called for.

My mom.

This was my mom's birthday. 23 march 1933.
May she rest in peace.

She was born a Lundeen....a descendant of Swedenborg himself. She joined the Airforce in '53, converted to Catholism, then because they didn't allow women to be married and be in the military, she left the air force to marry my Dad. This pic was taken at their first Christmas together. I came along later.

Its been, what....20 years now....and I still miss her.

She had a tremendous faith, and she firmly believed that she was going to a better place. Because of her great faith, I have never grieved her passing, but only wish she could have hung around us a little longer.

De-motivational pics....

Very fortunately, I do not have this to contend with!

Dropped into the "Habitat for Humanity Re-Use It Store" today. cool place, sort of a big warehouse full of "oops" paint, end lots of tiles, old doors and a remarkable number of toilets. I hear that Canadian high volume toilets are much in demand in some parts of the US. There are none on EBay though....so maybe I heard wrong! There were bathtubs in purple. Real honest to gawd purple. Not just lilac (though there were lilac bathtubs there as well). Also brown. Pink. Blue. And white. I'll be shaking my head over the purple bathtubs for awhile though! They also had fireplace mantles (new in the box) for 40 bucks. Solid oak. Must come back with a notebook full of measurements.

Class three tonight. A camera man from the local TV station was filming the whole time. He will be back with a news anchor on Friday to say hi, maybe do some more filming, and then he will be at my shop all day Monday. All this to get 2 and a half minutes on the "news at six"! Actually, I think that is pretty good...I am trying to imagine how expensive 150 seconds of advertising time during the 6 0'clock news would be.......This is quite exceptional. Cept I got my left and right confused right at the beginning....camera shy I guess! Oh well, gives 'em something to feature...Bill screwing up! At least I kept most of the pithy phrases out of my talk when the cameras were rolling....wildly politically incorrect phrases like..."Then you deflect his sword upward, move in on him and and club him like a baby seal!" (Hey, I was a drill instructor once!)

Well, enough of this. I see that blogger won't accept more than one pic at a time...and I have so many more de-motivational pictures thanks to the Wizard of Oz......

More on Malta

The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem were Hospitaler Knights. That is to say, their raison d'etre was to build hospitals, to provide field hospitals during warfare, and to save lives. Their history is a really long one, since it lasts for about 900 years or so....they are still around. If you were to receive first aid instruction from the St. John's Ambulance, you have had dealings with them. They are most famous for stopping Suleiman the Magnificent in his tracks at the Great Seige of Malta in 1565. If they had not done that, then Europe would have followed North Africa into Islam. There is still a Grand Master, and the flag of the crusades still flies over Fort St. Angelo, where it was first placed by Jean De LaValette in 1540. (not the Knight's flag...their symbol is inscribed over the entrance to the castle.) Their history is not so grand later on though....Napoleon kicked them out and they went to Rome, where they have quarters in the Eternal City. I note that they still have offices in the walls of Valetta though! The other flag, the one to the right is the flag of the Maltese Republic. It has a cross on it, but it is NOT a Maltese Cross...it is a picture of the "George Cross", a British medal given to the whole country for their bravery during WWII. And thats a whole 'nother story!

That picture is of the Fort St. Angelo from inside the Grand Harbour, looking North on a beautiful February afternoon! If you look down near the base of the castle, you can see the cannons being used as bollards to tie boats up. In the back, you can see the entrance to the Grand Harbour, to the left you can't quite see Fort St. Elmo, and to the right is Fort Ricasolli. They did parts of the movie "Gladiator" and "Troy" at Fort Ricasolli. They built those forts to last, but they are crumbling fast!

Malta Pics

Got thinking about Malta, probably from reading Jennifer's post about coffee...Malta has awesomely good coffee. St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta, and went to the Roman Governor's house. The top pic was taken from the governor's house, looking at St. Paul's Bay (where he was ship wrecked) along the sides of the fortifications at MDina. MDina, or Medina is a common name in the Mediterranian...this one was the old capital city of Malta. It was a cool day, and not too many people about. I think it is also darn near the highest point on the Island!The second picture is of the great Crusader's cross. Thats the original...the one the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem carried from Jerusalem, to Krak de Chevaliers, to Acre, to Rhodes, and eventually to Malta. I had seen this in woodcuts and paintings, and was thrilled when the keeper of the lamps let us into a backroom to see it. (Backroom! Ha! It was the whole North transcept!) A little shock went through me when I saw the movie about Geoffery de Bhohun, in that not so bad movie about the Crusades that just came out last year, because the cross was there in the movie! Or a darned good copy of it I suppose! Considering part of that movie was filmed in Malta, I suspect the props guys made a point of checking out the real thing. I know they got the armour and weapons right. The K of St. J. were well represented, but their names and heraldry were changed because they are still around. (And they had not pissed off the Christian world with the far right extremism of the Templar Knights. ) Otherwise the weapons and armour was pretty much bang on accurate! (and I should know!)I had always had a problem with the concept of the Church Militant. I never really figured that there were conditions on any of the ten commandments...but clearly so many Deacons, Curates, Pastors and priests are smarter than I am, so who am I to point out that misappropriation of church funds is, like....stealing! And that a crusade is, like.....killing. But, I don't feel like ranting right now. It never seems to prove anything! But the Templars, Knights of St. John, and the Teutonic Knights were the three great orders of Church Militant Knighthood. They came from wealthy families, had no wealth of their own, but dined on silver plate and wore armour from Milan. The third picture is of an armour in the Palace Museum. It is all covered in grease (hence the shine!) and it is not nearly as rusty as it looks....the axle grease is dark brown, making the armour look rusty. The piece in front is quite ornate, both repousse'd (pushed into), embossed (pulled up and away from the background) and engraved. The edges are roped, the spaulder is articulated, and the cannon rotates as if it were new! After being in this trade now full time for almost 12 years, I am almost ready to tackle a job a nice as that one! You can see me in the background getting instruction from Mr. Stroud, the curator. (He wants me to work there. I am so not worthy of that honour, give me a few years to practice!)