Spaulderfest!

Thursday night was fun. Sir Lyonel, Sir Giotto, Uther, Barnet and Ty came over to the shop to make spaulders. Well, Uther mostly worked on a helm, but everyone else worked on spaulders. Giotto and Lyonel did most of the cutting. They even remounted my beverly shears, which was really nice of them. Barnet did the grinding work for every piece in the shop. It's a job I just don't enjoy much, and hopefully other folks appreciate it. Plus he did a good job on it. Lyonel is slightly compulsive, and dished things so cleanly that there was hardly any planishing, grinding and smoothing to do. So we have a few cops pretty much done, and we can probably finish the rest, bend the lames and heat treat in one evening.

We got Ty's heat treated, and he seemed to love the whole process, from me singing the hair off my knuckles to the scream of the metal during the quench. I think I got a little sloppy tossing his pieces in the bath, so there might be a bit of warpage. We'll see when we try to reassemble them. I tempred them in the oven at 450 for 45 minutes.

Blogger doesn't feel like letting me post images of the research on these spaulders. Very anoying.

I'm kicking around the idea of edging some of the spaulders in brass and engraving them. I might do a pair like that as a Christmas present. A brass engraving class would be fun, and I can make nice hanldes for the gravers with the lathe.

So today I'm hoping to cut out, grind and dish the greave pattern I'm playing with. We'll see how it goes.