Making forms
I had big hopes for my progress yesterday. I have a ton of cannon balls and shot puts just begging to be made into stakes and a scheme to mount them interchangeably. I have a chunk of square stock that I'm going to forge a taper in to fit into my stake plate. I'll drill a 1/2inch hole in the opposite end, and forge weld some round rod in that. Then all the balls can sit comfortably on the stake once they have half inch round holes, which should go pretty fast.
The problem is, nothing happened fast. It took maybe 15 minutes to grind and then saw the square stock in half for the stake. Then I had to find and fix a leak in my propane line. Had to cut the 1/2 inch round rod to size. By the time I got the forge cranking and heating the square stock it was 10pm, and I can't reasonably expect to hammer away on that stuff with the garage door open that late.
My bigger and more exciting project is sort of a Coke bottle shaped form I'll be using to make greaves and vambraces with. I got a big honkin' steel cylinder and popped it on my unsuspecting wood lathe. Much grinding and some turning ensued. It wobbles since I didn't manage to get it QUITE trued up. I've flung about a pound of steel shavings at the nearby stereo, which is now acting flaky, but the form is no where near the shape I want. It's proven to be useful already on Barnet's cuisses, but for more complex shapes, it needs more aggressive curving. I considered taking it to a machine shop to be shaped, but A. I'm cheap and B. I'm not sure they'd deal with what's more artistic vision than clear cut spec particularly well.
I did make some progress on the sabaton I was playing with, but probably still need to add an extra roll at the top since I turned the fold so hard it has a tiny crack. It's not a big deal since I want to make it a bit shorter anyway. But I'd love to get it done, fired and try it out with my greaves.
So goals for the next Gulf War deed:
Cased greaves
Sabatons
A new breast plate
A better pole arm
Better ransoms- hey sabatons would be cool ransoms...
New legs would be great too. Mine are just too bulky, the knees are inelegant, and just sort of clunky. I don't want to be making my own buckles again. I just have too many issues with them and they don't look as good as I'd like.
New maile, ideally with the cool collar like du Guesclin's tomb has
Must make posters of that tomb, and the Dijon St. George (look to the right in this blog).
The problem is, nothing happened fast. It took maybe 15 minutes to grind and then saw the square stock in half for the stake. Then I had to find and fix a leak in my propane line. Had to cut the 1/2 inch round rod to size. By the time I got the forge cranking and heating the square stock it was 10pm, and I can't reasonably expect to hammer away on that stuff with the garage door open that late.
My bigger and more exciting project is sort of a Coke bottle shaped form I'll be using to make greaves and vambraces with. I got a big honkin' steel cylinder and popped it on my unsuspecting wood lathe. Much grinding and some turning ensued. It wobbles since I didn't manage to get it QUITE trued up. I've flung about a pound of steel shavings at the nearby stereo, which is now acting flaky, but the form is no where near the shape I want. It's proven to be useful already on Barnet's cuisses, but for more complex shapes, it needs more aggressive curving. I considered taking it to a machine shop to be shaped, but A. I'm cheap and B. I'm not sure they'd deal with what's more artistic vision than clear cut spec particularly well.
I did make some progress on the sabaton I was playing with, but probably still need to add an extra roll at the top since I turned the fold so hard it has a tiny crack. It's not a big deal since I want to make it a bit shorter anyway. But I'd love to get it done, fired and try it out with my greaves.
So goals for the next Gulf War deed:
Cased greaves
Sabatons
A new breast plate
A better pole arm
Better ransoms- hey sabatons would be cool ransoms...
New legs would be great too. Mine are just too bulky, the knees are inelegant, and just sort of clunky. I don't want to be making my own buckles again. I just have too many issues with them and they don't look as good as I'd like.
New maile, ideally with the cool collar like du Guesclin's tomb has
Must make posters of that tomb, and the Dijon St. George (look to the right in this blog).
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