Subject: Re: Learn Sheetmetal Skills

From: [email-masked] (Randy Shipp)
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 18:30:20 GMT

[email-masked] (Rick Cook) wrote:

>Bob Hurley wrote:
>>Can anyone direct me to a starting place to learn
>>
>>sheetmetal work?
>>I'd like to be able to make medieval armor.
>>

>Get a book on sheet metal work and another book on jewelry making with
>sections on raising and forming. If you have SCA contacts see if you can
>find "The Best of Hammer", a compendium of articles from the East Kingdom
>armorers guild put out in two of three volumes by Raymond's Quiet Press.
>Most of the stuff in there is very, very SCA oriented and not terribly
>authentic, but there's a lot of good material there was well.

>Get yourself a hammer, some sheet metal and go to it.

>There's a lot more to it, but that will start you.

>--RC

Where would one find the tools needed?  I suspect that a lot more than
a hammer and sheet metal are needed; how about anvil, stakes, dishes,
shears, bending brakes, punches, etc?  In order to be able to make
simple things (like a coat of plates, which requires only a shear,
punch, brake and grinder), how much could someone expect to pay?  Or
just for an anvil, hammers, stakes and dishes for simple raising,
dishing and rivetting?

Also, if offered an anvil, and you mostly want to make SCA armor, what
specifications or types of anvils should one consider?

Thanks.

Randy Shipp
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Rick Cook)
Date: 15 May 1996 04:00:37 GMT

Randy Shipp wrote:
>Where would one find the tools needed?

You've got a ball-peen hammer, don't you? Find a patch of ground without a
lot of rocks and start practicing.

This is not as flip as it sounds. The problem is that armoring (other than
chain mail or fastening crudely formed plates to leather) requires a lot of
skills. You learn the skills by doing. Dishing metal is a basic skill and
starting with light sheet (galvanized for duct work) raising against the
ground is a fast, inexpensive way to start learning.

The books will show you things you can adapt. I say 'adapt' advisedly
because for armoring you're working heavier material than what is commonly
used. For example a lot of the techniques are basically the same as in auto
body work, but the tools should be heavier than the stakes and hammers 
used in body and fender work. Some of these things you can use, most you're
going to have to make or acquire from non-standard sources.

>  I suspect that a lot more than a hammer and sheet metal are needed; how
>about anvil, stakes, dishes, shears, bending brakes, punches, etc?

Eventually, yes. But that stuff is both expensive and somewhat specialized
depending on what you're  doing. Especially the various kinds of stakes and
hammers. Until you have some idea of what you're doing and what you want to
make, you can spend thousands of dollars to no good purpose.

However you can improvise. For example I used to make small stakes out of
railroad spikes for fluting and such. Common hammers can be annealed,
re-formed with the forge and grinder, etc. Two of the most useful tools for
raising and dishing metal were a metal wash basin full of sand (with
catproof cover) and a ball hitch.

But here again, you have to decide what you're trying to do and what
operations you need to perform it. That takes knowledge and you get
knowledge by working metal.

>  In order to be able to make
>punch, brake and grinder), how much could someone expect to pay?

Well, a good shear, (a Beverly shear) for a size that will work armor
thickness metal went for about $400 the last time I priced one. Not cheap,
but there are alternatives, depending on what you're doing.

>  Or just for an anvil, hammers, stakes and dishes for simple raising,
>dishing and rivetting?

Here you can go hog-wild. There is an enormous array of hammers and stakes
you can use and I know smiths with perhaps $20,000 $30,000 in hammers and
stakes alone. OTOH, you can do pretty good work with a sufficently heavy
ball-peen hammer and a lead block.

Jess Hawley, the man who taught me the rudiments of blacksmithing, had a
complete form cast for the skull of a pig-faced basinet so he could raise
the thing properly. I don't know how much that cost him, but Jess was a
perfectionist.

>specifications or types of anvils should one consider?

Depends on how much and what kind of anvil. My first real anvil was a small
(#50) model that was beat all to heck by a farrier. I did some pretty good
work on it. My current one is a 150 or 200 pounder. However I did a lot of
my work on a heavy bick that fits into a stake holder. More reach in tight
spots, among other things. I know a couple of people who do most of their
work on sections of railroad rail.

In general you take what you can get if you can get it at a reasonable
price and improvise the rest. Armoring, like blacksmithing, is a craft for
people who like to improvise. You sure do enough of it.

Pretty vague, I know. But if you look in the books you'll see what I mean.

--RC