I have been a long time lurker, but as I just finished my forge and blower setup, I will be spending more time here, at least until winter comes.   My primary interest is medieval and renaissance armour, which I make primarily cold, but now I want to turn to using heat more. I have a ton of questions which I will be asking in the appropriate forums.  One question is does this forum allow you to upload images, or do you need to host them off site? Also is there resolution limits?  Thanks,

Jason

You can post photos easily.

Just click on 'choose files' below the reply panel and select the photos you want us to see. Reducing them to a reasonable resolution makes the process quicker. Give it a test run with a pic of your armour. We like photos here.

Howdy and welcome to IFI!

Thanks guys, I will post some pictures tonight once I get home from work.

Here are a few armour pieces I have made, all are mild steel.

Very cool.  Can't wait for Thomas, our resident armorer, to weigh in.

Thanks Lou, Thomas and I have known each other for many years over at the Armour Archive.

I send folks wanting to smith over there here and folks wanting to armour here over there...and casters to alloyavenue.com!

I was just waiting for him to label all of them as  brayettes...a little armour humour...

16 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

I send folks wanting to smith over there here and folks wanting to armour here over there...and casters to alloyavenue.com!

I was just waiting for him to label all of them as  brayettes...a little armour humour...

I only show those in private!

Welcome aboard Grimm, glad to have you. Are you in contact with any of the other guys in the interior? 

Pretty nice looking armor, well done. Mild works well cold and doesn't work harden quickly or very much. However it is steel, working it hot is much easier. What gauge are you using? I made SCA helms with 14ga or reversed Belgian army helmets. Once I had them formed I work hardened the mild planishing over a headache ball for a ball stake. You can buy headache balls at Arctic Wire rope, I believe they still have a store in Fairbanks. Headache balls are those balls above the hooks on lift or crane cables they keep tension on the cable so it doesn't rat's nest on the drum, etc. I haven't looked in a long time but IIRC they came from about 3" dia. up to 90lb. big boys maybe 7" dia. 

If you get down this way often enough try to tie a visit and make a club meeting eh? I've been trying to get Brian to organize an interior affiliate or club for a long time. A group of blacksmiths is a good place to hang.

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Frosty,

No I don't know anyone up here, it's my fault as I haven't really been looking (haven't had the time ).  I have hobnobbed with the guys at Wilber's Brothers sheet metal shop, they are into the hit-and-miss engines.  I use 22 to 12 gauge and everything in-between and normalize a lot.  Having a group here would be great as I don't get south very often.  Thanks for the tip on the headache ball.