I wrote this paper as a way to share what I have found in my search for the techniques used by ancient armourers in thier craft. It is a rough draft and is by no means a definitive paper on the construction of armour. I would love it if people tried my techniques to see if they can use them and to give me feedback on problems they had or new ideas.

In this paper, I have just touched the surface of general metal work and helmet construction. I don't go into details, just the basics. I am trying to find a kind of general theory of armour construction that the armourers of old used to do the magical things they did. It is unfortunate that they didn't write something down about their craft, although I do believe that when armour went out of fashion, the armourers just went into other professions that still today use the same techniques. Even though I only talk about helmets in this paper, you can use the techniques for any part of a suit of armour.

I welcome all comments on this paper and anything else about armour. Thank you for your time.

Jason Grimes
grimm@spector.reno.nv.us

Section #1 - General Metal Working

1) Annealing

Annealing is a process by which steel or iron can be made soft, expecially after the metal has been subjected to hammering or some other process that hardens it. The book Model Mechanical Engineering says "The work is heated slowly to a bright cherry red (950 degrees C) and immediately smothered in hot sand or ashes. Recrystallization of the steel takes place during the annealing process; the cooling rate being made as slow as possible to bring the metal to a softened state. Internal stresses in the material are removed by annealing; it is for this reason that chains which have become work-hardened in service are periodically annealed."

2) Inside technique

As I attempted to make a helmet, it became obvious that you need to have enough metal to keep the helmet about the same thickness everywhere or ideally thicker where the most protection is needed. The simplest method to do this is to just not hammer in the spots you want to keep thick. Of course, this is impossible, but it does have a lot to do with the method I found that seems to work. As I was making my bed one morning and thinking about this "not hammering on thick spots" and "pushing metal around," I pulled the sheet taut. THUNK!! (sound of hand hitting head!) Consider when you put a sheet on a bed; you have wrinkles on one side, so you pull the other side to straighten the wrinkle out. You can do the same thing with a sheet of steel and use it to shape your helmet.

The idea is fairly simple. First you create a depression by hammering directly on the steel on the anvil. By directly, I mean the steel is laying on the anvil and you strike the steel, thereby spreading it out and creating a depression or wrinkle. The next step is the pulling part. You lift the metal up off of the anvil surface about 1/4 inch in the direction you want to move the metal. Then hammer the metal on the edge of the depression in the direction in which you want to move the metal until it just hits the anvil. Again, lift the metal up and repeat until you are at the position where you want the metal. The net effect this has is to spread the extra metal to another spot on the helmet. Why it works is because when you lift the steel off the anvil and hammer on it, it doesn't compress the metal, it just draws the slack from the depression so the new depression is about the same thickness as it was before you hammered it.

You can also do this technique in reverse by lifting the piece off the anvil and hammer were you want the metal. Then work your way to the spot were you have extra metal and spread it. This last technique is what I use to make my helmets, as I will explain later. I hope I have explained the technique well enough, it is very difficult to explain so I made an illustration that will hopefully fill in the parts I haven't explained well enough.

3) Outside technique

I soon realized that pulling the metal is only useful if you are working on the inside of the helmet. Working on the outside, the pulling technique doesn't work well at all, but could be used for repousse', or ribbing. As I started to construct armor, I talked to a few people who work in similar fields. One of the professions today that is similar to medieval armouring is the auto-body mechanic, who uses many of the same tools that I have seen in old illustrations of armour makers and their workshops. The mechanics always talked about pushing the metal here and there. I didn't quite understand what they meant about pushing the metal, but it did give me a good starting point. Later, I realized that they work the metal from the outside, holding their anvils on the inside of the car part they are working on and hammering on the outside.

Hammering on the outside of the helmet is very much like pushing the metal and a good example is the construction of a pig-faced bascinet. This helmet has a sharp point at the top and to the back. This point can be made by hammering enough metal to the top-back of the helmet using the pull method. The helmet is then put on a stake or a dobble and hammered on the outside, slowly pushing the point up by using the extra metal. The stake or dobble keeps the shape of the helmet and allows you to push the metal around until it is in the correct shape, similar to the use of the hand-held anvils auto-body mechanics use. You can use the same method to shape the crest of a helmet using a crest stake; all you need to do is pull up enough metal for the crest and then hammer it down onto the stake.

4) Combination Technique

You can combine both of the previous techniques in the construction of a helmet or any other piece of armour. One example is to use the inside technique to create a bulge around the helmet and place it were you want it. Then use the outside technique with a dobble or stake to flatten the bulge. The net effect is to extend the length of the helmet in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the bulge. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the dobble or stake needs to be as wide or have as much surface area as the width or surface area of the flattened bulge.

5) Finishing

After you have your helmet or other piece of armour in a finished state that is reasonably how you want it, it is time to polish the exterior surface. The following method is what I like to use. It is by no means the only way to do this.

To keep the surface of the piece as free of little warps and waves as possible, I like to file the entire outside surface to bring out the high points. When you file, use long even strokes and move the file along the surface. Don't concentrate on one spot or keep the file flat. This gives a good idea as to how true your surface is and finds the low spots that need more hammering. To hammer the low spots I like to use a small slightly rounded flat hammer. I keep this up until I have the surface I want and can then start to sand the metal with sandpaper. A sanding block is handy for pieces with large surface areas. I think the armourers of old did this, as all of the armour I have seen that was supposedly "left rough from the hammer" is too smooth to be left that way. I have several photos of Henery VIII's armour for foot combat that was "left rough from the hammer" and clearly shows file marks, so it was not just hammered. I also have a photo of a "black" sallet that was painted and again "left rough from the hammer", but, it too is much too smooth to be just hammered.

This also brings out the point that most armourers sent their armour out to be polished by people who did nothing but polish plate. If the armourers just hammered out the plate into the needed shape and then sent it out to the polishers, it makes it sound like the armourers and the polishers had a very close relationship with each other. This doesn't sound very practical, as not only would the polisher need to know when there was a problem with the surface, he would also need to send the piece back to the armourer or fix it himself. It would have been much better to just finish the surface as I described above, harden and temper the piece, and send it to the polishers. In a hardened state, it would be more difficult to ruin a piece by over-polishing and all the polisher had to do is just get the file marks out. I have pictures of paintings that were done in the early 17th century that illustrate polishers polishing plates with large polishing wheels that were powered by a water wheel and rotated in tanks of water or oil so that the armour didn't get too hot and remove the hardness and temper of the metal.

6) tools

a) Anvil - You need at least one anvil that is 2 inches or more wide. A chunk of train track works well, is very cheap and fairly easy to acquire, but if you can find something wider, it would be better. The anvil needs to have a hardened surface that is smooth; if the anvil is not hardened, it will start to collapse and pieces of it may flake off leaving the anvil unusable. One way to tell if an anvil is hardened is to lightly hit the top of the anvil with a hammer. If the hammer bounces back, then it's likely that the anvil is hardened, if the hammer does not bounce back and/or leaves a mark on the surface of the anvil, then it is most likely not.

b) Forge - You need some way of heating the metal so that you can anneal, harden, and temper correctly. I have used both a forge and an oxy/acetylene welding set to anneal and harden steel. Of the two I definitely recommend the forge, but if a forge is just not practicable, then a welding set is a good alternative.

c) Stakes - It is almost a necessity to have some kind of mushroom stakes and crest stakes for the construction of deep bowls and other hard to reach areas. Stakes are metal posts that either bolt to a table or fit into the hardie hole in an anvil. They are about 8- inches tall and have heads that are shaped for a specific job. Mushroom stakes have heads that are slightly rounded and are about 1 inch to 4 inches in diameter. Crest stakes have heads that are shaped like the crest of a helmet and are used as a form to shape the helmet crest.

d) Dobbles - Dobbles are a kind of stake, except that they are shaped like a finished helmet. They were used to help the armourer make and keep the final shape of the helmet. All of the dobbles that have survived to today are made of cast iron, but I think that you could make them out of wood as well. Think of the dobble as only a guide and not as a stake or an anvil that you can hammer on. If you need to do alot of heavy hammering, use a stake or an anvil instead. Charles Ffoulkes in The Armourer And His Craft says the following about dobbles; "The (dobbles) were probably heavy iron models on which the various pieces were shaped. Two specimens in the Tower (a morion, and a breastplate) are considered by the present curator to be dobbles, for they are cast and not wrought, are far too heavy for actual use, and have no holes for rivits or for attaching the lining."

e) Hammers - You need a variety of hammers, mostly ball-peins and flat hammers. Some people like to use sledge hammers to shape their armour because it's faster, but I don't know how good that is for the metal. I personally don't have any hammers that are heavier than 28 ounces and I have heard some people say that that is too heavy as well. You should have a set of hammers with long heads that can reach into deep bowls and tight spots. The heads need to have a reach of about 3 inches to up to 6 inches.

f) Files - Get as many files as you can, in different shapes, sizes, and teeth sizes you can, as you can always find a use for them. You should have at least a set of small, medium, and large files. To finish large plates, I use a large flat file that is about 14 inches long and about 2 inches wide. For tight corners, a set of round files is a must. For ornamental piercings, I use a set of jewelers files.

g) Miscellaneous - This includes metal cutting tools like chisels, drills, snips, shears, etc. or anything else you can use that will help in the construction of armour. I am always on the lookout for tools in flea markets and garage sales.

Section #2 - Helmet Construction

1) Patterns

I have found that making armour without a pattern more likely than not results in problems. A good pattern can save a lot of time and headaches; it is much more difficult to cut off parts here and there once the helmet is completed. You don't want to take off too much and ruin the helmet or take off too little and have to go through it all over again. Here is an illustration of patterns I have made for some of the more common helmets made between 1350 to 1600. Keep in mind that I have only tried a few of these and the ones I haven't might be incorrect. I have put stars by the ones I have tried.

2) Helmet Blank Preparation and Edge Thinning

One of the feats of medieval armourers that I often see touted in books is how they were able to keep the thickness of the metal the same everywhere on the helmet. Or, even better, make the metal thick where it needs protection and thin were it doesn't, to keep the weight down. I thought a long time on this and came to a simple conclusion: the farther you have to move the metal, the more metal you need. Generally, the helmet blank needs to be thick in the center and thin towards the edges where you will hammer the least. At first, I thought that to get the extra metal in the center, you could weld a plate to the center of the pattern and when finished with the helmet, you could just grind or file off the excess metal on the edges. I have since found that it was just too much work, and believe medieval armourers were craftsmen who would have done anything to make their work easier. Besides, medieval armourers bought all of their metal already made in plates like we do today. Most armourers today, and those in medieval times, don't have the time or means to make their own plates; it just doesn't make very good economic or business sense.

So, how did medieval armourers put extra metal where they wanted and remove metal where they didn't? I think it was done by finding a plate that is the same thickness as the thickest part needed for the pattern and then in the places where the metal didn't need to be as thick, was hammered thin. Ergo, the center of the pattern was left alone and the edges were hammered down until they were as thin as needed. I have made an illustration that shows the thick and thin parts for the same helmet patterns as before. In the illustration, the lighter the shade of gray the thicker the metal.

3) First Bend and Warp Prevention

Several helmet patterns need to be bent before you start to pound on them. The purpose of the bend is to maximize the useful area of the metal. What this means is that if you bend the helmet blank, you are moving the metal closer to were it needs to be and you will not need to move the metal as much as you would otherwise. Here is another illustration that shows where you need to bend each pattern, both a top view before bending and a side view after the bend. The area between the dashed lines is where the bend needs to occur.

The next step is to do some warp prevention, because as you hammer on the helmet, it has a tendency to twist or curl up. It is very hard to correct this problem once it has gotten too far. The best thing to do is to try and prevent this from happening at the onset. This is only a problem at the very first stages of the forming process, at least as far as I have found. What you do is to hammer very close to the edge of the helmet all the way around until all of the edges have been turned up. Try not to hammer on the edge as it is already as thin as it needs to be from the edge thinning step before.

I recommend that after you have compleated this step that you should anneal the helmet before you start the next step.

4) Hammering the Helmet

When I am hammering, I like to hammer on opposite sides, first one side and then the other as I work my way around the helmet. This will help keep the helmet from curling up and warping and helps to spread internal stresses around evenly. Try to keep the edges straight, because if they bend too much, a crack in the metal may develop. Once a crack develops, it is very hard to fix and can ruin a helmet. As you are hammering, keep in mind the areas that need more metal, like the front, top, and left side of the helmet. I have found that there is usually some extra metal on the sides that you can either pull to the front or to the top. Only work the metal between about halfway from the center of the helmet to the edge at first. I hammer using the reverse inside technique until I have the helmet about half as deep as I need it. Once you have the sides almost vertical, start moving the rest of the unhammered metal until it matches the rest of the helmet and is as deep as you need. You can do this with a stake and hammer on the outside of the helmet, or if you have a long-necked hammer, on the inside. Remember that as you are hammering the metal is becoming work-hardened and may crack if pushed too far. You should anneal the metal if it becomes harder to work than normal. This is something you need to learn to feel, myself, I still can't tell when the metal needs to be annealed. So, I usually like to anneal after major modifications, like after the edge thinning or after the helmet is hammered out but before I finish the surface.

Some helmets need both inside and outside work done on them before they are finished. This depends on the helmet and where the metal needs to be pushed. Just remember to work slow and think things out, you can always speed things up later when you become more experienced. I have found that 14 gauge is thick enough for a simple bowl; for anything else, the plate needs to be thicker. I am going to try to make a bascinet out of 1/8-inch plate to see if that is enough metal to do the job.

5) Crests and Using Dobbles

If your helmet needs to have a crest or comes to a point, you need to use a crest stake or a dobble. The first thing you need is enough metal to hammer the helmet out as far as about half as tall as the finished crest. Then use a crest stake and hammer the metal down around the stake until the crest is the correct shape. Start from the top of the stake and work your way down until finished.

A dobble is for very large modificaions and is used not only to do these modifications, but also to keep the helmet from warping out of shape. You could use a stake to make the point on a bascinet, but it would be more difficult to keep the helmet in the correct shape. A dobble is easily used and can be made out of iron, steel, or wood. When using the dobble, start from the bottom and work your way up, holding the helmet down as you go.

6) Finishing the Surface

Start finishing the surface of your helmet by hammering out the small bumps and dips. I like to use a small, round, flat hammer on the easy to reach spots and a mushroom stake on the hard to reach areas. The crest should already be smoothed by the crest stake; the point on a bascinet needs to be smoothed by a specially made stake or an iron/steel dobble. Next, file the surface using long strokes and follow the surface as best you can. In this process, problem areas will show up and might need to be re-hammered. Once you have the surface completely filed, you can sandpaper it to remove the file marks. I usually start with 120-grit sandpaper and then move to 320-grit; this gets most of the file marks out.

7) Hardening and Tempering

Now it's time to harden the helmet by one of two methods. One, if you are constructing your armour out of high-carbon steel then you can harden the metal by heating it to a cherry red color and quenching it in water. Make sure to continuously move the helmet in the water as you are quenching it because steam bubbles that collect on the surface of the metal can retard the quenching process. Next, re-polish the surface with some sandpaper so you can see the color changes as you temper the helmet. When you temper the helmet, heat it from the inside, as this will make the metal softer on the inside and leave a harder exterior like the original helmets. The second method for hardening steel is called case hardening, and is very useful if you are using mild steel to construct your helmet. Practical Blacksmithing says the following about case hardening: "Case hardening consists in the conversion of the surface of wrought iron into steel. The depth to which this conversion takes place ranges from about one sixty-fourth to one thirty-second of an inch. The simplest method of case hardening is to heat the work to a red heat and apply powdered prussiate of potash to the surface. In this process the secret of success lies in crushing the potash to fine powder, rubbing it well upon the work, so that it fuses and runs freely over the work, then the latter must be quenched in cold water. It is essential that the potash should fuse and run freely, and to assist this a spoon-shaped piece of iron is often used, the concave side to convey the prussiate of potash and the convex side to rub it upon the work. If by the time the potash fuses the work has reduced to too low a heat to harden, it should be placed again in the fire, the blast being turned off, and worked over and over till a light blood-red heat is secured, and then be quenched in quite cold water. Work case hardened by this process has a very hard surface indeed, and appears of a frosted white color, resisting the most severe file test." Again temper the piece to a blue color. To have better control of the tempering process, heat a bar to yellow heat and use it to heat the helmet. Or, you can use a torch to do the same, just be careful to remember some torches don't work well in a enclosed space where there might not be enough oxygen. As you heat the helmet, look on the outside and watch the metal change color. When it turns a blue color move to another area, and when the entire helmet is blue quench in water again to set the temper. I haven't tried to harden and temper any of my armour because my welder can't heat a helmet sized piece of metal hot enough to do it. After tempering you can either leave the helmet blue or polish it again with 400-grit to 600-grit sandpaper, or use emery paper. You can also treat the metal with gunblueing or stove black, etchings, etc.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This is a list of the books I have on Armour. Most of these books I use for their pictures only, as they usually do not have much information about the actual construction of armour.

Borg, Alan Arms And Armour In Britain, London, 1979

Bull, Stephen and North, Tony An Historical Guide To Arms & Armor, New York, 1991

Clephan, R. C. The Medieval Tournament, London, 1919

Dean, Bashford Collection Of Arms And Armor, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, 1930

Edge, David and Paddock, John Arms And Armor Of The Medieval Knight, New York, 1988

Ffoulkes, Charles The Armourer And His Craft, London, 1912

Norman, Vesey Arms And Armour, London, 1972

Robinson, H. R. Armours Of Henry VIII, London, 1977

Stone, George A Glossary Of The Construction, Decoration And Use Of Arms And Armor, New York, 1934

Various Authors Arms And Armor Annual, Illinois, Edited By Robert Held, 1973

Various Authors Practical Blacksmithing, New York, 1889-1891

Plate Patterns