It's so fun to see you build this! If you ever want to do a more traditional collaboration, just say the word. By the way sheet metal in medieval times was made by wizards.
I have seen your work, and will probably make the gauntlet myself. I am making a full set of Skyrim's Daedric Armor, no magic here, 3d print, fiberglass, leather and some steel.. I am experimenting with different gauntlet types to make more sinister.
Hi Alec. I'm a medieval historian (specialist in merovingian and carolingian era). For your information, in Middle Ages, apart from the classical forges that produced the armament by manual hammering, they had also some trip hammer (also known as a tilt hammer or helve hammer)/ It's a massive powered hammer (hydraulic mills) use to forge the metal, fining the iron, etc. We can found them quite often, in some monastery too sometimes. They were just as pragmatic and inventive as we are, it took juste more time to do a armour and a gauntlet and thaht was very expensive. i hope this helps a little bit.
If you're still looking for the answer, they did actually hammer out ingots into sheets. Very low quality sheets with varying thickness. They sometimes did this by hand, but most of the time used waterpowered hammers. I know, pretty boring answer, but there you have it
Also one of the reasons why research on weapons and how effective they were against armor is so hard. Armour thickness could vary wildly between suits, between different areas on a suit (intentionally more important areas were made stronger), and even within the same plate on a suit, not to mention varying hardnesses from imperfect heat treatment and metallurgy. Thus, where someone like tod's workshop can make a great video on longbow's not penetrating a breastplate, all that can be said is that they won't penetrate a well made breastplate (one of the thickest parts).
Actually the Romans figured out how to make sheet iron in volumes. (Not sure how) They also used lathes and spoons to spin and shape the metal, which was why they were able to make such sophisticated plate helmets centuries before the Europeans. But when the empire fell, most of that knowledge disappeared in a couple of generations. It took people about 600 years of the dark ages to catch up to where they were.
@@jeffsucidlo9220 Yeah. It always amazes me how people today think of our ancestors as being less intelligent or lacking ingenuity. When the truth is, they created far more with fewer tools than we could even imagine... and some of it has lasted a thousand years or more! I don't think modern man has created much of anything with that kind of longevity.
@@jeffsucidlo9220 Romans did it in the exact same way as they did in the middle ages, even slightly worse! How come the Romans still managed to produce more sheet metal then? Simple, the extremely centralized governement of Rome ment that instead of small individual smiths making some plates on the side they could create large "factories" where they would only produce sheet metal. Sheet metal was only makeable through just pounding. Only somewhere in the modern era did rollers emerge to create more and much higher quality sheet metal
I've seen one of those hammers at work from an ingot to a bucket. It's amazing how much work was required for something so simple that today is very inexpensive
For the finger strips: use natural tanned, undied leather. Before rivetting the finger plates on the strips, first cut a lot of sewing holes along the strip. That saves problems when stitching the strip to the glove. Do not rivet the strips to the glove! When the gauntlet is hit by a sword, the rivet "bites" into your finger. You will regret it. The knuckle plates show a lot of space when you bent your finger. They have to be domed historically. As they are now, a sword will not deflect and go under the plate. You will regret that too. You can easily dome the knuckle plates, and have a saver gauntlet. Use curved needles + flat woven nylon wax yarn, the type saddle makers use to stitch it onto the glove. Tie a knot at the end, cut it and melt the knot with a lighter. Flatten soft knot with a wet fingertip. Do not use a flat chisel. Make a curved one. You're doing well Alec, but much to learn there. Armouring wisdom:" there are no flat planes on armour, only curves in any direction". So the big knuckle plate must curve in 2 directions. You see, armour mustn't show gaps. That's the protection. This leads to plates that are all domed, curved to overlap and doesn't allow a knive to enter the gap. That Guyton gauntlet looks nice, but is a real deathtrap, I won't use it in a swordfight. ( I'm the expert, I broke some bones during my Living history career)
I know nothing of the trade, but those seem like great points. I still think he did a great job for a first attempt at something so difficult to do without any type of training.
is a good feeling when you start understanding the design enough to make modifications. is the diference between following a tutorial and learning from a tutorial
as others have said water powered hammers and pounding it out with smith and striker. what they failed to mention is this created superiors armor as the smith could make parts that needed to be thicker (vital organs such) while thinning less exposed and less important parts. creating a lighter more functional armor then pretty much any produced today
Alec, while you're in the UK you should do a colab with Tod's workshop, he's a youtube historical weapon smith, bows, swords, and even made all the real metal swords for the Witcher netflix series. He'd be able to tell you how they historically made armour and all them techniques
Armourer here - by the time plate armor was around in the XIVth century, water-powered trip hammers were used to hammer the bloom or pucks into thinner pieces, which were then cut with chisels or anvil tools to a more usable shape. Helmets were the major exception. The depth of steel helmets increased as steel and manufacturing improved. Earlier, armor and helmets were made from multiple smaller plates, because steel wasn't homogenous enough and larger pieces would generally delaminate and fall apart.
I am a archaeologist that specializes in historical European metallurgy. A few years ago, I was working on a project looking at roman arms and armour, and we found records of the romans making reference to armourers starting out with a billet of iron made by a smith and then hammering that out into sheets.
the timing of these videos is spot on. I was just going through our family tree and found out that we have several English Knights and a couple lords and ladies in our family tree (mostly 1300s - 1400s timeframe).
If wearing a full suit of armour, you don't need a shield. You can now use a 2 handed sword... You use a shield when not fully in plate. Or when jousting, but that serves another purpose.
@@ducomaritiem7160 That really is very quite wrong mate, not only are there many historic writings + drawings that have both shield and full plate, what you say also does not make any sense, yes you can use 2 handed swords but that isn't exclusive to wearing a full suit armor, full armor can't provide the protection a shield provides and that is besides the fact that you can use 2 handed weapons with shields
I'm happy that it's finaly coming to be a thing! It's been some years that I asked for an Armour making video! Thank you Alec! (It was back then, in the first crampted workshop! With the microwave accessible only with a ladder....)
Historical gauntlets that fit close to the wrist always have an accomodation for the ulnar styloid process. It is usually a little bump, but for gothic gauntlets it can sometimes be a spike. Knyght Errant has a great video on gauntlets where he goes over it, but you can see a lot of examples just by searching for images from museums.
my guess about making sheet metal would be by hand hammering because items like breastplates were not uniformly thick, the center was always thicker than the sides.
In medieval times was som water powered hammers so that sheetmetal working was easier. In later period that armor metal was high carbon steel and stops even earlier firearms. but yes sheetmetal was hammered out by hands or using some waterpower.
@@herehaverandomletters3116 Not neccessarily. If that was the case then most of the left side (due to right-hand dominance) would have been thicker. The thickness focuses more on vulnerable areas such as the heart and spine, where it was needed most.
I'm BIG into Vikings and Nords, like my life revolves around them and let me tell you knowing how the Vikings forged things and being able to it myself is really amazing. And yes I love knights a ton but Vikings more. So please make more Viking inspired things as I and I know some others enjoy watching them.
I have a feeling that you would find the armor making series that Adam Savage did over in Tested very interesting. While he did use sheet aluminum, he worked with a master prop armor maker to hand make a full set of plate armor. It was a really cool series and there were some very interesting techniques involved.
I think it's really cool that Jamie is getting involved in the shop and helping a bit, not to say he didn't already do a lot. It's always good to get out of your comfort zone and learn something new.
Rolling mills qua “mills” don’t really show up til the 1600s, but water-powered hammers and flatting tools existed in Europe from the end of the Roman imperial era at least. Sheeting metal was a definite ability for really large workshops.
Terry creates movie props though. He in no way considers himself a maker of historical replicas. In fact he prefers to work in aluminium, as it makes it a lot lighter and easier for the actors and stunt people to wear. Yet he can make it keep the look of traditional materials, for the camera. Great for a collaboration mind, but not the ideal expert to ask how armour was originally made.
Yeah, but Terry uses Aluminium only. Doing a historical steel breastplate can't be done on an English wheel. 2-3 mm steel is required... You need to raise it by hand.
I’ve been watching David’s stuff for years but have not got around to actually making anything yet. He does amazing works. Well done Alec on conquering sheet metal mate!!..😂
Good job! But such scaly fingers cannot be fought with full force of steel swords. You can break your fingers. But these are still beautiful fantasy-style gloves!
A broken finger is better then a cut of one. Also defending your fingers is mostly done by you using your sword guard (if you hold your sword right hitting your fingers becomes nearly impossible)
Alec, the either hand hammered the metal to a sheet or use trip hammers (think watermill that spins a cog, once it reaches certain point it "trips" and falls on the metal and it grabs again). Medieval armour making was quite industrial work. Modern sheet metal is rolled metal, but that came into existence in the 17th century, and some argue in limited quantities before that. But basically, just using hammers.
Alec, the notches in the finger pieces are there so that the metal can overlap. The top one goes around the top of your rivet, and the bottom one goes around the shank of the next rivet down.
PBS NOVA had an episode called Secrets of the Shining Knight, which made parts of the Greenwich Armor made from bloomery steel, it even help up against a musket ball shot. The interesting part is the sheet to be turned into armor would have had various thicknesses, depending on where the curves in the armor would be. The edges would be thinner, and while working the metal into shape, would shrink, creating a radius and also thickening the metal, due to shrinkage. "Raising a Helmet" is a great example of this process. Best of luck, and keep up the exploration and learning.
So i looked it up and basically they hammered it out flat by hand untill the very end of the middle ages. At the very end of the middle ages sometimes they could use a power hammer that was water wheel powered. But mostly still just good old fashioned hammering a chunk of steel flat
With the sheet metal question, in early medieval periods they would have to hammer with large hand held hammers, they eventually were able to use a water powered trip hammer to do most of the rough work, around the 17th century they started to use rollers. But the advantage of hand hammering was that they could make the plate thicker is certain parts such as the centre of the torso which allowed for greater durability in a frequently hit area and thinner round the side of the torso to reduce overall weight in a less frequently hit area.
In medival times they forged each individual piece instead of cutting it from sheet metal. Also few pieces were uniform in thickness, they often tapered torwards the edges. Incidentally the difficulty in making large flat pieces of steel is why solid breastplates were so obscenely expensive and the slightly inferior brigandine (a coat of plates riveted on the inside of a leather vest) was vastly more popular. If you ever make more armor I would love to see a brigandine! I think it's right up your alley Alex.
Me: F*ck it is far too late, I have to go to bed... ColinFurze, Hacksmith Industries, Alec Steele and ABD Illustration have released new videos. Also Me: Does the human body even need sleep?!
I'm BIG into Vikings and Nords and let me say learning how Vikings and others from that time forged is really amazing cause that means I can do it myself as well and be closer to my ancestors than ever before.
Lol first time I've ever actually been thankful to see a sponsorship. Shipping has always been a pain to manage so seeing this is pretty great. Thanks 👍
"never would have thought you could have armor with that range of dexterity" Clearly you never watched/heard Adam Savage talk about armor, particularly the suit he made... Well made armor should allow even more flexibility than your average winter survival clothing
As a Teenager I was a daily visitor at the "Deutsches Museum" in Munich. In the medieval times they had water-driven "swing hammer mills" to produce iron in various forms - sheets for scythes and plate armour, bars for tools and blades or wires for nails and screws. My name implies one of my ancestors running such a "hammer". Hammering iron sheets was a hard, dirty and loud job, many workers lost their hearing after a few years. You can watch a functioning "scythe hammer" at the "Deutsches Industriemuseum" in Hagen. To produce rolled steel you needed two technical revolutions: the steam engine and the converter steel process. Before you could only roll soft and ductile materials like gold, silver oder led Btw: Steel gauntlets ar HEAVY und you should avoid any additional weight on your hands an forearms - like brass decorations... Thank you for the lots of fun you make me with your videos
I don't know which videos I like better, the ones where you're learning something or showing how to make something (like the pen) that I hadn't even considered. Either way, they're both awesome.
This is one of the coolest looking things you've ever made. I mean one of many because some of the knives and swords are unreal. This looks so slick and perfect
English wheels where used a lot. I watched a documentary years ago about someone using traditional methods to build suits of armor, he demonstrated it but used modern steels to build the armor.
I made one his gauntlets about 10 or so years ago, really got me back into metal work, although I did do panel beating in collage so I had a good head start on the subject of working sheet steel
Apparently blast furnaces and rolling mills have existed since the late middle ages, and since plate armor like this, especially gothic plate armor, was really popular from the 15th century onward through the Renaissance, it would seem that barring having modern industrial capacities and automation, they made sheet metal the way it's always basically been made. Someone smelts the metal, and someone rolls it thin enough to work. Neat!
I'm so glad that you're finally dabbling in armor. I've wanted to see you get into this side of things for a very long time now. Yes, I may be a little bias as my preference is that of armor, but more than anything I actually like watching you expand your skill set and try new things.
From what I have been able to find out the first sheet metal was formed by hand hammering and then water driven trip hammers were introduced making the task somewhat easier. Also most of the "sheets" were small little larger than the biggest component part rather than large sheets from which you could cut all the various parts from.
Water powered hammer workshops made sheet metal but it was the armour smith that hammered it to the final thickness while forging. Armourer Albert Collins made an armour last year using 90% period tools only. He made a fantastic book from the process that you can get from his website.
To answer a question in the video...as early as the 15th century (1400's) there were large metal rollers in use in blacksmith shops to roll steel into plates. A lot of armor was then cut like you did in this project (using non-power tools) and would be hammered over forms, which were usually specialized anvils that had the required shapes needed. They could cold forge as much as was feasible but for curves and ribs and such, they would hot forge the steel plates and heat treat as necessary.
Dude, the gold accents made that already cool-as-hell gauntlet SO BADASS! I cannot express how much I'd love to see you make a whole suit of armor with that styling.
The question about making plate armour before rolling mills were commonplace lit my curiosity, so I went down the rabbit hole, and apparently the sheets were usually hammered to a workable thickness, shaped, and then polished down to their final thickness and getting bumps, marks and inconsistencies out. While plate armouring was in it's infancy, every workshop did the flattening by themselves and usually by hand, which is a massive task. Towards the later medieval period however, workshops just taking raw steel ingots and turning them to workable thickness plates was an entire industry unto itself in the bigger cities, using water or animal powered hammers. Indeed, there was a complaint to a local court about a smith noisily flattening iron at "odd hours" in London, from the 14th century. Quite interesting stuff :)
Rolling mills are surprisingly old, they’re around in the 1700s, no lathe, but just a sharpened steel block jammed under the roller casting on a rack with wedges to adjust the depth of cut. (Currently reading R Angerstein’s travel diaries from the 1750’s, traveling through England as an industrial spy for the Swedish iron industry, lots of good information in there about old English industry) Though I’m not sure about rolling sheet in the time when armor was in use, I’d suspect tilt hammers are doing that work. But remember, labor wasn’t valued the way it is today, just hammering that out with sledges isn’t as far fetched when you’re paying someone pennies to do it.
Anyone watching this that wants to see more armor making, or if Alec is reading this and wants to see more armour making check out: Making Excalibur Armour from Tested. Its a several video series with Adam Savage helping make a bespoke suit of Excalibur Armour with Terry English.
To answer the question, yes they had rolling things, they would hear the metal then push it through, make the gap smaller, and repeat. Similar to spinning gold
sheet metal is a fairly modern thing, in general it was all hammered out mostly by hand or by a trip hammer that was powered by a water wheel. this brings in the fact that medieval armor was pretty darn expensive and cheaper options like the coat of arms, chainmail and gambesons were thus more populair. nice to see the gauntlet coming along!
I would love to see future videos where Alec tries forging with different metals that he normally doesnt use. Tungsten and lead would be very interesting to see. Don't really care what he makes with it, maybe a sculpture or something out of brass or copper would be very nice!
Nice touch with the fleur de lis. The symbol for my home town. New Orleans. Also the symbol for the Boubon dynasty. The last kings of France before the French Revolution.
Alec, great first effort and another fun video of the learning process. I hope you'll keep at it and show some more armour pieces in Future. All the Best to Team Steele!
The real turning point in the sheet metal production took place with the introduction of the rolling mill. The first known design of a rolling mill dates back no less than to Leonardo who in one of his drawings, dated 1480, describes for the first time the possibility of “making a material pass” between two cylindrical rollers with parallel axes to modify its thickness
Wonderful to see this video! I love your stuff normally but it's fantastic to see you make something that could concievably be built by somebody who doesn't have a massive professional workshop's worth of forging tools (not that it's bad to see all those tools in action in most of your videos of course). End results are beautiful and this is probably first time I've watched you make something and thought to myself "Huh, maybe _I_ could do that!"
Longs story short, in the middle ages sheet metal was flattened from ingots/osmunds by hand with a hammer. There is a 14th century noise complaint in London about a blacksmith who was flattening osmunds at an odd hour. It wasn't until the late middle ages until water powered trip hammers were used, and the 17th century when the modern rollers were introduced to produce sheet metal.
Essentially there were three different ways that medieval sheet metal was made, type one: hammering it out from an ingot/billot. Type two; melting iron down and casting it a flat as possible then hammering it flat. Finally; the iron was cut and rolled using very crude rollers, spun using gears and pullies hooked to workers or animals to roll the ingot/billot.
Loving the armour content and the mini-series. Looking forward to the next big project - I'd love to see you smelt your own metal and find out how they used to make sheet metal yourself!
I believe late-medieval foundries did a combination of casting billets, and early screw-presses to get the metal in flat-ish shape. Ilya of thatworks (formerly Man at Arms: Reforged) shows in a few vids that a lot of making large, thin, curved surfaces revolves around a much bigger version of the ball you were curving the fingertips on and such.
Check out Matthias Golls thesis as well as Dupras thesis for a ton of information on how they made sheet steel and armor historically, plus many examples of historical armor as well :) In my understanding, for some pieces of armor like helmets they would start with a small billet and that gets stretched I to the shape. Which is why many authentic pieces of armor are thicker where they need to be strongest!
Rolled steel sheet wasn't available until the 17th century. Steel was generally flattened by water-powered trip hammers. Water-power was also used for polishing wheels. Making plate armor was generally massively labor intensive and only done by the largest workshops. There's a couple of books you can check out: "Nicholas Dupras - Armourers and Their Workshops - The Tools and Techniques of Late Medieval Armour production" and "Matthias Pfaffenbichler - Armourers" and "Alan Williams - The Knight and the Blast Furnace"
Very nice, Alec, very nice indeed! A good start on your suit... next up, a nice easy Sallet or Barbute? Also, in answer to your question about sheet steel: Water-powered mills. Either with a massive hammers-and-blocks arrangement or rollers. Quite how they made sure the sheets were a consistent thickness, I have no idea. There was a long period of time where armourers really DID hand-hammer ingots of bloomery steel straight into pieces of armour, though. I guess that explains why weapons were expensive, but a halfway decent bit of metal armour was even MORE expensive.
To answer your question, plate beaters. Armorsmithing was an entire Industry and you may spend your entire life doing one specialized job. Your initial assumption was correct, they just took ingots and beat them into plates, great beaters would allow for the plate to not be flat exactly so if a helmet had to be drawn out from a single plate as the helm was raised or dished it was thicker in the requisite areas so the material didn't get too thin as it was shaped.
It's so fun to see you build this! If you ever want to do a more traditional collaboration, just say the word. By the way sheet metal in medieval times was made by wizards.
🪄 correct
I support this idea.
each piece was forged to shape not cut from a sheet
I have seen your work, and will probably make the gauntlet myself. I am making a full set of Skyrim's Daedric Armor, no magic here, 3d print, fiberglass, leather and some steel.. I am experimenting with different gauntlet types to make more sinister.
@@christopherrobinson9019 forged to shape with wizardry?
Hi Alec. I'm a medieval historian (specialist in merovingian and carolingian era). For your information, in Middle Ages, apart from the classical forges that produced the armament by manual hammering, they had also some trip hammer (also known as a tilt hammer or helve hammer)/ It's a massive powered hammer (hydraulic mills) use to forge the metal, fining the iron, etc. We can found them quite often, in some monastery too sometimes. They were just as pragmatic and inventive as we are, it took juste more time to do a armour and a gauntlet and thaht was very expensive. i hope this helps a little bit.
@Ayden Hilker I second that!
I recall that a Germanic manual had referenced watermills to run these. Was that right?
Merci M. Rolland, l'information est bien appreciee!
Yeah, the answer for just about any 'how did we do this before machines' question is 'Very slowly and with much difficulty'
The expressiveness of plate armour is why you almost never see it being worn by the "peasants".
Who else votes alec should do a full suit?
YES!! Take all my votes. Bring on a 30+ episode series!!
@@TheBarnUnit 30??? A full suit of plate armor would definitely go into the hundreds
@@TheBarnUnit more like 300 eps, but, yes please!
Out of Damascus.
love it but helms might bring alec to tears!
who’s ready for part 17 when alec finishes engraving it and starts the bejeweling process
Medieval Infinity Gauntlet?
@@colindavis3363 Dave has a Template for that
@@colindavis3363 I second this!
I wish, but he only makes short projects to pass the time nowadays 😢
He (Guyton) also has other accessories to this gauntlet I think
If you're still looking for the answer, they did actually hammer out ingots into sheets. Very low quality sheets with varying thickness. They sometimes did this by hand, but most of the time used waterpowered hammers.
I know, pretty boring answer, but there you have it
Also one of the reasons why research on weapons and how effective they were against armor is so hard. Armour thickness could vary wildly between suits, between different areas on a suit (intentionally more important areas were made stronger), and even within the same plate on a suit, not to mention varying hardnesses from imperfect heat treatment and metallurgy. Thus, where someone like tod's workshop can make a great video on longbow's not penetrating a breastplate, all that can be said is that they won't penetrate a well made breastplate (one of the thickest parts).
Actually the Romans figured out how to make sheet iron in volumes. (Not sure how) They also used lathes and spoons to spin and shape the metal, which was why they were able to make such sophisticated plate helmets centuries before the Europeans. But when the empire fell, most of that knowledge disappeared in a couple of generations. It took people about 600 years of the dark ages to catch up to where they were.
@@jeffsucidlo9220 Yeah. It always amazes me how people today think of our ancestors as being less intelligent or lacking ingenuity. When the truth is, they created far more with fewer tools than we could even imagine... and some of it has lasted a thousand years or more!
I don't think modern man has created much of anything with that kind of longevity.
@@jeffsucidlo9220 Romans did it in the exact same way as they did in the middle ages, even slightly worse! How come the Romans still managed to produce more sheet metal then? Simple, the extremely centralized governement of Rome ment that instead of small individual smiths making some plates on the side they could create large "factories" where they would only produce sheet metal. Sheet metal was only makeable through just pounding. Only somewhere in the modern era did rollers emerge to create more and much higher quality sheet metal
I've seen one of those hammers at work from an ingot to a bucket. It's amazing how much work was required for something so simple that today is very inexpensive
Digging this little mini-series. As much as people joked about it I do miss the "part 52" kinda projects. Hoping there is another big one soon
Hoping he is gonna make an entire armour set
1000%
For the finger strips: use natural tanned, undied leather. Before rivetting the finger plates on the strips, first cut a lot of sewing holes along the strip. That saves problems when stitching the strip to the glove. Do not rivet the strips to the glove! When the gauntlet is hit by a sword, the rivet "bites" into your finger. You will regret it.
The knuckle plates show a lot of space when you bent your finger. They have to be domed historically. As they are now, a sword will not deflect and go under the plate. You will regret that too. You can easily dome the knuckle plates, and have a saver gauntlet.
Use curved needles + flat woven nylon wax yarn, the type saddle makers use to stitch it onto the glove. Tie a knot at the end, cut it and melt the knot with a lighter. Flatten soft knot with a wet fingertip.
Do not use a flat chisel. Make a curved one. You're doing well Alec, but much to learn there.
Armouring wisdom:" there are no flat planes on armour, only curves in any direction".
So the big knuckle plate must curve in 2 directions.
You see, armour mustn't show gaps. That's the protection. This leads to plates that are all domed, curved to overlap and doesn't allow a knive to enter the gap.
That Guyton gauntlet looks nice, but is a real deathtrap, I won't use it in a swordfight.
( I'm the expert, I broke some bones during my Living history career)
I know nothing of the trade, but those seem like great points. I still think he did a great job for a first attempt at something so difficult to do without any type of training.
@@ZykonRee agreed. especially since the goal was to make something that looks cool not something to have actual swordfights with
@@ZykonRee you're totally right.
But I think Alec can do the real thing. He's a great smith.
Most modern armour makers just glue the leather strip onto the glove now
It also occurs to me that with such thin parts, compound curvature is a way to give them enough stiffness to protect the fingers underneath.
is a good feeling when you start understanding the design enough to make modifications. is the diference between following a tutorial and learning from a tutorial
A parent child project indeed, I expect this in my next Kiwico box
lol same
Introducing the blacksmithing for kids box by Alec Steel
After seeing this, my guy wont even look at his kiwico box.
as others have said water powered hammers and pounding it out with smith and striker. what they failed to mention is this created superiors armor as the smith could make parts that needed to be thicker (vital organs such) while thinning less exposed and less important parts. creating a lighter more functional armor then pretty much any produced today
Alec, while you're in the UK you should do a colab with Tod's workshop, he's a youtube historical weapon smith, bows, swords, and even made all the real metal swords for the Witcher netflix series. He'd be able to tell you how they historically made armour and all them techniques
Yeah! Tod is great. And he knows Tobias Capwell, curator of the Royal Armouries and jouster! Good way to go, go and get to know those guys Alec!
I would love to see them work together on something
Yes!!!!
This this this! I would love to see a collab with Tod!
YES DO IT
Never ceases to amaze me at Alec's ingenuity, enthusiasm and craftsman ship in every project he attempts.
I think you just pushed me over the edge to try my own. Inspiration!
Armourer here - by the time plate armor was around in the XIVth century, water-powered trip hammers were used to hammer the bloom or pucks into thinner pieces, which were then cut with chisels or anvil tools to a more usable shape. Helmets were the major exception. The depth of steel helmets increased as steel and manufacturing improved.
Earlier, armor and helmets were made from multiple smaller plates, because steel wasn't homogenous enough and larger pieces would generally delaminate and fall apart.
I am a archaeologist that specializes in historical European metallurgy. A few years ago, I was working on a project looking at roman arms and armour, and we found records of the romans making reference to armourers starting out with a billet of iron made by a smith and then hammering that out into sheets.
the timing of these videos is spot on. I was just going through our family tree and found out that we have several English Knights and a couple lords and ladies in our family tree (mostly 1300s - 1400s timeframe).
Can't wait to see the day Alec makes a full suit of armor, with a sword and shield to boot. One full cohesive set.
If wearing a full suit of armour, you don't need a shield. You can now use a 2 handed sword... You use a shield when not fully in plate. Or when jousting, but that serves another purpose.
@@ducomaritiem7160 That really is very quite wrong mate, not only are there many historic writings + drawings that have both shield and full plate, what you say also does not make any sense, yes you can use 2 handed swords but that isn't exclusive to wearing a full suit armor, full armor can't provide the protection a shield provides and that is besides the fact that you can use 2 handed weapons with shields
I'm happy that it's finaly coming to be a thing! It's been some years that I asked for an Armour making video! Thank you Alec! (It was back then, in the first crampted workshop! With the microwave accessible only with a ladder....)
I hope I'm not the only one that actually likes Alec's ads. They're usually practical and useful for the audience he speaks to.
Historical gauntlets that fit close to the wrist always have an accomodation for the ulnar styloid process. It is usually a little bump, but for gothic gauntlets it can sometimes be a spike. Knyght Errant has a great video on gauntlets where he goes over it, but you can see a lot of examples just by searching for images from museums.
my guess about making sheet metal would be by hand hammering because items like breastplates were not uniformly thick, the center was always thicker than the sides.
Exactly
Correct, but they were intentionally made that way rather than just because of inconsistency in manufacturing
@@nickmckay4369 Interestingly, most breastplates were about ~4mm thick around the heart area and tapering off to ~1.5mm towards the natural waist.
In medieval times was som water powered hammers so that sheetmetal working was easier. In later period that armor metal was high carbon steel and stops even earlier firearms. but yes sheetmetal was hammered out by hands or using some waterpower.
@@herehaverandomletters3116 Not neccessarily. If that was the case then most of the left side (due to right-hand dominance) would have been thicker. The thickness focuses more on vulnerable areas such as the heart and spine, where it was needed most.
I'm BIG into Vikings and Nords, like my life revolves around them and let me tell you knowing how the Vikings forged things and being able to it myself is really amazing. And yes I love knights a ton but Vikings more. So please make more Viking inspired things as I and I know some others enjoy watching them.
I have a feeling that you would find the armor making series that Adam Savage did over in Tested very interesting. While he did use sheet aluminum, he worked with a master prop armor maker to hand make a full set of plate armor. It was a really cool series and there were some very interesting techniques involved.
I think it's really cool that Jamie is getting involved in the shop and helping a bit, not to say he didn't already do a lot. It's always good to get out of your comfort zone and learn something new.
Finally new part! Only 245 to go!
Rolling mills qua “mills” don’t really show up til the 1600s, but water-powered hammers and flatting tools existed in Europe from the end of the Roman imperial era at least. Sheeting metal was a definite ability for really large workshops.
Ask Terry English or look at the English Wheel. Adam Savage did a series building a suit of armour with Terry at his workshop.
alec should totally do a Series with Terry English know he's back in the uk
@@RoraighPrice oh, that would be good.
Excalibur!!!
Terry creates movie props though. He in no way considers himself a maker of historical replicas. In fact he prefers to work in aluminium, as it makes it a lot lighter and easier for the actors and stunt people to wear. Yet he can make it keep the look of traditional materials, for the camera. Great for a collaboration mind, but not the ideal expert to ask how armour was originally made.
Yeah, but Terry uses Aluminium only. Doing a historical steel breastplate can't be done on an English wheel. 2-3 mm steel is required... You need to raise it by hand.
I’ve been watching David’s stuff for years but have not got around to actually making anything yet. He does amazing works. Well done Alec on conquering sheet metal mate!!..😂
Good job! But such scaly fingers cannot be fought with full force of steel swords. You can break your fingers. But these are still beautiful fantasy-style gloves!
That was my point too. Nice to find you here on Alec's channel!
I mean, that stands for basically all gauntlets of the era too. If they wanted full protection for the fingers, people would of use mitten gauntlets
@@riograndedosulball248 also why sword guards get larger and larger eventually developing into basket hilts that fully covered the hands.
A broken finger is better then a cut of one. Also defending your fingers is mostly done by you using your sword guard (if you hold your sword right hitting your fingers becomes nearly impossible)
Good old mitten style hourglass gauntlets.
Alec, the either hand hammered the metal to a sheet or use trip hammers (think watermill that spins a cog, once it reaches certain point it "trips" and falls on the metal and it grabs again). Medieval armour making was quite industrial work.
Modern sheet metal is rolled metal, but that came into existence in the 17th century, and some argue in limited quantities before that. But basically, just using hammers.
You should put a analog clock up for those time lapse shots just so we know the time you spend on them
Alec, the notches in the finger pieces are there so that the metal can overlap. The top one goes around the top of your rivet, and the bottom one goes around the shank of the next rivet down.
ALEC! You desperately need to invest into a air-nibbler. A life changing tool for sheet metal work.
beverly shear too
Electric shears by Bosch or preferably Makita are way better and much quieter
Copy that, I really think he would benefit and enjoy sheetmetal a lot more with a couple fairly low cost tools.
PBS NOVA had an episode called Secrets of the Shining Knight, which made parts of the Greenwich Armor made from bloomery steel, it even help up against a musket ball shot. The interesting part is the sheet to be turned into armor would have had various thicknesses, depending on where the curves in the armor would be. The edges would be thinner, and while working the metal into shape, would shrink, creating a radius and also thickening the metal, due to shrinkage. "Raising a Helmet" is a great example of this process. Best of luck, and keep up the exploration and learning.
Can't wait to see it all finished. Maybe I'll have to make my own set.
That gauntlet is absolutely awesome! Cheers to Mr. Guyton! Surprisingly accessible. Good work👍
I’m excited to see the outcome of this project
Love how that punching sound lines up with the beats, very high production quality, not to mention the quality of your projects...
So i looked it up and basically they hammered it out flat by hand untill the very end of the middle ages. At the very end of the middle ages sometimes they could use a power hammer that was water wheel powered. But mostly still just good old fashioned hammering a chunk of steel flat
With the sheet metal question, in early medieval periods they would have to hammer with large hand held hammers, they eventually were able to use a water powered trip hammer to do most of the rough work, around the 17th century they started to use rollers. But the advantage of hand hammering was that they could make the plate thicker is certain parts such as the centre of the torso which allowed for greater durability in a frequently hit area and thinner round the side of the torso to reduce overall weight in a less frequently hit area.
Alec you should watch “a Knights tale” with Heath ledger One of the main characters is a armor maker and the logo on her armor is Nike 😂😂😂
In medival times they forged each individual piece instead of cutting it from sheet metal. Also few pieces were uniform in thickness, they often tapered torwards the edges. Incidentally the difficulty in making large flat pieces of steel is why solid breastplates were so obscenely expensive and the slightly inferior brigandine (a coat of plates riveted on the inside of a leather vest) was vastly more popular. If you ever make more armor I would love to see a brigandine! I think it's right up your alley Alex.
Art historian and medieval war enthusiast here! Back in the day they got sheet metal by going to the store and buying some. Hope this helps!
Feel good to have you back to your roots making stuff by your own and figuring thing out
Me: F*ck it is far too late, I have to go to bed...
ColinFurze, Hacksmith Industries, Alec Steele and ABD Illustration have released new videos.
Also Me: Does the human body even need sleep?!
I'm BIG into Vikings and Nords and let me say learning how Vikings and others from that time forged is really amazing cause that means I can do it myself as well and be closer to my ancestors than ever before.
"Every gloves is oversized for me" -Alec Steele
Lol first time I've ever actually been thankful to see a sponsorship. Shipping has always been a pain to manage so seeing this is pretty great. Thanks 👍
"never would have thought you could have armor with that range of dexterity"
Clearly you never watched/heard Adam Savage talk about armor, particularly the suit he made... Well made armor should allow even more flexibility than your average winter survival clothing
That came out so good. The only thing I would add would be a small belt or clasp on the forearm of the glove to make sure it stays secure.
So talented! When are you coming back out to Australia??
It’s America lol
@@soupsock9743 no he has come out to Australia and done a couple classes in Sydney.
@@soupsock9743 Alec was in Sydney a few years ago, you can find the videos he has up of the Eveleigh Works
When he gets sentenced I'm guessing
@@mitchmcgarry5698 underrated
Do the upper part of the arm next! It would be rad to see a sectional series, stunning work Mr. Steele
You will actually need two gauntlets... FYI
As a Teenager I was a daily visitor at the "Deutsches Museum" in Munich. In the medieval times they had water-driven "swing hammer mills" to produce iron in various forms - sheets for scythes and plate armour, bars for tools and blades or wires for nails and screws.
My name implies one of my ancestors running such a "hammer".
Hammering iron sheets was a hard, dirty and loud job, many workers lost their hearing after a few years.
You can watch a functioning "scythe hammer" at the "Deutsches Industriemuseum" in Hagen.
To produce rolled steel you needed two technical revolutions: the steam engine and the converter steel process. Before you could only roll soft and ductile materials like gold, silver oder led
Btw: Steel gauntlets ar HEAVY und you should avoid any additional weight on your hands an forearms - like brass decorations...
Thank you for the lots of fun you make me with your videos
I don't know which videos I like better, the ones where you're learning something or showing how to make something (like the pen) that I hadn't even considered. Either way, they're both awesome.
OHH so smooth, that is marvelous! my compliments Alec!!
This is one of the coolest looking things you've ever made. I mean one of many because some of the knives and swords are unreal. This looks so slick and perfect
English wheels where used a lot. I watched a documentary years ago about someone using traditional methods to build suits of armor, he demonstrated it but used modern steels to build the armor.
I made one his gauntlets about 10 or so years ago, really got me back into metal work, although I did do panel beating in collage so I had a good head start on the subject of working sheet steel
Apparently blast furnaces and rolling mills have existed since the late middle ages, and since plate armor like this, especially gothic plate armor, was really popular from the 15th century onward through the Renaissance, it would seem that barring having modern industrial capacities and automation, they made sheet metal the way it's always basically been made. Someone smelts the metal, and someone rolls it thin enough to work.
Neat!
I'm so glad that you're finally dabbling in armor. I've wanted to see you get into this side of things for a very long time now. Yes, I may be a little bias as my preference is that of armor, but more than anything I actually like watching you expand your skill set and try new things.
The brass really tales this to the next level, nice work on it
From what I have been able to find out the first sheet metal was formed by hand hammering and then water driven trip hammers were introduced making the task somewhat easier. Also most of the "sheets" were small little larger than the biggest component part rather than large sheets from which you could cut all the various parts from.
Water powered hammer workshops made sheet metal but it was the armour smith that hammered it to the final thickness while forging. Armourer Albert Collins made an armour last year using 90% period tools only. He made a fantastic book from the process that you can get from his website.
To answer a question in the video...as early as the 15th century (1400's) there were large metal rollers in use in blacksmith shops to roll steel into plates. A lot of armor was then cut like you did in this project (using non-power tools) and would be hammered over forms, which were usually specialized anvils that had the required shapes needed. They could cold forge as much as was feasible but for curves and ribs and such, they would hot forge the steel plates and heat treat as necessary.
Did not finish the video because I got lost on youtube looking up how they made sheet metal in the medieval times, thanks. Hope you finished it.
Once again Alec youve blown me away with your skills as a maker, awesome work😁👍👍
Full suit of armor here we come! 😍 I've been waiting years for this moment!
Dude, the gold accents made that already cool-as-hell gauntlet SO BADASS! I cannot express how much I'd love to see you make a whole suit of armor with that styling.
The question about making plate armour before rolling mills were commonplace lit my curiosity, so I went down the rabbit hole, and apparently the sheets were usually hammered to a workable thickness, shaped, and then polished down to their final thickness and getting bumps, marks and inconsistencies out.
While plate armouring was in it's infancy, every workshop did the flattening by themselves and usually by hand, which is a massive task. Towards the later medieval period however, workshops just taking raw steel ingots and turning them to workable thickness plates was an entire industry unto itself in the bigger cities, using water or animal powered hammers. Indeed, there was a complaint to a local court about a smith noisily flattening iron at "odd hours" in London, from the 14th century.
Quite interesting stuff :)
Rolling mills are surprisingly old, they’re around in the 1700s, no lathe, but just a sharpened steel block jammed under the roller casting on a rack with wedges to adjust the depth of cut. (Currently reading R Angerstein’s travel diaries from the 1750’s, traveling through England as an industrial spy for the Swedish iron industry, lots of good information in there about old English industry)
Though I’m not sure about rolling sheet in the time when armor was in use, I’d suspect tilt hammers are doing that work.
But remember, labor wasn’t valued the way it is today, just hammering that out with sledges isn’t as far fetched when you’re paying someone pennies to do it.
Anyone watching this that wants to see more armor making, or if Alec is reading this and wants to see more armour making check out: Making Excalibur Armour from Tested. Its a several video series with Adam Savage helping make a bespoke suit of Excalibur Armour with Terry English.
I've always loved the look of brass with steel. Both metallic but yet so different. This + the awesome craftsmanship=Totally epic!!
I love how wholesomely he smiles in every thumbnail
Now i have to finish my build of these beautys.
Thanks Alec 😉
I saw David's video before this one came out and now I feel special.
I wore a gauntlet is the Wallace collection once, i also was amazed by the dexterity you had wearing an iron gauntlet
To answer the question, yes they had rolling things, they would hear the metal then push it through, make the gap smaller, and repeat. Similar to spinning gold
sheet metal is a fairly modern thing, in general it was all hammered out mostly by hand or by a trip hammer that was powered by a water wheel. this brings in the fact that medieval armor was pretty darn expensive and cheaper options like the coat of arms, chainmail and gambesons were thus more populair.
nice to see the gauntlet coming along!
Hey Alec, maybe you could go down the rabbit hole of learning about ancient blacksmithing? Even trying a few projects?
I would love to see future videos where Alec tries forging with different metals that he normally doesnt use. Tungsten and lead would be very interesting to see. Don't really care what he makes with it, maybe a sculpture or something out of brass or copper would be very nice!
Niiiiiice! I admit, I had my doubts. You rocked it.
Nice touch with the fleur de lis. The symbol for my home town. New Orleans. Also the symbol for the Boubon dynasty. The last kings of France before the French Revolution.
I've missed the lined-up-to-the-beat video editing, so good to see it return!
A 'riveting' video! I appreciate seeing you tread the path of being an armourer.
I expect this to be the first in a series of videos about your new suite of armour.
Alec, great first effort and another fun video of the learning process. I hope you'll keep at it and show some more armour pieces in Future. All the Best to Team Steele!
The real turning point in the sheet metal production took place with the introduction of the rolling mill. The first known design of a rolling mill dates back no less than to Leonardo who in one of his drawings, dated 1480, describes for the first time the possibility of “making a material pass” between two cylindrical rollers with parallel axes to modify its thickness
Wonderful to see this video! I love your stuff normally but it's fantastic to see you make something that could concievably be built by somebody who doesn't have a massive professional workshop's worth of forging tools (not that it's bad to see all those tools in action in most of your videos of course). End results are beautiful and this is probably first time I've watched you make something and thought to myself "Huh, maybe _I_ could do that!"
Longs story short, in the middle ages sheet metal was flattened from ingots/osmunds by hand with a hammer. There is a 14th century noise complaint in London about a blacksmith who was flattening osmunds at an odd hour. It wasn't until the late middle ages until water powered trip hammers were used, and the 17th century when the modern rollers were introduced to produce sheet metal.
Essentially there were three different ways that medieval sheet metal was made, type one: hammering it out from an ingot/billot. Type two; melting iron down and casting it a flat as possible then hammering it flat. Finally; the iron was cut and rolled using very crude rollers, spun using gears and pullies hooked to workers or animals to roll the ingot/billot.
Loving the armour content and the mini-series. Looking forward to the next big project - I'd love to see you smelt your own metal and find out how they used to make sheet metal yourself!
The gauntlet of Steele
Equip to offhand and parry.
Lightweight; perfect for your Dex build.
I believe late-medieval foundries did a combination of casting billets, and early screw-presses to get the metal in flat-ish shape.
Ilya of thatworks (formerly Man at Arms: Reforged) shows in a few vids that a lot of making large, thin, curved surfaces revolves around a much bigger version of the ball you were curving the fingertips on and such.
Check out Matthias Golls thesis as well as Dupras thesis for a ton of information on how they made sheet steel and armor historically, plus many examples of historical armor as well :)
In my understanding, for some pieces of armor like helmets they would start with a small billet and that gets stretched I to the shape. Which is why many authentic pieces of armor are thicker where they need to be strongest!
Rolled steel sheet wasn't available until the 17th century. Steel was generally flattened by water-powered trip hammers. Water-power was also used for polishing wheels. Making plate armor was generally massively labor intensive and only done by the largest workshops. There's a couple of books you can check out: "Nicholas Dupras - Armourers and Their Workshops - The Tools and Techniques of Late Medieval Armour production" and "Matthias Pfaffenbichler - Armourers" and "Alan Williams - The Knight and the Blast Furnace"
Turned out great! Please do more pieces or a full suit with your twist added to it
in 1480 leonardo drafted a rolling press for metals. There is a cold rolling mill that dates back to 1680's in newcastle england.
Very nice, Alec, very nice indeed! A good start on your suit... next up, a nice easy Sallet or Barbute?
Also, in answer to your question about sheet steel: Water-powered mills. Either with a massive hammers-and-blocks arrangement or rollers. Quite how they made sure the sheets were a consistent thickness, I have no idea.
There was a long period of time where armourers really DID hand-hammer ingots of bloomery steel straight into pieces of armour, though. I guess that explains why weapons were expensive, but a halfway decent bit of metal armour was even MORE expensive.
To answer your question, plate beaters. Armorsmithing was an entire Industry and you may spend your entire life doing one specialized job. Your initial assumption was correct, they just took ingots and beat them into plates, great beaters would allow for the plate to not be flat exactly so if a helmet had to be drawn out from a single plate as the helm was raised or dished it was thicker in the requisite areas so the material didn't get too thin as it was shaped.