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John H
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 Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2007 12:38 pm Post subject: Stainless Steel harness? |
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I am about to commission a new 16th-century harness from a very good armorsmith and wanted to solicit some opinions on the suitability of stainless steel, which is the option I am looking at.
I will be using the suit for occasional reenactment and manual interpretation, but honestly, it will spend most of its life sitting in my office on a stand. So, I like the low maintenance aspect of stainless. Aside from it being historically inaccurate, are there any other factors that should affect my decision? Durability? Weight? Etc.
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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Stainless steel can be stiffer than mild. In fact some combat organizations allow thinner stainless gauges since it should be harder than equivalent gauge mild.
A good tempered spring steel will be the lowest weight option of course, but I think stainless is a viable alternative for occasional use armour. If you can get the maker to give it more of a satin finish than mirror, you might be able to make it look less like typical stainless and more historical.
I'm sure some folks here are clutching their chests at the mere thought of stainless steel, but I think it's a pretty good option for your purposes. All the jouster I saw at the Ohio faire during the years I worked there wore stainless.
I'd be curious to know what maker you're using, too. 
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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John H
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| Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject: Thanks |
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I'm using Illusion and having quite a bit of custom work done to it.
I will post pictures later this year when it is finished.
And yes, it will be in a satin finish.
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Gary A. Chelette
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| Posted: Wed 20 Jun, 2007 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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If you don't like that rusty look and hate the upkeep of Hi Carbon, go stainless!
Are you scared, Connor?
No, Cousin Dugal. I'm not!
Don't talk nonsense, man. I peed my kilt the first time I went into battle.
Oh, aye. Angus pees his kilt all the time!
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Bram Verbeek
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| Posted: Thu 21 Jun, 2007 4:31 am Post subject: |
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if it would sit in your office, with a humidity that is quite low, it would not rust very much in and on itself, do you have airconditioning? that will reduce air humidity more
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Kel Rekuta
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| Posted: Thu 21 Jun, 2007 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| Bram Verbeek wrote: | | if it would sit in your office, with a humidity that is quite low, it would not rust very much in and on itself, do you have airconditioning? that will reduce air humidity more |
Everyone that goes in the office will touch the harness at least once. Its human nature to handle shiny things...  Fingerprints create rust in as little as a day. Plain carbon steel requires maintenance occasionally, stainless steels rarely, given John's requirements. Brushed stainless seems to be a perfect choice for his needs.
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Jared Smith
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| Posted: Thu 21 Jun, 2007 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Chad Arnow wrote: |
A good tempered spring steel will be the lowest weight option of course, ..... |
1% carbon "spring steel grade" material that has actually not been tempered will provide an excellent compromise between toughness and "forgiving" denting behavior that makes the difference between seeing an armorer to repair things versus seeing a surgeon to have a broken bone set. The trauma experienced from a sudden impact might easily vary by a factor of 2 depending on tempered versus untempered. I have been looking for some stress versus strain curves to illustrate this, but have not had luck yet. Stainless steel sheet that has been extensively cold worked in forming will tend to behave more like the spring tempered material.
I have the impression that most armourers are not tempering or annealing large pieces of armour, even if fabricating from "spring steel" or "stainless" grade material (which makes little sense if one thinks about the cost and rarity of large, flat, and thin sheets of it, costs of ovens and quench baths of those proportions, etc.) I am not decided or experienced with armour in actual application, but the arguments I have heard in favor of low carbon steel armour that will dent (absorbing shock much like a layer of padding) make sense both in terms of safety and durability.
One of the armourers on the now defunct armor patterns web site actually had some articles regarding experiments and crude impact tests of "tempered" spring steel pieces versus untempered steel versions of the same articles (helmets if I remember right.) The spring tempered pieces failed with brittle cracks earlier than the mild steel pieces that had to have dents beaten back into original form. In the case of his experiment, the trial pieces were of equal thickness and the material and heat treat specifics were given (I cross checked the heat treat last year and every thing looked technically legitimate.) As long as the comparison is for "uncorroded mild/ plain carbon" versus stainless I would expect similar penalties (less ductile forgiveness) of cold worked, un-annealed stainless alloys versus mild carbon material.
If someone does have extensive combat use experience with a stiffer lighter "stainless" harness, perhaps they will weigh in with how it has held up in their experience.
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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Chris Arrington
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| Posted: Fri 22 Jun, 2007 10:18 am Post subject: |
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There are extensive discussions on this topic over at:
http://www.armourarchive.org
Spring that has been properly heat treated and then properly tempered, should not have the breaking and cracking that is being discussed here. But this process is very much an art form in itself.
I dabble in armour but I'm still very much at the self taught apprentice stage.
I'm quite partial to stainless. Low maintenance, and high durability. But much more expensive usually. Then again, spring steel is the most expensive, so I guess its a wash in those terms.
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Jared Smith
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| Posted: Fri 22 Jun, 2007 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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I am truthfully open minded to the issue and interested. I quickly perused the site (nice) and did not just suddenly stumble into the topic in the first two minutes. If you don't mind, please post any specific topic links! Annealed stainless is great stuff. Following welding and some forming processes, it can become a very different animal.
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence!
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John H
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This is a standard topic