[Jeff A. Arbogast]

I have a modified Black Prince helm made by William Hurt of Age of Armour. After some experimentation and a few less-than-perfect results, he came up with a virtually perfect heat-blackened helm seen below. He said the trick was to make sure the metal was evenly heated all over (apparently not that easy to do) and then quenching it in oil. I 'm not certain what KIND of oil. It has held up really well as long as I make sure it is wiped down with an oily rag from time to time or rust will form, which will remove the blackening. Maybe this could have been done to mail as well if someone requested it, perhaps as a custom job as I did? If a helm can be heat-blackened as shown, why not mail? I'm not saying it WAS, just that it's not impossible. I have black butted mail myself, and it's held up really well against rust with only a rare oiling. I'm not sure what the process was anymore to make it black, but it holds up better against rust than plain steel for sure. Nor has the finish shown the slightest evidence of the finish coming off, and I'm not gentle with it when I'm working on it. Granted, it is not worn daily but I am not concerned about any of the finish wearing off at this point, at least to the degree I use it. It would have by now if it was going to.

[Eric S]

[Chad Arnow]

[Jeff A. Arbogast]

Jeff...any idea if the heat treatment changed the temper of the armor?[/quote]

Hi Eric,
No I am sorry I don't really have anything to add regarding the tempering of the helm during the heating/blackening process, but as Chad stated, it probably had some benefit, as heating and quenching a sword does. I admit I wasn't really concerned so much with that as with appearance (the "Black Knight" theme), and this helm is so sturdy and heavy that I have no doubt that it would withstand anything but the HEAVIEST blows by an impact weapon, (say, a twenty pound sledge, which would annihilate me by concussion alone anyway). William wasn't very familiar with doing this blackening process, but he was willing to give it a shot. This particular attempt turned out perfectly I think. A blacksmith at the Silverleaf Rennaisance Faire was impressed with the quality of the finish, and he too agreed that it must have been very evenly heated to get such a smooth consistent finish, as heat-blackening (or blueing) can often look uneven and mottled if done carelessly.
As an aside, William also made me a quilted period adjustable liner for the inside that is laced and tied through holes all around the side of the helm since I may have wanted to wear it alone without a coif or a small helm underneath, as I usually do. A nice option to have, and it looks like it came straight out of the 12th century, which is pretty sweet. Comfortable too, and complete with a chin strap attached. What more could you ask for?

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Just heating armor (or weapons) up can have the effect of annealing it which actually softens it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annealing_%28metallurgy%29

But armor including mail was tempered sometimes in period, it became rather common during the Renaissance.

J

[Eric S]

[Aleksei Sosnovski]

I tempered high-carbon steel till it became blue (around 300-320 C). Made pretty good swords. As far as I remember oil (at least some vegetable oil) starts oxidizing at lower temperatures, so I think the piece will be properly tempered during the heat-blueing process, not annealed (if one coats his piece of armor with oil and then heats it, gives beautiful lacquer-like finish if done properly, though probably not as easy to do as heating a piece and then quenching it in oil).

[Matthew Fedele]

Jeff,

From your description the helm could be heat blued, oil blackened, or both (blue with a oil black over.) It's masterly work either way.

Heat blueing will not necessarily ruin your temper. Blue is close to the temper color you want for a spring which sounds like a good temper for armor.

Oil blackening happens around 350F with animal and vegetable oils. If you go much hotter than that and it turns grey and starts burning off. Steel's temper isn't altered until 420F so if done correctly oil blackening is safe on tempered steel.

Cheers,
Matt

[Jeff A. Arbogast]

Jeff......it sounds like I need to meet your armorer, I have a Japanese helmet with a missing liner and chin strap, the color on your helm is impressive, it really has a lacquered look, and as you said the result is usually not so even, I am sure ancient metal workers had a lot of knowledge that is lost to us. I am still trying to find out how the Japanese could lacquer mail evenly with out it getting all stuck together? [/quote]

You could always contact William at http://www.ageofarmour.com/ and ask if he could make you a liner and strap. I'm sure he could, as he really is a jack-of-all-trades with this sort of thing, and he did make me a superb liner, and a nice mantle as well. The only problem is he seems to be pretty much a one man show and is always backed up on orders. But maybe he could fit this in among his other jobs. He is a most pleasant and helpful man to deal with also. He was having some internet problems a while back and sometimes missed some e-mails, but hopefully that has been resolved. If you do try to contact him and get no response, he may still be having some trouble. Keep trying because he is not someone to simply ignore a customer. He just had unreliable internet service for a while.
As for how the Japanese managed to paint mail and keep it from sticking, I guess that's just one of those lost secrets of the trade, unless someone else knows how it was done. I sure wouldn't presume to.

[Jeff A. Arbogast]

[Eric S]

[Ushio Kawana]

Hi all

Mr. Craig Shackleton wrote:

[Craig Shackleton]

I believe I got it from here:

http://www.hroarr.com/manuscripts_german.html

It is certainly available there.

[Johan Gemvik]

Taking a look at this die riveted flattened iron ring aventail a good friend who's a professional maille smith gave my brother recently I believe the normal colour of authentic maille is actually black.



This is because if you're going to do it the authentic way and cut a hole in the flattened ring ends for the rivet you have to normalise it first to make it soft again after the flattening or you simply break the tool on it. A lesson I learned recently when we kept breaking our tools on the round ring pre-reneissance model maille. I thought we'd get away with not doing the normalising because the ring wasn't deformed and therfore cold hardened as much. But apparently you still have to do it even for the round rings.
Normalising means heating with a burner or equivalent, this blackens the rings. The result is a black maille as seen above, it's how it comes out finished.

So I'd say it's the standard for maille, if it's made in a historically accurate way, to be black. Then if you wanted a shiny maille you'd polish it. Or oil burn it if you wanted really Jet or Mulberry black.