[Ju Ye]

what is disadvantage of stainless steel armour for battle fighting? my friend told me coz stainless steel will crack easier than mild steel during attacking. and is stainless steel armour more experience than mild steel / cold roll steel? i saw some russian craftsman sell stainless stelle armour and price is experience than mild steel option.]

foglia

[Scott Hanson]

That is basically correct. Stainless steel is more brittle than carbon steel, as a general rule. It's been awhile since I had metallurgy classes, but I believe is has to do with the chromium taking up some of the interstitial space that the carbon would normally reside in and causing extra stress in the material.

I'm sure someone here is more current on their metallurgy and can give the proper explanation.

There are "high carbon" stainless steels that would probably have acceptable performance for armor and long blades, but these will be more expensive than a simple high carbon steel.

[Quinn W.]

You're right - it is usually more expensive than mild steel (but not spring steel).
It is also less historically accurate.

As for performance, I believe the basics have already been covered in this topic:
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...historical

[Ju Ye]

[Timo Nieminen]

Stainless works for armour, and has the convenience of rust-resistance.

Stainless armour is more expensive because it's harder to work (harder to cut, to drill, to weld), and perhaps somewhat due to being more expensive than mild steel. The last time I bought steel for armour, which was a long time ago, stainless cost 3 times as much. But most of the cost of armour is usually the labour.

I did most of my SCA fighting with a stainless helm. Works great, except for ringing like a bell.

Where brittleness in stainless is a problem is with high-carbon stainless steels that are hardened to high hardnesses. For achieving the "best" compromise between hardness and toughness, carbon steels will beat stainless steels. If hardness isn't an issue (as it won't be if you're prepared to use mild steel), then stainless can do perfectly well. If you're shaving weight from your armour by trying for hard+tough (like hardened spring steel armour), then stainless won't do so well.

I'd say the main disadvantage of stainless steel is authenticity. Unless you're trying to be authentic to movies like "Excalibur" rather than authentic to history.

[Chad Arnow]

Yes, stainless is a modern alloy. So is the cold-rolled mild steel sheet many people use for armour these days. What about the inclusion of chromium makes stainless less historic than a modern homogenous mild steel alloy? Both are inaccurate as they aren't bloomery steel of varying thickness and inconsistent metallurgy.

The honest truth, in my opinion, is that people often associate stainless steel with cheap, poorly made replicas. Because these bad replicas are badly and ahistorically designed and poorly made, they often fail (spectacularly). But more often, the failure is due to design issues (and/or lack of proper heat treat in weapons) rather than material issues. As with other materials, the material gets condemned because of its use in bad products.

I've seen plenty of jousters use stainless harnesses. It can work if made properly.

People often forget that the vast majority of modern makers of arms and armour are using materials that are vastly different from historical ones. Our understanding of metallurgy and the technology we have makes things available that weren't back then. The alloys most swordmakers use for blades and fittings are different than historical specimens. Ditto with armourers.

If you want true historical accuracy in an armour, you need to look past all modern alloys, especially ones that come in same-thickness-throughout sheets. But the pricetag will go up exponentially.

If you want to shoot down stainless armour for durability issues, you might be able to make some kind of case. But if your issue with it is "accuracy" you should shoot down armour made of cold-rolled mild steel, too, as it's a modern alloy our ancestors didn't have access to.

Just my opinion.

[David Lewis Smith]

I have a stainless harness I fight in now and then, it is an Italian piscod hence the 'now and then' I have been hit hard in it and had no issues.

The upside of Stainless is it is much easier to maintain in North Carolina than my old munitions grade mild steel. Humidity, air pollution and sweat all lead to rust.

[Quinn W.]

I have witnessed stainless armor take a solid beating, and can vouch for its effectiveness if well-made. Yes, you can get technical with what is more brittle etc, but at the end of the day a good stainless kit is entirely combat-capable. Plus they are much easier to maintain.

I guess when you put it like Chad did, stainless is no less accurate than any other modern alloy, but I always figured that as long as you're not subjecting it to chemical tests the other steels are closer in how they look and handle. Objectively both are inaccurate, but subjectively I think that other steels are more accurate in "feel."
However, that sentiment doesn't really make me feel any better as I watch my munitions breastplate get slowly devoured by rust.

[Timo Nieminen]

Paint it black, with a good rust-prevention tannic acid paint. Of course, if you're going to paint it, then you might as well have stainless as the steel. OTOH, if you're going to paint it, rust will be a lesser problem, so you might as well stick with mild steel.

(I was such an authenticity nut that I wore plastic-plate brigandine with my stainless helm.)

[William P]

[Timo Nieminen]

The plates can't be seen, since the outer layer is fabric. Since the plates are thicker, I butted them rather than overlapping them, so it isn't so historical. The problem with steel brigandine is that authentically thin plates will get bent up a lot (in modern full-contact fighting), and will need to be fixed. Polycarbonate doesn't suffer from this, or mold, or rust.

The plates were a little too large, so flexibility suffered. More protective than it needed to be. I've been (very, very) slowly making the replacement, with smaller plates, in Chinese style, along the lines of the armour in figd 72 & 73 in Stone's Glossary: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=J5PgapzD6...mp;f=false

For Japanese style lamellar, or other lamellars, you can buy plastic lamellae. Basically, low-maintenance substitute for rawhide lamellae. I haven't seen these in real life, so can't comment on close-up appearance.

[Ralph Grinly]

Many years ago, I constructed a suit of lamellar armour using a pile of stainless steel offcuts I found. They were the waste from some industrial process that had been stamped out of sheet, and I wound up with about 400 or so 1 inch wide by about 3 inches plates..just the right size I thought to make up the armour I required. (not that I used them all) The plates had been finished to a sort of satin/brushed finish, so they looked more like silver than normal stainless steel. It took me ages to make the armour..and LOTS and LOTS of literally burnt out/melted drill bits - figure out 8 holes per plate, and about 300 plates.
It was an interesting exercise, and wound up looking not too bad..and after 20 odd years in storage, it still looks nice and shiney.

[Ju Ye]

thx all reply, your information help me a lot and if using 302 & 2xx series stainless make armour with annealing, does armour still have same level for impact ?

[Jeffrey Hedgecock]

Over my 25 year career so far, I have worked in all three materials; mild, spring and stainless, though of the pieces I've made, the fewest have been in stainless.

Where historical accuracy is concerned, although all three are modern alloys, only 1050 spring steel approximates better quality historical steels. Stainless is the least accurate because of one simple fact- it doesn't rust. There were no non-rusting steels historically.

Metallographic steel analysis and study by Alan Williams and Anthony deReuck suggests that 1050 spring steel is the closest modern equivalent to historical steel of above-average quality. That is, steel the best armours were made from.

In order of durability, low to high, that is "ability to resist impact" and return to original form, it goes mild steel, stainless, then spring steel of at least 40 points of carbon (when properly heat treated). Most armourers who know how to make historically correct armour (both in form and function) -don't- work in stainless, for a variety of reasons. I personally only work in spring steel now because with the amount of work I put into my pieces, I want them to last a good long time, and the best way to ensure that is to make them of 1050 spring and heat treat them well. I find mild too soft, even if work-hardened, and stainless is just plain too hard on the tools and my body, and doesn't yield a result I'm happy with, in color and overall "look". My experience has also suggested that generally speaking, the people who want stainless armour really aren't interested in properly maintaining their armour (hence the stainless), and I believe that for armour to function properly over time it should be regularly maintained and attended to. The people I have met that like stainless armour prefer avoiding all maintenance and repair whatsoever. For me, there's no such thing as "maintenance-free" armour.

I personally believe typical stainless steels (that doesn't include "spring stainless") will never approach the toughness and durability of spring steels like 1050. Typical stainless alloys just can't be heat treated like 1050 can, so will never be as tough. In my opinion, if you want armour that will handle hard use and last a long time, there is no better steel than 1050.

[Ju Ye]

[Daniel Wallace]

referring to a question above, how to identify a stainless steel from a carbon steel.

spark testing is one way, stainless steel throws very little spark when being ground, the easiest way though, take a magnet to it. you'll feel very little attraction from the magnet when it passes over stainless, but it will not hold the weight of the magnet. i'm not sure of why it has this property, it may be because of the chromium content, other stainless steels use a nickle alloy as well as the chromium.

its heck to work with - cutting it and shaping it are just difficult. the tempering process is different, i've read that a sub zero quench gives it its best results using a mixture of dry ice and acetone.






there's been a lot of questions around here as well about keeping your carbon steel armour rust free, someone approached me not long ago about a clear powder coating process for knives. its much more expensive than paint, but from what i understand its an extremely durable finish. the gentleman that described it to me stated that you can't cut into it, and hitting it with a hammer will not crack it. i'm wondering if anyone has explored this possibility for their own armour parts.

[Jonathon Janusz]

[Jeffrey Hedgecock]

I hope you're not trying to guilt me into making stainless pieces again.

I do see the value in having low maintenance handling artifacts, but at the same time, you may consider the idea that using such a non-historical material can give a mistaken impression to the handler about historical pieces. You might also consider that 1050 when well polished doesn't rust any where near as much as mild.

Just some things to think about......

[Jonathon Janusz]

Who, me? Never. . .

Point well taken about the very thin line walked regarding mistaken impressions. Tools like those described absolutely must be used along side very well put together lesson plans and well versed teaching skills to avoid throwing mud into already generally murky waters teaching these subjects to the average person not already studied in them.