HISTORICAL FINISHES

Armour being made from steel rusts. There is a tower of London pamphlet which delves extensively with the subject and they reach the conclusion that most armour was painted with an oil based shellac. Most of that was black although painted armour of many colors exist. The tower has a whole collection of wildly painted pikemans armour in such patterns as white and green stripes, red and white checks, and even one suit with multi color polka dots. Similar suits are in museum collections in New York, and Chicago. According to the tower pamphlet there is also a document attesting to the fact that at least once the armour in the tower was dressed with “bock” which is the slime from the bottom of beer barrels. I experimented with this and found that Guinness stout when painted on with a brush leaves an almost purple brown finish that is indeed very rust and abrasion resistant. The many polished armours in museums today were mostly polished and mounted up as display only pieces during the 1800’s which was normal museum practice for a couple hundred years. This process removed the valuable patina which tells the real story for the discriminating student of history. The armours of Hans Prenner have been a great inspiration for Blankenshield. The huge displays of armour shown here from Graz are mostly Prenner armour. The painted finish on these pieces remains intact and unmodified.