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 though 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 basically all polished and mounted up as display only pieces during the 1800’s. This process removed the valuable patina which tells the real story for the discriminating student of history. This is accepted in museum circles as fact but the general amateur betrays their ignorance by insisting on wearing brightly polished or stainless steel armour. Hardly historically accurate. I don’t know how many times I have heard ren-fair folks whining about how hard it was to keep that bright polish on their armour for one weekend. Do they imagine that the field of war was cleaner and drier than a renaissance fair? Those who wear stainless steel armour are totally fantasy land. Holly Wood scores another one! Yes there was one mine in Hungary and one in India that produced a natural stainless alloy. However it was heavy with nickel and very soft so they hardened it by soaking it in molten cyanide. This process made for legends of poisonous ore. The metal that resulted was extremely strong and would not rust. It was however very dark blue grey in color and would not polish brightly. Once again referring to tower of London publications, they were investigating what they thought to be a secret bluing type of finish on certain armours right after W.W.I when they discovered that the steel was resisting rust by itself and the formula for stainless steel was actually discovered by studying armour. The Bessemer process finally allowing the manufacture of alloy steel for the first time. However the point remains that even the incredibly rare stainless steel armour that did exist was dark in finish and that the prevalent finish for sixteenth century armour on, was a heavy coat of black paint. The armours of Hans Prenner has 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. The simplest way to achieve a very close look is with a substantial coat of rustoleum brand gloss black spray paint. Most Blankenshield customers after seeing the evidence have chosen the historically accurate route and gone with basic black.