FINISHES
Excessive abrasive finishing destroys the hard surface of the armour built
up during the planishing phase. In the old days they did not have power
sanders. They did not even have sand paper. What they did to abrasively
finish the armour was to fiffle and stickle it. No armoursmith was allowed
to have a fiffle at their work station and all fiffling and stickling was
to be done by specialists only. The main reason for all these guild regulations
was to maintain the hard glaze imparted during planishing. A fiffle by the
way was a primitive file with teeth on one face only. The fiffle was used
sparingly on edges, corners, flutes, and recessed borders. The stickle was
what they had instead of sand paper. They took a flat stick. Dipped it in
grease. Then dipped in fine sand or grinding dust. Then rubbed away. Thus
the old saying that someone was a real stickler when it came to detail.
Common practice was to rub a greasy rag on the ground then on the armour.
Now days they want bright armour. Fine! Take fine emery cloth to it lightly
then swab everything with olive oil. By far the best oil for metal, wood,
leather and horn etc. In the old days they almost always used a rust preventative
finish and oil both. The simplest was what they called a russet finish.
This finish is mentioned several times in The armourer and his craft By
ffoulks. (Which you should own if you are reading this.) This was achieved
by control rusting using verjuice. A strong vinegar made from unripe grapes.
This took days of tending to do properly. You can do the same overnight
using chlorine bleach. Several times I have sat outside on a sunny day painting
and drying till a nice surface resulted. Once a nice furry rust develops
a hot application is made of a mixture of olive oil and beeswax. Very little
wax and sometimes a little rosin. This is painted on, cooled then burnished
with a polished piece of bone or horn. Or the bock (dregs) from ale making
was painted into the controlled rust. This was done in the tower of London
armoury and was one way of retrieving badly maintained armour without much
effort. I have used guinness stout on my control rust with great results.
They also used a simple bluing process that was also control rusting. First
the furry rust was achieved. Then filings from iron and copper were mixed
and boiled in verjuice till a black syrup resulted which was boiled with
oil till the verjuice boiled away. This syrup was applied to the furry rust
then hot oiled with oil and beeswax. This was cold blacking. You can do
the same with a controlled rust then apply Tandy black leather dye. This
is chemically similar and does the same thing. Hot oil/wax and burnish.
Really cheap armour for foot soldiers was sometimes fire blackened. Oil
and beeswax was painted on thick and burned off. This softens the piece
a bit though and was for those you really did not care about. Paint was
a big thing and again the Tower of London comes to our rescue with their
many painted suits. Some with stripes and polka dots. Most armour statistically
seems to have been shellacked black with heavy brush strokes in the paint.
Of course Museum curators dutifully ground off every trace a century ago
in most instances. So most people will ignore this part of the essay. At
least please don’t ruin your armour by grinding off that nice glaze
you worked so hard to get. And if you want a cheap, easy, historically accurate
appearing way to cut labor just spray the whole thing with black Rustoleum.
Do it before every tournament and you can see where you got hit. Great fun.
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