(Belated Weekend Part 2) My First Breastplate - Midcollar

I started by cutting out a rectangular piece, and then broke it out into the separate sections.  This might seem like a mistake, since the midcollar plate has to slightly overlap the other two, but you will find that once you've accounted for material lost in folded/flared edges it won't matter.  The plate labelled "scrap" will probably be reused for a shoulder or manica lame(s) -- it's not actually going to waste.

PS - I am using soapstone to write on the sheet metal here.  This is convenient since you can remove it later with only a rag.

An important point to keep in mind about the breastplate sections is that they are going to be rubbing against your neck.  This is not a place where you want rough metal edges!  Typically ( and historically) these edges are finished slightly differently from other edges as a result.  There are three basic options:

• Flared;
• Folded; or
• Rolled.

Since I don't like the "flared" look by itself, and since it is reputed to be significantly less forgiving of mistakes, I decided to ignore it in favour of practicing my folding and rolling.  On my next breastplate section I will attempt the combined folded and flared edging shown in the famous lorica segmentata diagrams by Peter Connolly.


Disclaimer:  I am not a smith of any sort, I'm just some guy with a bunch of newly-purchased hammers who read some tutorials on the interwebs.  I will be telling you how I have done things, and whether or not they worked for me.  That doesn't mean that they are the easiest or best way to get things done.

In this post, I will be covering the midcollar, where I chose to use a gentle fold for the part going against my neck.  Unfortunately it appears that I forgot to take a picture of starting the bend -- I'll remedy that in a future post.

Anyways, I used soapstone to mark a fold line about 1cm back from the edge.  Laying the plate more or less flat on the anvil, I shift it so that the fold line is level with the edge of the anvil.  (With that 1cm section hanging over the edge)  Once it is aligned, I can start lightly tapping along that overhanging edge, aiming just past the edge of the anvil. The key here is to do a little bit at a time along the whole edge. To better understand why this is necessary, please read the excellent writeup over here.  While you're there, read the whole rolling armour edges tutorial -- I certainly did.

Anyways, the trick is to just keep shifting that plate, keeping the fold line just on top of the edge of the anvil.  When you've completed one or two passes, you should have something like this:
Note: The edges of my brick hammer's face have been rounded out with files.  I should really radius and polish the whole face of the hammer before starting work on the final pieces.

After a few more passes, you should be approaching a 90° bend.

 

As you try to surpass that 90° mark, it might help to switch orientation with the fold on the face of the anvil, and the body of the plate hanging off the side:

After you reach that stage, you can lay the plate flat on the anvil and brace it with your hand.  You should be aiming the hammer for the top of the edge here -- be careful since a miss will likely ding the anvil.  Your hammer stroke should be expecting to "slip off" the top of the fold.

Getting closer -- Hammer strokes should still be slipping off the edge of the fold.

On the last two or three passes, be careful to strike along the edge, NOT directly on the fold.

 

If you did the last step correctly, you should have a nice-looking rounded edge:

Next update tomorrow-ish will cover the rest of the weekend material  (other two breastplate parts), and hopefully the assembly of a complete shoulder unit.