Beverly, I may need to tap your brain for research at some point. I'm still waiting to have more money and more time to actually *do* any re-enacting, but after filling my head with black powder arcana for my last war story, I've found myself needing to learn the bladed side of things. I'm in the same era, but this WIP features one character who's really a lousy shot (we're talking Dick Cheney levels of you would not want to go out hunting with this guy) but good with a sword, and another who's a perfectly good shot, but he ends up as the first guy's best friend and favored sparring partner for sword drill. So I have in mind lots of vaguely slashy male bonding scenes with banter and clashing sabers, only I'll need to figure out how to write the saber bits to frame the banter.
Simon ,'Safe'
Natter 57 Varieties
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
I don't want to print galleys. Must proofread 60 pages. Of 10pt. Usually, I can do it backwards. But I have the digital file, and doing so on a screen w/Acrobat is making me insane. I want my red erasable and galleys printed by someone else.
t /memewhine
Here's a happy story with whales and a dolphin: [link]
Hey, here's a question maybe Bev or Susan can answer:
Which would make better plate armor: brass, bronze or copper?
Steel is not an option.
That one's Not My Era, MM, but I'm guessing you need to balance the strength and weight of the armor. Also, what kind of projectiles and blades it needs to stop, because you're going to want the lightest armor that's still protective. Which you probably already know...
Bronze. Brass is much softer and copper is, like, tinfoil soft.
Brass, MM. It's an alloy, and harder than even bronze, which is also an alloy. Each have copper in them, but copper alone is much too soft to work either as armour or a functional blade.
bronze.
Copper, on its own, is too soft, I think.
brass is a name for Zinc-alloy type of bronze.
Bronze. Brass is much softer and copper is, like, tinfoil soft.
Brass, MM. It's an alloy, and harder than even bronze, which is also an alloy. Each have copper in them, but copper alone is much too soft to work either as armour or a functional blade.
BWAH!!
BWAH!!
Nonetheless, much as I lurve Bev, she is wrong wrong wrongitywrongity wrong on the hardness of brass -- the reason it's used for instruments and plumbing and the like is that it's so malleable.