Armour Making Tutorial - How to roll the edges of armour
Closing the roll - Stage 1 of 2
These next two steps are where being patient will make or break the final good looking roll. In the previous stages of this example all the metal forming was stretching. Now it is time to compress the metal down to form a complete roll.
I am using the horn of my first, old beat up, anvil to support the work. It is best to use a solid surface that has roughly the same contour as the inside of the piece being rolled. Strike down on the edge of the flair to push it down towards the main body of the plate. This, even more so than the other stages, needs to be done in a number of passes moving it just a little bit at a time.
I gave a bit of a bad example in the photo above. The difference in the amount of rolling over of the edge below the hammer and the area seen at the bottom of the frame is about the maximum difference you should have on a single pass.
The roll is further compressed by lightly striking with just the edge of the hammer. Care should be taken not to scar the armour with the sharp sides of the hammer face.
At this stage the roll should be past 180 degrees yet it does need not come all the way in contact with the main body of the plate.
Page 8 - Closing the roll stage 2.