45x03 - Secrets of the Shining Knight

[bunniefuu]

[horses whinnying]

NARRATOR:
Revered as heroes,

knights in shining armor
were elites,

covered in skins of gold.

TOBIAS CAPWELL:
It's meant to be awe-inspiring.

It's meant to blow your mind.

NARRATOR:
Their armor embodied a
revolution in metal making.

ALAN WILLIAMS:
These armors were very much
Rolls Royces of the day.

NARRATOR:
But how were they made?

The secrets behind their
construction have been lost.

RIC FURRER:
When you start asking

the questions of how
did they actually do this,

there aren't many easy answers.

NARRATOR:
Now, a team of craftsmen

will try to solve the mystery
and make an armor from scratch.

JEFF WASSON:
I don't think that anybody

has really tried to do this

using old techniques

for hundreds of years.

So it's a lost art.

NARRATOR:
But could these armors

stand up to a powerful
new weapon?

Their work will be put

to the ultimate test.

TAVARES:
It's a little scary, all this...

months of work.

[g*nsh*t]

NARRATOR:
What happened
to the legendary knight

as the b*ttlefield changed?

[g*nf*re]

"Secrets of the Shining Knight"
revealed, right now on "NOVA."

NARRATOR:
Polished perfection itself,

the armor worn
by medieval knights

was both beautiful
and functional.

It represented a major
technological innovation.

But amidst the masterpieces,

there are marks left
by another innovation.

What could have caused
these dents?

It's not widely known,
but for more than 200 years,

knights in shining armor
and g*ns coexisted

on the b*ttlefield.

Knights were some of the first
people to take up firearms.

They weren't the backward,
out-of-touch people

that we often imagine... no way.

NARRATOR:
But could they keep up
in this medieval arms race?

[g*nsh*t]

Did g*ns usher in the end
of the knight in shining armor?

The image of the knight
goes back to the legend

of King Arthur
and his round table.

Arthur's fabled reign
in the sixth century

inspired a medieval tradition
of noble warriors

living by the codes of chivalry
and romantic gestures

of courtly love.

These customs flourished
across Europe.

Knights were elite warriors
fighting to protect the lands

of feudal lords and kings and
expand the power of the church.

[children shouting]

Long before g*ns,
knights battled on horseback

and on foot.

They fought with swords
and lances,

which they trained to use

in tournaments like this
modern-day competition

in England.

[competition announcer
shouting unintelligibly]

NARRATOR:
But in a medieval world
of stone and mud,

it was armor that elevated them
to near godlike status.

CAPWELL:
Put yourself in the position

of an ordinary person.

To see an armored knight,
it would have been like seeing

the sun manifest in human form.

They are the wielders
of divine power.

"Look at me.

I'm radiant."

[horses whinnying,
swords clashing]

NARRATOR:
But behind this exalted image,

a great transformation
was brewing.

Feudal fiefdoms were giving way
to the rise of nation states

like England, France, and Spain,

with large standing armies.

PAMELA SMITH:
We have all kinds of romantic
notions about knights,

but this period
is one of real change.

There was great competition,
great military needs,

that were driving very new
technologies of w*r.

[g*nsh*t]

NARRATOR:
To keep up in this arms race,

armorers created superhero suits

that represented a revolution

in metal making.

And a select few were crafted

with secret techniques that
made them stronger than others,

possibly even bulletproof.

ALAN WILLIAMS:
These armors were twice

or three times
as hard and strong

as the armor which the ordinary
foot soldier would have to wear.

You would be safe
on almost any b*ttlefield.

NARRATOR:
But the knowledge behind their
construction has been lost.

CAPWELL:
There are no
surviving period texts

on how to make and how to
harden and temper armor.

KEITH DOWEN:
We don't know much
about the details

for the construction
of armor anywhere.

Armorers simply didn't
write down their craft.

This was something
that was learned

over many years
of apprenticeship.

What armorers didn't want

was for their secrets
to get out.

NARRATOR:
Now, a modern day armorer

is trying to solve the mystery.

Working from his backyard forge

in suburban Long Island,
Jeff Wasson

is a leading craftsman
of medieval armor.

JEFF WASSON:
I don't think that anybody

has really tried to do this
using old techniques

for hundreds of years.

So it's a lost art.

NARRATOR:
An art perfected during a key
moment in scientific history.

SMITH:
This is the period
of the scientific revolution,

from about 1400 to about 1700.

Craftspeople really were

the scientists of their day.

They were the experts in the
behavior of natural materials,

in synthesizing new materials
out of the materials of nature.

And they do enormous amounts
of experimentation

in order to test out
these materials,

and reproduce those things
again and again,

as we think of
scientific replication.

NARRATOR:
Because these craftsmen
were so secretive,

a basic question has long
mystified historians...

How did they make plate armor?

CAPWELL:
Because it's difficult,

mysterious and dangerous,
nobody's done it.

You have to get the craftsmen
talking to the scientists,

talking to the historians.

There's a lot of pieces
that need to be in place.

NARRATOR:
At the Art Institute of Chicago,

they're trying to bring
these pieces together.

Curator Jonathan Tavares has
asked armor maker Jeff Wasson

to join a team of craftsmen
trying to build medieval armor

from scratch.

TAVARES:
For me, as that young boy

obsessed with arms and armor,
I was always fascinated...

How were these things made?

I have to see it for myself,
and I know I'm not the only one

who wants to see this.

NARRATOR:
Jeff will try to reproduce

one of the best pieces

in the institute's collection...

This 16th century armor.

If all goes well,

he'll test what he's made
to see how it stands up

to the newest weapons
of the day...

g*ns.

This armor was created
in a royal workshop

founded by the infamous
king of England, Henry VIII.

Henry idealized knights,
and he cloaked himself

in the age old-legend of King
Arthur and his Round Table.

DOWEN:
Henry VIII had his own image

painted onto the table
at Winchester

in place of that of King Arthur,

i.e. announcing himself
as the new King Arthur.

NARRATOR:
And he turned to armor

to bring him
even greater status.

CAPWELL:
But Henry, when he came
to the throne, didn't have

an armor workshop, and he needed
something that would express

his own personal
taste and style as a knight,

as a warrior, and as a king.

NARRATOR:
England's biggest rivals

in the 16th century
were France and Spain.

To keep up with his competition,

Henry founded the Royal
Greenwich Workshop in 1515.

Carried forward by his successor
Queen Elizabeth I,

it produced only
a few hundred armors

in its century of existence,

but they were some of
the best ever made.

WILLIAMS:
These armors were very much

Rolls Royces of the day.

RIC FURRER:
It's like an Armani suit

that protects you.

They had this give and take
between what was stylish,

what was protective, and what
was ultimately practical.

NARRATOR:
Henry built the workshop

alongside his palace
at Greenwich.

But today it's gone
without a trace.

CAPWELL:
There's no plaque.

There's no foundations
of buildings.

There is nothing
that would give you any clue

of what went on there.

NARRATOR:
The techniques for
producing plate armor

had been lost before.

The Greeks and Romans
knew how make it,

but their knowledge
largely disappeared

with the fall of Rome
in the fifth century.

This was the beginning
of the Dark Ages,

when Europe splintered
into feudal realms,

and much technology was lost.

SMITH:
To produce complex
kinds of material things,

you have to have
the infrastructure.

Western Europe at this time
was really a backwater

in terms of technology.

NARRATOR:
For most of their existence,

instead of plate armor,
European knights

wore a type of protection
called mail that was made

of countless
intersecting metal rings.

But it had its vulnerabilities.

Mail has been around since
antiquity, thousands of years.

And it's been
perfectly adequate.

And in many ways it was the
ultimate protection for this...

Slashing, cutting attacks.

Slashing, cutting attacks
do nothing if you've got

the mail and the padding.

So you change
the direction of attack

from that wide surface area
to a tiny, tiny surface area

like this.

And the metal's
just as effective.

But you just bring it down
two millimeters,

and there is no metal.

NARRATOR:
While its mesh structure

also didn't stop the impact
of bludgeoning blows,

mail did provide some protection

against projectiles.

But a technological advance
in the 1300s

helped change everything.

With the steel crossbow,
the strength of a man's arm

no longer limited
how far and fast

an arrow could fly,
thanks to a mechanical crank.

DEANE:
What we have here
is a cranequin.

Very simple... bring it up,
slide it down.

Then you get your jaws,
get a little bit of tension,

and you start cranking it up.

Any idiot could use it
as long as they knew

which way to point.

NARRATOR:
These crossbows were up to

seven times more powerful
than hand-drawn weapons.

SMITH:
People were getting k*lled
by new kinds of technology.

And armor made with
much more continuous metal

than chain mail was really
necessary to win wars.

CAPWELL:
All the way through
the 13th, 14th centuries,

the story of armor development

is the story of, how do we cover
large parts of the human body

with metal plates when we can
only smelt pieces of iron

that are about as big
as a softball?

NARRATOR:
How to make
large pieces of steel

is a puzzle
the armor-making team

will need to solve again today.

Arnhill, get your
body over here!

David, we need you.

Let's walk it all
the way around here.

NARRATOR:
In northern Wisconsin,

master metalsmith Ric Furrer
is trying to rediscover

this lost art.

He and his team are tasked
with forging

large enough pieces of steel
to make into armor.

RIC FURRER:
When you start looking

at the technology
behind armor as a whole

and start asking the questions
of how did they actually

do this, there aren't
many easy answers.

Nobody has started with dirt,

you know, with raw ore, and
followed it all the way through

to actually produce
a suit of armor.

We're going to do
every step that was done

to this suit of armor,
and it hasn't been done

since they were
practical pieces of defense.

NARRATOR:
Ric gets some clues
for how to proceed

from the earliest scientific
metal-making book,

published in 1556.

SMITH:
This book, "De Re Metallica,"

which means "about metals,"

was really the first
of its kind anywhere.

What it tried to do
was lay out a general theory

for how metals form
underneath the ground,

and then what human beings do
when they draw those metals

out of the earth.

They smelt them
and then they produce

complex material objects.

NARRATOR:
These early images
provide some guidance,

but the rest
is mostly trial and error.

FURRER:
I've made a lot of metal before

by a lot of different
techniques.

But to make big plate like this
is difficult.

NARRATOR:
Ric starts by building

a six-foot-tall furnace
called a bloomery.

Maestro, I want you to put it
in the top, you tall b*stard.

NARRATOR:
People have been
extracting metal from rock

for thousands of years.

Early craftsmen learned that
heating iron ore with charcoal

resulted in a hard metal
called steel.

FURRER:
Steel is an alloy,

a combination
of essentially iron

with a little pinch
of carbon added.

So we're adding charcoal.

That's both our heat source
and our carbon source.

And then we've got iron ore.

It's this crushed rock
that's got iron in it.

So we put it
in that layered stack,

and that should leave behind
a nice bloom for us

to forge into the plate
for the armor.

NARRATOR:
They pump air to feed the fire.

It has to reach 2,500 degrees

and run for 12 hours for the
layers of iron ore and charcoal

to transform into steel.

For the craftsmen of the time,
the science was a mystery.

But this is how it works.

In pure iron, the atoms
are packed together

like sheets of marbles,
so when pushed or pulled,

they easily slide past each
other, yielding a soft metal.

But as Ric's iron ore
gets very hot,

the carbon from the charcoal
becomes trapped

between the iron atoms,
making the atomic structure

more rigid and changing
the soft iron into harder steel.

In medieval times,
some of the best iron

that armorers could get
came from a region in Austria

called Styria,

which produced 15 percent
of Europe's ore.

FURRER:
The raw materials in Styria
were all right there.

They had wonderful ore, and
they also had a lot of forests.

So you could make charcoal.

You had water
in fast moving streams,

so you could tap into
that energy.

You can see
these old technologies

still functioning
as living history museums.

NARRATOR:
Water wheels replaced
human-powered bellows.

And with this virtually
unlimited supply of air,

furnaces could burn hotter

and produce
larger pieces of steel.

FURRER:
They were able to produce
on a vast scale.

We're playing catch-up.

NARRATOR:
Ric's fire has burned for hours,

and he's ready to remove
the raw steel, called a "bloom".

FURRER:
And at the bottom
you have a bloom.

It looks like a sea sponge.

There's a piece there.

You have to start
with a tremendous amount

of bloomery material

just to get the major pieces
of plate, let alone

all the small pieces.

Ready with the tongs?

Ready with the tongs!

Lock onto that!

Yep.

Let me help you, Michael.

Let me come in from here.

There it is!

Carry it over!

NARRATOR:
The bloom still has
waste material, known as slag,

that could weaken the plate.

FURRER:
You guys ready?

Gentle nudging.

Gentle, gentle.

NARRATOR:
As they pound the metal,

they drive off impurities
that appear as sparks.

FURRER:
The breastplate weighs
about 13 pounds.

That sounded nice and solid.

Not a lot of slag.

FURRER:
To get 13 pounds of metal

you need to start
with 30 pounds of bloom.

And as you work the bloom down,
you lose material.

Out of the run
we've gotten today,

we might have enough
for the breastplate.

But we'll sort through
all of this this after it cools

to try to scavenge
every little bit that we made

and do the best we can
with what we've got.

Nice.

So as far as
experimental archeology goes,

it's a success.

But we're not quite
at the efficiency level

of the guys in the 1500s.

NARRATOR:
In Styria, water didn't only
power the bellows,

it drove massive hammers that
flattened the bloom into plates.

FURRER:
How do you outfit
a thousand common men

or even semi-professional
soldiers in protective gear?

And the answer is the start
of mass production.

NARRATOR:
Styria was a major center for
the mass production of steel.

At its peak, this armory

was the largest of its kind
in the world.

It held hundreds of thousands
of armors and weapons.

BETTINA HABSBURG-LOTHRINGEN:
Most of the armor we have here

were produced for foot soldiers.

Armor was produced

in small, medium and large,
so these were

the three possibilities you had.

There were small workshops

spread all over the country
where many people worked.

NARRATOR:
This mass-produced armor
worn by common soldiers

was a step up from mail.

But by the time armorers

figured out
how to make these suits

in the early 1400s...

[g*nsh*t, horse neighs]

NARRATOR:
A new, more powerful weapon
had appeared.

This is one of the earliest
types of handgonnes,

and all it is
is essentially a barrel

that's been mounted
to a wooden shaft.

A handheld cannon,
that's what it is.

NARRATOR:
Developed in China, these are
the first true firearms.

They have no trigger.

Instead, a hot poker ignites
the gunpowder,

which propels a metal ball
or other projectile.

[bangs]

Didn't score points,

but it hit the target.
Better luck next time!

NARRATOR:
Though these early g*ns
were inaccurate,

their power was demonstrated
in the early 1400s,

when pre-Protestant rebels
in Eastern Europe

called Hussites

used them to fight
against the Catholic Church.

[g*nsh*t]

BREIDING:
The earliest demonstratable
power of firearms

is the Hussite battle carts.

They would circle
into formation,

and then on each cart,

you had about two hand-gunners,
six crossbowmen,

and some with other weapons
to defend the hand-gunners

while they were reloading.

And they defeated
chivalric armies of the time

in heavy armor.

NARRATOR:
g*ns soon swept across Europe.

BREIDING:
Some of the German cities
in the early 15th century

were probably able to put
about 2,000 men in the field

with some of these firearms.

NARRATOR:
Weapons became more lethal

as they evolved
into trigger-fired muskets.

These g*ns were widely carried
in the 16th century,

when the Greenwich workshop
was at its peak.

BREIDING:
This is basically what people
wearing armor were afraid of.

The barrel is a lot longer,

and that allows for
the full force of the combustion

to go behind the musket ball
and be propelled out.

It gives you better velocity,

better control,
and better range.

So I'm tightening the clamp
on it,

which is called a serpentine,

like a serpent or a dragon
that's going to breathe fire,

and ignite it.

[blowing]

Going to try it.

NARRATOR:
The musket ball travels more
than a thousand feet a second

and can hit a target
a hundred yards away.

[bangs]

[chuckles]:
Whew, it's a bit of a punch.

NARRATOR:
So how did armor worn
by the common foot soldier

stand up against the musket?

[g*nsh*t]

In Maryland, Jonathan has asked

one of the world's leading
ballistics testing companies

to answer that question.

They're using a breastplate
made of modern steel



It's the same thickness,
but made of better-quality metal

than what an average
foot soldier

would have worn at the time.

[blowing]

Okay, clear the range.

Ready?

WESLEY MASON:
Yes.

NARRATOR:
To protect against ricochets,

they'll trigger the weapon
from another room.

[g*nsh*t]

NARRATOR:
Filmed at 20,000 frames
a second, the results are clear.

TAVARES:
God.

[exclaims]

[chuckles]:
Oh, my God.

NARRATOR:
A foot soldier
would never survive

such a shot from a musket.

You can even see, like,
powder burn on there.

Ouch!

NARRATOR:
But there was a superior class
of armor

available to the most elite
warriors.

At the Art Institute of Chicago,

armorer Jeff Wasson
examines pieces of armor

suspected to belong to
an English lord named Compton,

from Queen Elizabeth I's court.

He and Jonathan look for it
in a 1587 Greenwich album...

A kind of sales catalog

demonstrating different styles
for prospective patrons.

WASSON:
By looking at the album,
you can see how they were worn,

what kinds of decoration
that they had.

So they help complete a picture
of what these armors looked like

when they were worn
in their time.

Lord Buckhurst,
and also Lord Compton.

This is the one we're making.

NARRATOR:
When Lord Compton ordered
this armor around 1588,

England was facing
a great threat.

The Spanish had built
the famous Armada,

and the English were fearing

that a land invasion
would follow.

MAN:
One, two, three,

up!

NARRATOR:
This piece at the Wallace
Collection in London

is one of only two complete
armors in the world

made in the same style
as Compton's.

CAPWELL:
What the designer is trying
to do

is give his patron options.

It's an interchangeable
armor system

depending on what the fighting
context is expected to be.

NARRATOR:
The men wearing these armors
needed them

for hand-to-hand combat,
as well as mounted warfare.

Because the Spanish were
well-armed with muskets,

a key piece was
a second breastplate,

called a placard,

intended to make a knight
bulletproof.

TAVARES:
The question I get
time and again,

"Weren't they smaller then?"

There is a thought that men
were a few inches shorter,

but size five-eight, five-nine,
was very common in that time.

So it's nine-and-a-half inches.

And we have, we have
ten inches here.

TAVARES:
I'm five-eight.

It just so happens
that the armor fits me.

NARRATOR:
The breastplate's rounded shape
had its own function.

Known as a peasecod,

it was mirrored in the clothing
of the day.

It would come down
into the waist.

And it's very V-shaped.

It forms sort of a ridgeline
down the front of the body.

NARRATOR:
Armorers knew a person
wearing flat armor

bore the full force of a blow,

but a rounded peasecod belly
or helmet

offered more protection

because it helped deflect
a strike.

But providing protection
without adding too much weight

was another challenge.

How did they make the armor
thick enough to resist b*ll*ts

but light enough to wear?

WASSON:
The downside of having
a thicker breastplate

or thicker armor all around is,

it starts to become
really ungainly to wear.

So cavalry,
they start discarding it.

They would rather be lighter
and more maneuverable.

NARRATOR:
The trick was to taper
the metal.

WASSON:
Measuring with the calipers,
you can really see that.

Pretty much this area
right in here

is the thickest area
of the armor.

As it gets towards the edges,
it starts to thin out.

When we go right on the edge,

it's about a sixteenth
of an inch.

I'm going to go in a bit.

WASSON:
If you want to k*ll somebody,

you'd probably want to go
right in the center.



It's four times as thick
right here.

I'm very certain that it was
made to deflect g*nf*re.

This is a little model.

We have the thickness variations
that we need

in order to keep it thick
in the center

and then thin
out at the edges...

Right.

NARRATOR:
To precisely craft the raw metal

into bulletproof plates,

Jeff brings his measurements
to Ric in Wisconsin.

Starting with a total
of 30 pounds of bloom,

Ric begins to flatten each piece
into a slab.

With every hit,
impurities fly off.

FURRER:
There's still slag,
there's waste material,

there's non-metal.

As much as we can distribute it,
we try to,

but some of it still remains.

NARRATOR:
If everything goes right,
it will take about 1,000 hours

to make enough plate
for the entire armor.

But transforming these pieces
into large bulletproof plate

will be a challenge.

Ric's strategy is to weld
the layers of metal together,

alternating the directions
of the grain,

to give the whole plate
added strength.

FURRER:
Just like wood has
a growth direction, a grain,

so does this bloomery material.

So by forging this material out

and laying one front to back
and one side to side,

you get a stronger product
in the end.

NARRATOR:
These layers are visible in some
knightly armors of the time

that have begun to pull apart
after centuries.

It's not just one thick piece of
steel.

It's actually layers that have
been hammer-welded together.

So this is laminated defense.

Hit!

Light, light!

NARRATOR:
Then he repeatedly folds
each piece

to mix the steel
as evenly as possible.

WASSON:
I like to think of it as, like,

if you're mixing bread,
when you first mix it,

parts of it are crumbly
and other parts are too wet.

And so, basically,
we've got to mix this metal

and make sure that it gets
consistent enough

that it can be rolled out
into a thin sheet or plate.

NARRATOR:
Ric can only pound the metal
when it's hot,

so he reheats it over and over.

But each time,
he loses material.

Right around 15.



I'm nervous, Ben.

NARRATOR:
With only 15 pounds left,

he's lost half the material.

Now the challenge is to draw out
the steel to the right shape.

Let's measure it now.

So we only gained, maybe
an inch and a half, if that.

NARRATOR:
They switch to hand-held hammers

to stretch the metal
more gently.

WASSON:
Keep going.

[clanging]

WASSON:
Okay, all right, that's it.

NARRATOR:
They've been working for days

and are finally ready to see
what they've wrought.

WASSON:
This is what we were intending
to be the top part,

that it was going to be
like this.

We got plenty of distance here,

but we certainly don't have
the sides

worked around
to what they need to be.

We need five inches more
on each side, at least.

Yes.
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR:
After 200 hours of work,
this piece of armor is no good.

Ric can reforge the metal
to be used

for smaller pieces of the armor,

but he'll need to start
a large plate from scratch.

[spectators cheering
and yelling]

NARRATOR:
In medieval Europe,

armors weren't only produced
for battle.

ANNOUNCER:
A good strike
from both of our competitors.

NARRATOR:
Some of the best were designed
for use in competitions.

In Henry's time, as many
as 10,000 spectators...

Commoners and nobles alike...

Attended events like this.

MAN:
We can't hear you!

[yelling]

CAPWELL:
Tournaments and jousts were
hugely popular in Henry's court.

These are fabulously expensive
spectacles,

but at their heart, there's
still real fighting there.

It's all about your icy calm,

your ability to hurl yourself
into combat.

NARRATOR:
Tournament armors were worn
for short periods of time,

so they could be heavy.

This one belonging to Henry VIII
weighs 94 pounds,

twice the weight
of a typical battle armor.

It has no gaps anywhere.

But whether for tournaments
or battle,

the perfect fit was crucial.

DEANE:
There is a misconception
about armor,

that once you're in it,
you can't really move.

It's not true.

Anything you can do
out of an armor

you should be able to do
in armor,

so either
from this bizarre position

or being thrown to the ground,

you should be able
to haul yourself up.

Obviously not as quick.

You're wearing sort of


but you should be able to do it.

CAPWELL:
They're engineered to follow
the movements of the human body

very precisely.

Lumbering around,
clunking around,

would be a danger
to your knightly dignity,

as well as to your life.

So it's just not acceptable.

The stuff has to move.

WASSON:
All these pieces, they should be
resting on each other.

That's how close it's got to be,
so...

Maybe you'd be able to fit
a piece of paper

underneath the plates,

but it's got to be really close.

So this is the first piece

that needed to be fitted, and
articulated and put together.

NARRATOR:
Back in Long Island,

Jeff uses the metal
from the failed breastplate

to make the armor's collar
and neck pieces.

That's the amount of curve that
I want to put into this plate.

NARRATOR:
For these and other
missing pieces,

he works from templates
he's made from similar armors.

Meanwhile, Ric is starting over.

He's teamed with expert
metalmaker Michael Pikula

to figure out how to make
a bigger piece of steel

than last time.

The answer seems simple:
start with more material.

But it will still take hundreds
of hours of work.

Because flakes fall off

every time they fire and pound
the steel,

they reheat it as infrequently
as possible.

Wide hammers help them spread
the metal fast before it cools.

Flip it, please, if you can.

This is looking real good
so far.

NARRATOR:
A microscopic scan shows

the metal Ric and his team
have made

has only a few impurities.

They show up as dark spots.

The metal is high-quality,

and large enough that Jeff
can now shape two pieces...

The breastplate and the placard
that goes over it.

WASSON:
So the heat in there
is about 1,800 degrees.

You can tell by the glow
of the metal.

We're working, like,
at an orange-yellow heat.

And at that temperature,
the metal is like clay,

and it will move,
move pretty well for you.

We got to be quick
because the edge is thin.

Towards the horn.

NARRATOR:
He has to make the center
of the breastplate

four times thicker
than the edge,

and at the same time, give it
its distinctive shape.

Yeah, that's really good,
that's nice.

NARRATOR:
After weeks of pounding
and shaping,

there's one final step
that transforms good armor

into great armor
that's bulletproof:

hardening the metal.

WILLIAMS:
If you can work out
how to harden steel,

you can certainly double
its strength,

which means that it is then
twice as resistant to b*ll*ts,

as well as to other weapons.

NARRATOR:
There are no surviving texts
from the time

accurately describing
how they hardened armor,

but Jeff has come up
with a strategy.

WASSON:
All this wiring on here
is bracing

to keep the piece from warping.

NARRATOR:
He's going to heat-treat
the armor

in a process known
as "the quench."

WASSON:
You want the metal to be tough,

but if it's too hard,
it'll be brittle,

so if a g*n or a weapon hits it,
it'll crack.

With the heat-treating,
you're causing a change

in the crystal structure
of the metal.

NARRATOR:
Right now, magnifying
the unhardened steel

reveals many light areas.

These regions are low in carbon,

so the the iron atoms can slide
past each other,

making the armor too soft.

Compared to this unhardened
metal,

the Greenwich armor has
tightly interlocking grains,

with carbon distributed evenly
throughout.

To achieve this hardness,
Jeff will heat the steel

so the grid of iron atoms
expands

and carbon can redistribute

from high-concentration areas
to low ones.

Then he'll lock the carbon
into place

by cooling the armor quickly
in oil.

This new structure is harder,
but more brittle, too.

Heating the piece again
will soften the metal slightly,

so it can withstand an impact
without cracking.

The crystalline structure should
now be more uniform and harder,

like the original
Greenwich armor.

WASSON:
It's really extreme,
going from really hot

to being quenched in the oil.

That's a huge shock
on the metal.

So the metal could warp
or it could crack.

It's dangerous, you know.

It might not work out.

It could destroy all the work
I put into it so far.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, we're ready.

NARRATOR:
A crack could mean disaster.

He listens to see
how the metal reacts.

[crackling]

Ooh.

Do you hear that?

[crackling]

It was making strange cracking
noises, but you know what?

That's just what it's going
to be.

NARRATOR:
Jeff can't see any cracks
in the placard

that protects the breastplate.

But he won't know its strength
until the armor is tested.

WASSON:
Now on to the other, bigger one.

[murmurs]

Yeah, that's good.

NARRATOR:
This time, there's
no cracking sound.

The breastplate has come through
unscathed.

After a polish, it's ready
to compare

to the Greenwich steel
of the time.

Though there appear to be some
concentrations of soft iron,

visible as white blotches,

the tight crystalline structure

that gives the metal
its strength

is remarkably similar
to the original.

The quench seems to have
done its job,

but will the breastplate
outperform the common armor

and stand up to the musket?

[g*nsh*t]

TAVARES:
Having just seen this,
it's a little startling,

you know, you see that
big whopping hole.

It's just it's a little scary,
all this months of work

on this piece and then,
you know,

you just got to be a little
nervous, that's all.

NARRATOR:
Nervous for good reason.

WILLIAMS:
Certainly, if you were
unlucky enough

to be shot at by a musketeer
at short range,

then nothing is going
to help you.

You will be k*lled,
and that's that.

NARRATOR:
Jonathan wants to know what
the ballistics experts think.

You can't help but make
assumptions sometimes,

but the simple fact is
through observation

we've learned your assumptions
means absolutely nothing,

you have to put rounds on it
to really understand

what's going to happen, so...

My gut tells me
it's not going to penetrate.

CRONIN:
It's significantly thicker
armor, right?

You have an air gap
between the two plates,

and you may have the opportunity
for deflection.

So you really do have a lot
working to your advantage

on the next shot.

That doesn't mean that
it will absolutely stop it.

The musket is not...

This is the super-weapon
of the time.

It's this... the next step
is getting hit by a cannon.

[blowing air]

CRONIN:
Pan's open.

[g*nsh*t]

TAVARES:
sh**t.

[chuckles]

Just wait a few seconds.

Gotta let the range clear.

How are you feeling?

Eh...

[Cronin chuckles]

Okay.

MASON:
Watch the cables.

Yup.
Yeah.

Oh man... right through?

Nope!

Wow!

It held up.

Held up pretty good, actually!

[chuckling]:
Oh wow!

There's just a dent, just a
little bigger than my thumb.

NARRATOR:
Even for modern
ballistics experts,

the armor has performed
beyond expectation.

Look at that.

CRONIN:
The whole system,

everything that we've looked at
is impressive,

from the firearm all the way
through to the breastplate.

I think they have all performed
incredibly well.

TAVARES:
Whoa... the b*llet is gone.

Armor: one; b*llet: nothing.

NARRATOR:
At 20,000 frames a second,
they can see the musket ball

disintegrate upon impact.

MASON:
See how the curvature
deflected it away?

TAVARES:
Yeah, yeah...

That goes to show you
the peasecod belly,

it's not just fashion,
it's function.

NARRATOR:
There's barely a dent
on the breastplate.

You can just tell
where it happened, that's it.

CRONIN:
I mean there's no question
about it.

This is something where
the soldier wearing this armor

gets to go home.

Yes, you could stand down
a musket at pretty close range,

but how many people
could afford this?

You know?

Not many people
could have afforded this.

This is the few and far between.

NARRATOR:
The successful test
fuels Jonathan's passion

to complete the armor.

Gilding, and etching,
and completion.

[chuckles]

And then wearing.

NARRATOR:
The elite knights
who wore these armors

wanted more
than just protection...

They wanted to be covered
in gold.

CAPWELL:
As soon as you add gold,
you make a statement

about the knightly rank
of the wearer.

This one with this amount
of decoration is a major step up

in the social
and economic pecking order.

NARRATOR:
Adding gold was an expensive
and involved process,

and the team has to rediscover

how the Greenwich armorers
pulled it off.

As a first step, Jonathan
has asked Catherine Winings

of the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago

to copy the pattern that
will be etched into the metal.

Using a picture
of the original armor,

she paints Jeff's
completed neck pieces.

It's believed
the Greenwich craftsmen

used oil and lead paint to
protect the surface of the armor

from an acid that would eat away
at the surrounding metal.

The lines she's painting
will be replaced by gold.

CATHERINE WININGS:
For me, probably
the most difficult

are these little
swirly things inside

because I'm trying to imitate
the marks of the person

who was doing it originally,

and so I have to try
to kind of think the way

that they would and adjust
my marks accordingly.

NARRATOR:
The next step will be to apply
the acid that will eat away

any place that isn't protected
by the paint.

The intricate pattern
left behind

will be embellished by gold.

TAVARES:
It's meant to be fashionable.

It's meant to mimic
almost like the embroidery

on your civilian clothing.

NARRATOR:
Jonathan is using a technique
from a 1531 book

describing how the craftsmen
likely etched their armor.

TAVARES:
We had this a-ha moment.

But what were the chemicals
used?

How do we understand this?

NARRATOR:
A chemical historian identified
the ingredients as a mixture

of salt, vinegar, and copper
sulfate, like root k*ller.

This makes an acid paste
that Jonathan hopes

will eat through the metal.

TAVARES:
One of the biggest revelations
is that it wasn't

submerging a plate
into a bath of acid,

it was using a paste
and smearing that

over the selected areas
that you're hoping to etch.

It's like icing a cake.

TAVARES:
The painted layer held up
really well.

NARRATOR:
He'll apply the acid again
and scrub off the paint.

Then the neckpiece,

which has turned red
in a chemical reaction,

is ready to be covered in gold.

DIRK MEYER [speaking German]:

NARRATOR:
The gilding itself takes place
in Germany,

where Dirk Meyer
is one of a handful of craftsmen

in the world who have mastered
this medieval technique.

Because gold doesn't bond easily
to steel,

getting it to stick requires
many steps...

Including mixing the gold
with toxic mercury,

then painting it on.

Now the most dangerous step.

Burning off the mercury.

He works under a protective hood

because the fumes
can cause brain damage.

CAPWELL:
They didn't care about safety,

they didn't really understand
the dangers fully.

WASSON:
In the 19th century,
hatters would use mercury

to make felt hats.

They would be breathing
those fumes

and that's where that term

"mad as a hatter" comes from,
because they all went crazy.

NARRATOR:
The gilded piece is sent back
to Jeff in Long Island.

Wow!

That is really fantastic.

It just takes the piece
to a whole new level.

NARRATOR:
But there's still
one more mystery to solve.

In the only known painting
of Lord Compton,

the armor is blue...

Which squares with evidence
found on the original

at the Art Institute of Chicago.

TAVARES:
We found little dents
around old rivets

where the old blue finish
was not completely scoured away.

NARRATOR:
Jonathan believes blacksmiths
heat-treated the armor

until it was bright blue.

WASSON:
When you look at these armors,

they're magnificent
in the museum,

but they are
hundreds of years old

and they've been through a lot.

We're bringing one to life,

and we're going to see
what it really looks like,

you know, like when it was new.

And that's going to be
really exciting.

NARRATOR:
Jeff will essentially
have to rust his masterpiece

by heating it
to just the right temperature.

WASSON:
It's what's called an oxide.

An oxidation is rust

where the oxygen in the
atmosphere is reacting

with the metal
and creating a deposit.

No change.

With the heat, you are causing
this oxidation to happen

and it creates these colors.

NARRATOR:
Instead of the red
we associate with rust,

heat shifts the color toward
the blue part of the spectrum.

Oh yeah, look at that.

NARRATOR:
He checks the armor many times
over half an hour

until he thinks the color
is just where he wants it.

Just let it sit for a moment.

All right, really close.

♪♪

Wow, that's looking really good.

NARRATOR:
Finally, it's perfect.

♪♪

After more than a year of work,

the riddle of how
the Greenwich armorers

made these bulletproof
masterpieces has been solved.

TAVARES:
I can't believe this.

This is like holding
the original.

Well done, Jeff.

NARRATOR:
Lord Compton's armor
was completed around 1588,

but within a few years,

the knight in shining armor
was receding into history.

KEITH DOWEN:
The image of the knight
in shining armor

is a very romantic one
and a very powerful one.

However, in reality,

full armor was only worn
on the b*ttlefield

for roughly a period
of 200 years.

NARRATOR:
By the late 16th century,

warfare was modernizing

with the rise of g*ns
and larger,

more centralized governments...

Knights were left behind.

SMITH:
Within this new
social formation,

knights became really obsolete,
as you had a military

that a central government
or a central king

could put into force.

TAVARES:
As you get closer to the 1600s,

firearms completely take over
and there's this slow evolution

to where you use
less and less armor.

Whoa!

[laughing]

Oh my gosh, Jeff,
I can't believe that.

It's amazing, right?

Really incredible.

I don't believe
I'm staring at me!

Oh, my god.

It's gorgeous!

CAPWELL:
In the middle
of the 17th century,

you no longer have

aristocratic heavy cavalry
in full plate armor anymore.

They started to be referred to
as "the Lobsters"

because they were these
outlandish creatures

that were already then
like something

kind of out of a storybook.

NARRATOR:
It was the sunset
of one technology

and the dawn of a new one,

but for a brief moment...

[g*nsh*t]

ingenious craftsmen helped keep

the knight in shining armor
alive.

♪♪