Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyrneson
Dan, you are about the last person I'd quarrel with about this, but if (as WHS set the parameters) looking at TL3, I would think that we'd be looking at a copper smith (white smith?) as the craftsman not someone with armory skill.
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The way GURPS breaks up metalworking skills does not really reflect how things work before the 20th century. Armourers trying to understand how rich societies made helmets spend a lot of time studying bucketmakers in Turkey or Italy and coppersmiths in Mexico. Guild rules might artificially restrict who can work on what in a town ("stop right there! you are a shoemaker, you can't repair a shoe! That is work for a cobbler") but in 15th century Europe, the copperworking guilds made gauntlets and headpieces and other armour.
Regardless, you start with a thick ingot and work it into the shape you want. This is fundamentally different from our approach in the age of rolling mills, where we start with a thin sheet.