/diy/ - Do It Yourself

bamping for more soon - waiting on more materials!

>>409956

Thanks, I'll pick up a pair

>>409975

Interesting, mail is much easier!

>>409982

I have neither the time, tools or inclination to rivet every ring.. Maybe some day, but it would take me ages which on this project means the armour becomes much more expensive. Like I said, it's fantasy style, rather than historical, and the mail is solid, you couldn't remove a single ring by hand so it's not necessary for strength either. I do agree they look great though!

Also bump - more pictures soon.

>>409760

Thanks man, will get one up when I'm done. Luckily /diy/ is a slow board and plan to keep thread updated so will post a link to my blog before it dies.

>>409680

Thanks, I'm planning on doing a blog or something when I finish - my bro recommended deviantart, anyone know any other good sites?

>>407281

I shocked myself on a charged flash capacitor once... yeah it's not going to stop anyone. Well maybe for a second whilst they try and work out wtf just happened.

>>409672

Thank you

ok one last photo for now - some pieces required a bit of extra shaping, such as these lower back plates. I used some encyclopedias (when you need to book something in, encyclopedias are the way to go).


I have never read an encyclopedia. I don't even know why I have them. My gf bought them because they looked nice I think...


So that's al I have for now? What can you look forward to later? Well I have to give all the pieces a second coating of dye, mark out where all the eyets are going, attach the plates together, add the chainmail, polish, buff, condition and add some buckles or something - I havn't yet decided how I'm going to attach the back and the front section, though I have some plans! See you all later, and enjoy the thread.

whilst more bits of my leather were cooking I got down to dyeing my leather plates. Here are the smaller front plates after there first coats. They'll likely need 2 coats. I'm using fiebing's oil dye - on leather this thick, oil dyes are definitely the way to go. Also, hint: Use gloves, because this stuff does NOT wash off!

Also remember to buff the leather with a soft cloth about 10 minutes after applying the coat of dye, this helps spread the pigments about and gives a more even cover as well as a nice shine.

Here's a better picture of the effects of edge slicking...

It's worth noting that you can use water instead of gum Trag to slick edges with, or a mix of 50% of each. As this is a short text section I'd also like to apologise for spelling mistakes - I think I have fat fingers or I try to type faster than I actually can sometimes.

When the first pieces were done cooking and cooling the next stage is to condition the edges of the leather. I applies a little gum tragacanth/tracaganth/whatever, see the picture, to the edges of the leather carefully. It's not dangerous but I've found out to my cost before that it likes to reject the oil dye used later on. Once the edge is coated then using a slicking wheel the edges are rubbed to build up friction heat, until the leather fibers mash together and form a smooth shiny edge. Because this leather is so thick, my slicking wheel didn't properly get all the leather on the edge. To fix this I used the smooth handle of my edge beveler to smoth out any areas the wheel missed.

Here's a pic of the stuff I used, including the correct spelling of the gum. It's worth mentioning here that I get most my leather from LePrevo leathers in the uk, but the tools I have were bought from Tandy leather, available in the UK and USA.

After finally getting a bag of sand, washing it thoroughly and waiting nearly a week for it to dry properly (I know salt water is very bad for leather and reasoned that slat water steam would be no better for it...) I finally had a sand bag mould to use in my oven.
The leather pieces were carefully cooked for around 20-30 minutes, at about 60 c. Keep checking your leather throughout, make sure it doesn't burn or char and watch for the leather becoming too dark - if it get's brittle it will snap. I took my pieces out of the over when there was just a little moisture left as they were still pliable and I could bend them into shape and stamp out any creases or folds that were forming.

Alright now for the fun part - once all my leather plates were beveled and ready for production, it was time for cooking!
The leather is condition by water hardening - traditional leather armour would likely be hardened by either water hardening or boiling - the term cuirbouilli was used for boiled leather armour, where the leather would be boiled, stretched into shape and left to dry. I used a different method. I soaked my leather in regular cold water then dried it out in a cool oven to solidify it. Firstly I soaked it in the bath for a few minutes - for a rough guide wait for it to stop squealing (you'll see what I mean) then leave it another minute.

>>409650
Check the manky painted keyboard!

Anyway... Here's where I began procrastinating. I had to go to the beach and get a bag of sand (because I'm a cheapskate) and just kept forgetting/whenever I did go the tide was in. You know how it goes...
So like 2 weeks later I started back on this armour and got round to beveling the edges of the leather. I used a leather beveling tool for this - there's really no substitute I can think of. It's a pretty nifty little tool. The reason I beveled the edge of the leather is to round it off, it makes the later stage of slicking the leather edges easier. Beveling and slicking create a sealed edge to the leather which prevents fraying, helps waterproof the leather and generally improves its appearance.

Getting so many hilarious capchas today... urines nao

So once I had my leather segments ready I started on the chainmail. The weave I used was the simplest - European 4 in 1. It's strong and looks good. Last time I made this thread there were pictures of it in progress but we can skip them this time and just post the finished piece.
I've been getting much faster with practice at making mail from these rings. The first half too me several hours but the second half was much easier.

So, the first thing I has to do after completing my paper mock-up was to transfer the designs onto the buffalo hide. Surprisingly, it was difficult to get the pattern to fit onto the leather I had available. I thought I'd have plenty spare!

Also I should probably mention (like I did in the previous thread) the reason for designing the armour like I have done. Partly the design comes from a bracer I made at an earlier point but I when I thought about applying the concept to my first whole suit of armour it made a lot of sense. Basically, the bracer, liek my armour was made up of segments of leather banded together with chainmail. I thought that as this was my first full sized piece, using segments means there's less risk of me ruining a large piece of leather if I got anything wrong. Another point is I intend to sell this armour once it's done. As I have no idea who I'll be selling it too, the fact it's much more flexible than fixed leather means It will fit a much wider group of people. Pun kind of intended. Also it does look really cool.

Anyway, here's a pic of the leather with the pieces marked out on it, ready for cutting with a stanley blade. I actually went through like 4 stanley blades cutting this out, that's how thick the leather is.

The rings I'm using are oil quenched stainless steel square cross section rings, in 8mm and 12mm. They're basically just split ring washers. These rings are from Armchair Armoury in the UK. I won't lie - they're a bitch to work with. Using a couple of pairs of pliers I can only work with these rings for an hour or two before my hands are too painful to do any more. On the plus side, I'm building a hell of a grip, and some impressive callouses too. Here's a bucket of 10 thousand of the little bastards

Ok next I better show you my materials. Over all the cost wasn't too bad - the leather hide cost me around £50 after tax+shipping. The rings cost more but I'll only be using a fraction of them for this piece. The leather is 5mm Buffalo shoulder, which is very thick and difficult to work with but will be hard as metal once conditioned. Well... almost.

Ok next I better show you my materials. Over all the cost wasn't too bad - the leather hide cost me around £50 after tax+shipping. The rings cost more but I'll only be using a fraction of them for this piece. The leather is 5mm Buffalo shoulder, which is very thick and difficult to work with but will be hard as metal once conditioned. Well... almost.

and the back....

So first off here's a picture of my paper template - not the final version. I had to try wearing it and make changes, then try it on again etc several times. Eventually I got it to fit. The paper sheets show the arrangement of the leather plates - there will be mail (or maille if you really want). There will also be a central strip of mail between the plates at the front. Later I decided for ease of construction to separate the front plate in half and use a strengthening strip of leather to join them to. Here is the front:

Hey /diy/ I started this thread a few weeks back with the intention of bumping it daily until project completion. Unfortunately it 404'd and I got caught up in some other projects. But now I'm back!

Ok so this thread is about my first attempt at making a set of leather armour. The armour is going to be fantasy style, made up of separate plates of hardened leather joined together and augmented with chainmail. So let's get started shall we?

>>382472
If I made armour 'right', I'd be fabricating Kevlar not joining together steel rings - that method of armouring died out hundreds of years ago. So 'right' is somewhat of a subjective term. If I made historically accurate armour it would cost much more and also take much more time and effort, meaning my finished pieces would have to sell for many hundreds if not thousands of pounds/dollars. I haven't turned my hand to fully accurate historical pieces yet for a number of reasons - the above being one, another is that I'm still learning and stalling myself on projects far above my abilities and without the necessary tools is no way to progress.
Like I've said from the beginning, this is fantasy style armour, made from butted rings and water hardened leather - it's not meant to be completely realistic, it's meant to be a first project. Which I'm sharing with you guys. To be nice. If you don't like it, fuck off. Go contribute some more to a thread about the viability of shipping containers as underground bunkers or something.
At least I'm doing something interesting.

>>382271

I don't have many pics but this is a camera phone pic pf a bracer I made recently - I'll have a rummage around see if I can find any others.

>>382185
This is the first full set I've made, I'll be making a website soon for stuff but it's not quite ready yet - watch this thread though.

>>382190
There's not going to be any mail around the shoulder area - around the neck I was going to make a separate coif to go with the set.