Gequinn

That's freakin' amazing. You say prototype? I think not! Totally awesome.

As far as I know I don't have anybody local... I'm jealous. And yeah, Tandy was way out when I first saw their prices. I think I may just end up going with buckleguy. Thanks for the advice.

All right. Thank you very much. I found a pretty good deal on the heel bars on a site called BuckleGuy. Have you ever heard of it? Or is there a place you would recommend ordering from?

That is pretty awesome.

Well, after some away time, I'm finally getting back to work on my armor. I'm getting to the point to where I need to start adding buckles. The armor I'm doing will be a sort of clamshell, you know, attached at one side of the torso and then tightened by buckles on the shoulders and the other side of the torso. My question is, what type of buckle do I need to use to achieve this and could anybody offer any tips on how exactly to attach them to the armor. I took a look at buckles and I'm thinking heel bar, but I want to make sure before I order any as they are relatively expensive. Thanks in advance.

That's pretty awesome. For some reason i really like the scroll. :D

Amazing as always. If I ever become 1/10 as good as you I will be happy. Great work.

That does look very nice. I'm jealous.

That is very impressive. I love it.

Thanks for your help! I've got a side on its way and I'm looking forward to this. Thanks for all of your help. I'll try to post some pictures of it when I'm done.

Let me just say that I used this on a knife sheath that I made and the results look amazing. Thanks for this tutorial!

It's going to be for a tap LARP, so just a simple point based system with boffer combat. You are correct about me not necessarily needing that particular type of leather. In our rulebook, the armor I am wanting to make needs to be at least 3/16 of an inch, which as I understand it, is about a 12 oz weight, right? I suppose the 15/16 oz is more of a want than a need. I was also thinking about going with some Saddle Skirting instead of the armor leather. I will defer to your experience and knowledge though on what you think I need. Everybody in my LARP organization has told me this is a big first step and I should do something a bit smaller, and I am, but I'll be starting this within a week or so. Thank you very much for the forming tip as well. I'm getting all of my tools in tomorrow afternoon so I'll be able to put that to some practice before I move on to my armor.

Thank you both for the advice. I thought about doing the duct tape model but decided against it. As for the bending after a soak in hot water goes, how hot are we talking and when you say bend them around, do you mean bend them into a circle or just close to the shape I would like to end up with? I have also been doing some calculations regarding the amount of leather I will need to make this. I am definitely wanting to go with 15/16 oz leather here. i was told by a Tandy representative that "The [armor] bends will average about 33" wide and 55" long; about 12-14 feet" So just allowing for a bit of extra, let's say that I will need 10-12 strips of leather measuring 24.25 inches x 6. Each strip would then be about 1.1 (rounded up) square feet. This would pretty much max out that particular bend, right? And I'm pretty sure that not all of that will be useable to make so many large strips. Would you think that I would need to order an additional bend?

Hello, I am pondering on making some Nuinobe Dô style armor and I was wondering if any of you have any kind of tips or suggestions. These are traditionally made of steel plates, but I of course want to make it out of leather! The Nuinobe Dô is roughly half-way down the page here: http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.ch06.html The biggest part I need help with I suppose, is the lacing and knotting of it. I am not planning on making several separate lames and lacing them together, rather just cutting some 6x24in-ish strips and then just using a drive punch to make the holes and if all else fails I suppose I will just rivet them together. Another question I have is how would I produce the bend that you would see in this particular style of armor? By bend I mean the way that it wraps around the torso to conform to the wearer's shape. I have included the picture from the sengokudaimyo.com site listed above and a much clearer representation of what I am wanting to make in the form of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. Any and all tips will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks! Hopefully I have something here soon.

This looks great. I just ordered a pack of rounders and I will definitely be applying this tutorial for a few of them.

Hello everybody! My name is Gequinn and I just recently got into leatherworking. It has been an interest of mine for quite some time now and I recently took the plunge and got myself some tools. I want to say that these forums look amazing and the community seems great. I'm looking forward to learning and can't wait to talk to everybody!

Man, that looks great! I hope to achieve a set or two of armor like that in the future. If you don't mind me asking, what game do you play? I'm in Amtgard myself.