hivemind

Uhh, is that Chinese bandsaw blade spam in the gallery?

I'm also curious Ray, are you looking for tooling patterns, or physical construction patterns? I don't have any tooling patterns, but I'd share my construction patterns for free if they were something you wanted - pouches and articulated armor and such, ren faire type stuff.

This is a tutorial I made today for non-leatherworkers to get started on a simple project. Hope it can help someone. http://hivemind.mvgc.net/BofferFrogTutorial.pdf

Oh, yeah, contributions. I always forget, and I know how much IP Board costs. Hold on... ...there, contributed. Thanks all!

I use spit and a plastic burnishing wheel. My understanding is that the enzymes in your spit break down the leather a bit and make it so that the heat and friction of the wheel gets it nice and smooth and shiny. I have a couple cakes of cobbler's wax I use too, but only on stuff that's not going to be worn, because it always rubs off a little. I save that for the stuff I feel lazy on, because spit and the wheel takes a lot of elbow grease - but it comes out nice.

Yeah, good solid bench, get a slab of granite, and put it directly above the leg of the table. I have a workbench I got my carpenter father to make in exchange for a belt (pretty good deal there) and my granite is a 14"x14"x4" piece of white stone. It's actually part of a reject government issue headstone for veterans. It has a fault line in it they rejected, but it works for me fine. My sister's an undertaker and her boyfriend owns a monument company, so he just sawed it down to size for me and I got a free 50 pound stone slab. The shot bags thing is a great idea though, I'm going to make a couple tomorrow...

So, yeah, here's three pics. First is of the whole (messy) shop, second shows the monitor mounted on the wall over the bench, and the third one shoes the little $20 wireless keyboard thingy that works so well in this application.

There's a Tandy in Syracuse, D&L Leather in Utica and Steffan's & Sons in Buffalo. Sadly, those are all a long ways from you. There's a Tandy in East Hartford Connecticut. Wouldn't be a terrible day if you caught the ferry from Port Jefferson to Bridgeport, maybe.

I've got a setup now on my bench where I have an old computer underneath (nothing special, it's 5 years old, but all I need it for is to look at pics on the internet and play music), an old LCD monitor mounted on the wall behind the bench, and a small wireless keyboard/mouse combo. Having the monitor on the wall at eye height is perfect, and the little wireless combo keyboard means I don't have wires in the way and I can just stick it on a shelf when I don't need it. I understand that not everyone (hell, not really most people) are tech geeks like me and have extra LCD monitors laying around, but if you can come up with one, places like NewEgg.com sell simple wallmounting brackets for them for $10. Heck, if you have an old PC that's a little slow but nothing you can't live with, you cna buy new LCD monitors for under $100 now - significantly cheaper than even a new netbook system. I'll see if I can't grab a pic tonight.

Anyone ever tried running transfer paper through a laser printer? EDIT: HAH! Just did, and it works fine, once you've cut yourself a letter paper sized piece of film! Talk about a time saver...

I see, so I'm essentially just scribing a shallow line right in to the leather, there's no mimeographical xeroxing magic going on. It makes sense now, and I feel vaguely retarded for not understanding - I've done the same thing with paper before. I thought there was some magical process I was missing - I mean, you should have seen my face the first time I saw a strap cutter... Thanks guys!

So I'm finally undertaking a carving project I'm not comfortable just freehanding - I need to match the design of an 8" embroidered patch - and I wasn't sure how you carving folks get your patterns onto the leather. A little research showed me this stuff called "transfer paper". So I ordered up a couple sheets, along with the ballpoint stylus, and they arrived today. I'm a little hazy on the exact procedure for using this stuff. Do I trace the design onto the paper then flip it over on the leather? Or just trace it again, and some chemical in the paper transfers the line with wet leather and pressure? Does it matter which side I trace onto? Also, this ballpoint stylus I got from Tandy isn't completely smooth on the ball. It's a little rough, maybe from bad plating or casting. Seems like that would be rather detrimental. Should I smooth this thing off with the Dremel polishing wheel or something first? Any help is appreciated...

Man, just when I'm getting proud of MY armor... That's frigging pro. Nice work.

When they're worn, you never see the inside. And this way it won't run all over everything when it gets sweaty. I suppose if these were for a movie prop or for show or something I'd do it, but these are for fighting in.

Those look great! Man, little projects like that are so much fun to do. You get to try out all kinds of things. Whenever I buy new stamps, I make a dozen key fobs to try them out. Some of them go right in the trash, but some come out good enough to give away...

I can do this for you: I don't have a pattern for the rerebrace (upper arm) or cuisse (upper leg) because they're easy and I just eyeballed them, and I don't have a pattern for the knee cop because I just extended the elbow cop pattern an inch in every dimension and made the pie cutout 2 inches wide. The only other odd, non-obvious thing I did was when I was attaching the four lames and the cop together (the five pieces that make up an elbow or a knee) I added a #10 galvanized washer between the two pieces of leather, and then another below the copper burr, then didn't ram the burr down all the way before I peened it over. This left the leather more able to articulate the way is should. Once they break it, thy flop around just like steel would at the articulations.

Sure, lemme see if I can assemble all of it and take a pic.

Finished these tonight.

The legs, they are done... Thanks to my pals Wayde and Brett for drinking with me while I finally finished them.

It's being used for Dagorhir and LARP combat. You may be right about the gorget, thinking about it more. Tying them to the maille was fine, but I did that at the point of the shoulder, plus the maille's pretty heavy and immobile already. The attachment point to the gorget would be a lot further up my shoulder, and the gorget isn't remotely close to as heavy as a chain hauberk. Can't hurt to try pointing them to the gambeson first. I just don't wanna hand sew anything - I'm lazy like that...

I think the gorget is next, because I simply can't keep the arms immobile without attaching them to something higher on my body. Yesterday, I laced them onto my chainmail (I punched two holes right below the point of the rerebrace (upper arm) and ran a lace through them and up through the chain) but the final solution will be to hang them from the gorget. So, gorget next, then legs (need the protection there badly) then pauldrons, then a back-and-breast, then some scaled gauntlets to finish it off. Damn, it's nice to work on something for myself for a change.

Finally got both arms done. Water formed 16 oz leather, 3/4" copper rivets and burrs, 1" solid brass buckles, latigo lace. Dyed Fiebing's Dark Red with some Fiebing's Black on the borders. Edges waxed and slicked with a hand wheel. Not great, but I'm happy. I gotta figure out how to do antique or wash or something to bring out the stamping...

Got both arms done.

One down, seven to go (arm, leg, leg, torso, shoulder, shoulder, gorget):

The forming is just hot water, I don't do any kind of wax impregnation. I have to be careful when I use the rivets and not draw them tight. Probably also add a washer between the layers of leather. But, even if I do draw them too tight, they'll smooth out eventually - it's leather. What I'm trying to figure out is how to slick the insides of the cutouts on the cross besegews. Bone folder maybe? I dunno...