hivemind

Just a quick shot of some arms I'm working on for myself out of 16 oz leather. They're not nearly done, but you can get an idea so far: The elbows are together with Chicago screws for now (they're really useful for testing things out), but the final product will be done with peened copper rivets. I'll lace the vambrace and put a single strap on the rerebrace. Gonna dye it a dark red with black. You can see the rest of the other arm cut out and shaped on the table behind.

Hi admin-types. The new upgrade is great - I've been using IPB on a couple different forums for a while now. We changed over from vBulletin, and we're much happier. Might I suggest we get the "Interests" section of user profiles limited to 100 characters or something? There's people who have entire biographies in there, and when they make a one-line post, there's a whole screen of nothing (except their "interests" bio in the sidebar) to scroll through before you get to the next post. Thanks.

Well, I'm not happy yet. It needs more something somewhere. The issue is probably that I based it white, and I should have based it with a bone/parchment color and drybrushed it up - but I only had the one bottle of leather paint, and it's white. Maybe I'll hit the whole thing with some watered down chestnut wash and then drybrush it. The Tandy Eco-paint-stuff works fine straight onto the leather though. That's about three coats on that. I haven't sealed it with anything yet because I'm not quite through...

Yeah I'm with Damon. I wouldn't buy those either at that price. I'd consider it if they were already dyed and hardened and had nice finished edges, but for raw leather (particularly of that simple shape) I'd do it myself. I think I'd cut out all the scales, then clamp them in big stacks and use a drill press for the holes and do ten at once. But, hey, there's the link.

FYI Ray: http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/search/..._4&kw=armor

I missed something somewhere, probably because I don't ever go into a Tandy store (nearest one is an hour away and I have a local guy ten mins from my house). Tandy stores aren't carrying Fiebing's dyes? Are people having a problem getting them, or just a problem getting them from Tandy stores? Why did Tandy stop carrying them?

It's at least 80% mechanical for me - I'm an engineer brain (witness that I found it necessary to come up with a number for my opening statement). However, I strongly feel that something well and cleanly made it it's own art. There's beauty in something that does exactly what it's intended to do without a lot of embellishment or waste. Your carving can be beautiful, but if you can't finish an edge smoothly or line up a pocket or do even, straight stitching - go be a painter. But as said already, it's the true masters that combine both.

Well, 31 page views and no one's piping up, so I just went ahead and painted it right onto the bare leather. We'll see...

Hi all, working on a skull mask for a friend. I've never made a mask before, but it's all cut and tooled and assembled and formed, just need to make it white. It's had no treatment but water so far, and it's now completely dry. What's next? I have some Eco-Flo white paint, do I just go to town and start putting coats on? I'm not a novice painter, but I've never painted any kind of real surface area on leather before much, and previous attempts were less than satisfactory (the cheap acrylics I used cracked). This thing need to be treated with something, dyed, oiled, what? Thanks in advance...

My local distributor had a few sole bends recently that were like that. I bought them for a song and made some leather armor out of them. When worn, you can swing a baseball bat at it and just grunt a little on impact - it's like wearing 16 gauge steel. Was the Dickens to cut though...

Oh boy, don't get me started there. The cruelties inflicted on racing greyhounds the world over are horrific.

Yeah, seriously, I play airsoft as a hobby, and the sidearms are 1:1 scale with the real thing, if they're not exact they're damn near close enough for making leather holsters. I have airsoft versions of a Glock 17 and a Kimber 1911 single stack, and I can't tell the difference between them and the real thing without dropping a mag. Look for the cheap spring pistols, not the high-end gas-powered ones. It'll be obvious from the price which you're looking at - the "springers" are well under $30 and the gas guns are well over $60. Most "springers" are $15 or so. Here's a few places to look: http://www.airsoftatlanta.com/category_s/1.htm http://www.shortyusa.com/cart/index.html?U...;NL=&kiosk= http://www.trinityairsoft.com/c-105-spring-pistols.aspx http://www.airsoftpost.com/airsoft-guns-sp...57208e819af78ef

Stopped by my local leather distributor today, he's a friend so he lets me root around in his back rooms for stuff. Today, I found four 14oz vegetanned BACKS he didn't know were there, and he sold them to me for... wait for it... Fifty bucks each. Cash and carry. SCORE! Just had to post it here, no one else understands why I'm so damned happy today...

Gambeson and bracer under shield is enough for me. My chain hauberk is only half sleeves.

Looks like he laced on some horn tips to me.

I make mine like this because I fight in them, and I want them tight on my arms, particularly if they're on an arm holding a shield.

Nope, Sterling Ren Faire in Sterling NY (up by Lake Ontario). The bracers got dyed Fiebing's Tan on most of it, but the tooled center cross got done with a dark brown, then sealed the whole thing with Leather Shene. After that dried, I drybrushed the cross to a red up from a maroon, maybe three different colors, with acrylics, then re-sealed it with the spray Shene.

I made these on Saturday in hopes of wearing them to the faire on Sunday - then we got rained out.

^^^ What they said. Also, I'd highly recommend against strapping the bracers, in favor of lacing them. Strapped ones just never seem to sit comfortably on the arm, always sliding down and pinching or irritating the wrist. Once a pair of laced ones has gotten some sweat into them and molded to the arm, they're comfy as can be.

I gotta do that, I've been hitting mine with a super-fine polishing wheel on a Dremel, but it's not getting the inside of the tool...

Yeah I was gonna say I have up to a 1/2" drive punch that could be ground off to do that - and they're a TON cheaper to destroy than a belt end punch.

Step one is probably to get comfortable with water forming stuff like elbow cops, bracers and lames for articulated spaulders, archer's knees, etc. Once you've got a good technique down for waterforming 12-15 oz leather (and decided that that's not making stuff hard enough), you get to delve into the potentially explosive fun of melted paraffin, vats of melted beeswax, etc. Seriously, though, try waterforming some sole bends and see if that's making stuff hard enough for you. Stuff like this: is pretty damned heavy-duty when you're done. Good luck man.

That's about where I was Ray. This ain't Craigslist...

Those are... hypnotic.

Back when I used to work in a musical instrument repair shop, we used the red stuff for buffing brass instruments before lacquering them.