fredk

You ask 'will it be sufficiently heavy'? How heavy do you want it? a medium weight suede would be needed; say 1.5 to 2mm I always skive the area where the buckle goes; I find it fold around the bar better, and the end of the billet is so thin that there is hardly a bump where it meets the rear of the billet. I would skive the ends of the suede piece as well You don't really need a pattern for this. Use cardboard from a cereal packet to draw out the length and width of your billet ends and use that to mark your main strap Don't forget to allow plenty of extra inches for the fold over at the buckle and at the tongue end; its easier to cut this back than to add to a belt that ends up too short for comfort

Basic regulations; bringing into the EU [including the UK] anything at all made from a protected species, endangered species or associated endangered species WILL attract a hefty fine [can be $5000 or more and and a custodial sentence which might be suspended] Alligator / crocodile / elephant / bear / praire dog / neraly all snakes / walrus / seal / whale are just some of the animals which are listed. The customs people take this very seriously and prosecute every single case through the courts An old product, eg carved ivory, can be brought into the EU as long as the item is over 100 years old, has a certificate of authenticity saying so and has government paper work confirming it. A licence to bring it into the EU has to applied for before it is brought - this can take up to 3 years to get Essentially; stick to cow/horse/indian buffalo/camel leather, either plain or impressed patterned [eg faux snakeskin pattern cow leather]

Forgot to say; your stitches will be important visually. I'd use either a base-ball stitch or a hidden-end [under & over ends] X stitch

Many people have converted arbor presses bought cheaply from a US machinery dealer [can't remember the name] Make a search on here for Arbor Press might throw up some better answers. The Tandy fittings for their press fits into some of the cheaper arbor presses Edit; I just noticed I had this bookmarked >

Anything from about 1mm to about 2.5mm thick [3 to 6 oz ?] in veg tan. I would prefer to use veg tan for this, it can be oiled up or stained after moulding Two ways; 1 / wet mould around handle, take off, trim excess leather, punch sewing/lacing holes, put back on and sew up 2 / Trim leather to size. sew/lace in place, wet mould after its in place [chance of shrinkage tho] For the ridges; glue a length of thick thong or string around the handle of the stick for each ridge - wet mould over them. Then if you want to, remove the thongs/strings and glue into the now raised areas of the moulded handle before putting it back on, but leaving them on the stick will help with getting the grip back on exactly where it fitted afore

I would; a/ use resolene thinned 1:1 with water b/ dip tray coat it with at least two coats, letting dry in between each coating. Hang up, clipped by a corner to allow the excess Resolene to run and drip off, into a tray or waste paper; speeds up the drying too especially if you have warm air blowing around them

Boyd and his wife Lynne are Irish Arms [in Cavan afaik]. They have made the equipment for the film 'Arthur', some for 'Braveheart' , 'Vikings' and lots of other major medieval & historic films and programmes He's likely to have been the person who bought that leather.

That wasn't Boyd Rankin was it by any chance?

Buy, buy, buy! You'll not get the chance again. The more you buy perhaps you'll get a better deal on it too. Buy as much as you can afford. Its too good to miss up. Its all very useful; you can make all sorts of small items, plus it can be used for lining insides of bags etc

A suggestion; Theres a Tandy store in Manchester, contact them and see if they know a leatherworker in the Liver/Man area who might be willing to do your items

Wet the leather before you bend it over Cracking is also a sign that the leather is too dry; [its old and drying out] it might need lots more nfo rubbed in

I've given some thought to this; Its a nice bit of hardware but is totally inefficient to its purpose if it keeps coming off Simply; it needs replacing. I would replace the hardware completly with a leather loop tab sewn on and incorporating a lobster crab bag loop/link

and skive the long edges and one end of the gusset piece and the corresponding length of the main piece. Make the bottom corners rounded, not too much, just a bit to ease the the front/bottom/back piece around without any tight corners I like to make my gussets longer than needed, then skive and fold over the top end; give a neat finish

I have a few duplicate Tandy 3D stamps. Can't just remember what they are. Can I send them on to you? Might have a few other odd duplicate tools as well

I'll not be doing that; I prefer to keep my blades covered up where they don't need to be for cutting

you can make a maul out of old [uk] milk jugs, ie hdpe its easy; one of my 'winter' projects

That looks just grand so it does.

I use a photo hosting site. I resize my photos to under 800 x 600 pixels in a very basic photograph program; save them to the photo-host site, then copy and paste into the forum Some photo-hosting sites such as smugmug allow you to choose the smaller size there before copying

The helmet in the above photo may or may not have actually existed. Its more of a fantasy medieval helmet. I have never seen one like it in any of my research books. This leads to; make yours like it but don't slavishly copy it. Just do the sides staight down*, but bring it down past your ears. As for the Tandy one; Helms/Helmets were made in hundred of ways, it depended on the skill of the armourer and the blacksmith who had to mend it. I've seen helms made by riveting pieces together, joining by hammer welding and even the remains of a Great Helm which had been cast in one piece * if you really want to do a tapered side; think of a hot-cup holder - its long sides are curved so that when the ends are joined the top and bottom long sides are parallel. Take piece of card, draw a line, a curved line. Make this central line the length I told you, make the top line about 4 inches away about 1.5 inches longer, make the bottom line about 4 inches away 1 inch less. Cut this strip out of thin card. You need to cut it so it curves. Try this against your head and by trial-and-error you'll find the right curve

Very artistic, very eye catching thank you for sharing that

Yes, each helm/helmet needs its own suspension inside. You could make yourself an 'arming cap' with the padding attached to it. Then each helm won't need the padding inside A basic 'arming cap' is dead easy to make up in leather. Just three pieces of leather sewn together.

1. Tandy does a pattern for a Great helm. With care it can be adjusted to make the face pot helm above, https://www.leathercraftlibrary.com/p-1877-crusader-helmet-pattern.aspx? 2. History lesson; A; Helm padding was attached to the wearers arming cap or maille coif. It was no less than 2 inches [5 cm] thick. Modern repro are about 3/4 inch [2 cm] thick. The padding was a linen tube stuffed with sheeps wool and/or straw. This was tied or sewn to the cap or coife at about upper brow level B. The suspension system in medieval times was as used now; a strip of leather sewn or riveted round the inside of the helm, at about high brow level. Then six/eight/ten/twelve straps of leather or heavy cord attached to this crossed from one side, thru the centre to the other side. 3 of these gives 6, 4 gives 8 etcetera. Sometimes these straps, or a few of them at right angles went through a centre leather disc. On a WW2 helmet I have adjustment of the cords is just by untying a couple of cords, retying at a different length and pushing the central disc back into the centre. On a medieval helm I inspected it looked like there was no adjustment provsion. Possibly it was made exactly for one head or adjustment was through the amount of padding at the top of the head. The chin strap attaches to the inner leather strap as well. Adjustment of the strapping not only adjusts how high or low the helm sits on the head but it can bias the sit to front or rear or to either side. 3. Having worn different styles of medieval helm in anger I would suggest that you have an absolute minimum of 1.5 inches padding at the sides and rear and 2.5 inches minimum at the front. You will not be wearing a leather helm to fight in so its not for protection, but the padding keeps the helm away from your ears and nose. You could attach the padding to the inner support strap running around the inside. Make it thick and it'll crush down to a tight supportive fit. 4. If your head circumference is 58.4cm then it has an average of 9.3 cm radius; add 4cm average for padding = 13.3 r = 83.5cm [32.9 inches] circumference. Note; the human head is not a perfect circle. Depending on your genetic origins in might be an egg shape, flatish at the rear, flatish at the front, etcetera 5. For hat making I use the polystyrene heads hairdressers use for wigs. Available in most normal sizes, both male and female. If you shop around you can get them for less than $5 and are really useful

Contact Le Prevo in Newcastle and ask them. They just might know something

Hi, You'll find lots of good stuff on here and get good advice from friendly [mostly] [ok, I jest] folk with loads of experience Whereabouts are you located?

Very nicely done