Bracer Help

[Nightwolf]

So 7 months ago, I took up leatherworking to make a set of barbarian/viking fantasy leather armor for renfest.

I have spent a small fortune on tools and classes, gotten very into sheridan tooling, made belts and braceltes. But I have yet to make anything even closely resembling armor. I think I understand enough of the basics to at least get started. Does anyone have any good ideas of where to start? Tutorials?

I found an leatherworkers guild in Austin, Tx and they had a design for some bracers on the website. It looks like a great fantasy engraved piece, but the sizing seems very small too me. (I am a big guy, and this piece would cover only roughly the top 1/2 of my arm, so the bottom 50% would be lacing. Anyone have any quick and dirty rules on measuringan arm to get a good fit? how much room do you leave to lace the ends together?

I assume you would measure wrist and mid forearm to get the sizes needed there?

I appreciate any help.

[radar67]

I make bracers and started with the Cowboy Cuff patterns from Tandy. I found if you measure your wrist like you mentioned and use a center line to transfer the sizes it makes it easier to make a pattern. Once I get those lines, I select the pattern from the cowboy cuffs I like and transfer to the top and bottom of my lines. You also need to measure the distance up and down the arm between your circumference measures. I don't use laces, I use a leather "bar" and snaps to fasten the cuffs. For laces, I would allow about an inch shy of the actual measurements to be able to get them tight enough. Experiment with construction paper before you start cutting leather. It will let you see where the problems will be on sizing. Here are a couple of my projects.

Edited February 15, 2011 by radar67

[RWP]

+1 on the construction paper. its gonna be your best friend with making bracers and if you decide to do production runs of them you'll always have a pattern i had the same problem you are when i first started doing bracers

[HellfireJack]

The pattern from that site is just a rough guide. I'm pretty sure I know which one you're talking about. You would use it to create a custom fit pattern by altering the dimensions and maintaining the shape. Your arm is slightly conical so just making a cylinder will make it odd fitting.

I've created my own pattern from lots of measurements but in the end the fastest way would be to use three strips of construction paper at least one inch thick.

Fold one strip in half width-wise and wrap one around your wrist slightly loose and tape it at the angle it falls at. Make it so the taped part is on the top or spine of the bracer.

Do the same at the widest part of the arm(WPA) (Or lower if you're not covering your whole arm) Tape to the spine of the bracer..

Tape the third piece connecting the two at the spine of the bracer. (should fall on the taped parts of the cross pieces.)

Now cut through the folds you made (should be on the same axis as your arm) Now you should have an odd looking capital I with angled top and bottom bars. Lay that on construction paper and draw lines connecting the side bars and mark the high point of the spine and low point of the spine. You want to create a semi-circular line like in the pattern you saw that connects the sides at the wrist points to the low mark of the spine. Do the same at the WPA.

Cut it out and wrap it around the arm. If overlaps on your arm trim the sides in a bit. That's it.

You can round the edges if you want and fair it up to make it look nice. You can use lace. it's a pain to don and doff but it looks nice. Use the method above, create buckles for it, or the next one I'lm going to try is to modify the pattern with a dog ear of leather at the wrist to accomodate a snap. and then you permanently lace the WPA end and use the snap to get the bracer on and off.

Edited February 15, 2011 by HellfireJack

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

Here's the basic pattern I use when making my bracers.

Measurement A is the circumference of the wrist.

Measurement B is the length of the forearm to the broadest part of your forearm, not the elbow or the crook.

Measurement C is the circumference of the widest part of your forearm.

Now, take these measurements and lay it out like I have with the blue lines. Now, here's the trick: subtract a full inch from both the wrist measurement and forearms circumference measurement! Why? This gives you room for lacing and/or buckles. Now, the added modifications I placed on the pattern are a few examples I came up with through trial and error. The first is the semi-circle cut from the wrist. You'll want this on both sides of the wrist since this allows for a greater range of mobility for your wrist itself. The second part is the taper at the bottom of the bracer. This is really just a decorative element, but it can be shaped, contoured, and decorated easily and it adds a lot to the finished product.

Finally, I've come up with a few minimums for closures: if you use eyelets and laces, use no fewer than 8 eyelets (four on each side). If you use buckles, use no fewer than 3 buckles (per bracer). Fewer than either of these mentioned and I find that they slide forward on your arm and cause serious discomfort.

Edited February 15, 2011 by RuehlLeatherWorks

[Nightwolf]

Hellfire and Ruehl, thank you very much for those methods. I stopped by tandy earlier and bought the cowboy cuff pattern mentioned above. Hopefully between all this great advice I can come up with something awesome.

It may be a few weeks, but I will certainly post pics when I get one done!

[hivemind]

All good advice you're getting from RLW. Personally, I've given up on strapped bracers and will only make laced ones. The strap ones seem to always slide down no matter what. I do one lacing hole per inch, about a half-inch in from the edge. I also generally wet-mold the bracer and try to bend up the wrist area for comfort, like so:

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

I've found that lacing is best for heavy leather and hardened leather, but soft leather bracers generally do OK with buckle straps. Now, you don't have to reinforce the lacing holes with eyelets, but I tend to do so just because of the effect it gives. I figure the modern bracer isn't accurate anyway, so why worry about the authenticity of eyelets!

If you want more references for armor you can check out the pattern archive at http://www.armourarchive.org/

[hivemind]

That's a good point, I pretty much only work in 12oz+ leather these days. Lighter stuff, just to keep your sleeves out of your soup, is probably pretty forgiving.

[Charke]

Hivemind, no eyelets? I've been putting them in. They're probably not very "period" but I figured it would make them last longer. I'm wondering what your take on them is.

Mark Charke

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

Hivemind, no eyelets? I've been putting them in. They're probably not very "period" but I figured it would make them last longer. I'm wondering what your take on them is.

Mark Charke

He's using 12oz leather. The lacing will snap looooong before the leather on the bracer would tear.

[hivemind]

RLW is correct. Most of what I do is for game systems that require 12oz+ to be armor. No need for eyelets in that kind of leather.When I work in lighter stuff I still use eyelets for durability. Here's a pair on feast bracers in 6oz where I used eyelets:

Edited April 3, 2011 by hivemind

[Charke]

He's using 12oz leather. The lacing will snap looooong before the leather on the bracer would tear.

So I could stop putting eyelets in my 16oz bracers....

After watching some leather wear like a rock and other leather collapse and become soft, it's a little confusing what to think. I am starting to think it's really important where in the shoulder you cut your peice.

Mark Charke

[Dmitri]

I used eyelets on my latest archery bracers for SCA target and combat. They are in a 7oz. Even at that i have built them without and there never seems to be a problem. I just like eyelets I like the finished look. I am thinking of trying them in the next fighting armour I make. I think I will just purchase the coloured ones to blend in with the dye work.

[hivemind]

After watching some leather wear like a rock and other leather collapse and become soft, it's a little confusing what to think. I am starting to think it's really important where in the shoulder you cut your peice.

Oh absolutely. If you're cutting from down near the belly it's going to be a lot softer and more "stretchy". I'd probably use eyelets in leather like that even in the 12-13oz stuff I normally work in. Honestly, I just avoid those parts and save them for pouches and such.

[yan]

I do not use eyelet either, Usually work 15 oz.

I usualy try tu use the more ''maleable'' part of the leather near the wrist, it is easier ''bend out''

. (By the ways Hivemind thank for the answer you give on many armor post, they realy help my first pieces to be confortable to wear)

[Charke]

Thanks Yan. It never occured to me to create a bracer with a soft wrist. Bending them is always a pain. I really want the thickest leather for the bracer. Arms tend to get hit a fair amount. I'll have to play around with it.

Mark Charke