Made This Armguard For My Ghillie Suit

[dhaverstick]

I finished this full-length armguard last week; just in time for Missouri's archery season. I will use it when I wear my ghillie suit. Now if it will just cool off enough to put them both on!

The body of the armguard is made from Honduran caiman and backed with vegetable-tanned cowhide. The trim is lambskin and I carved the lace hooks from deer antler. The whole thing was sewn up by hand using artificial sinew.

Darren

[steelhawk]

Great job, Darren. You'll have to let us know how well you did in the hunt using it.

[MTH]

Very nice!

[dhaverstick]

MTH, I don't have a picture of the underside of that particular armguard but this is one I made a month or so ago. While the shape and size are different, the underside looks pretty much the same as the full-length armguard in this post. I hope this helps!

Darren

[MTH]

Those arm guards are fantastic!

I was wondering if the underside of the armguard has the smooth side or the flesh side of the veg tan leather against one's arm?

The tiger stripe stingray picture appears to have the fleshy side of the vegetarian leather against the forearm.

The sewing pattern is awesome. It looks just great! Out of curiosity, what do you sell these for?

[dhaverstick]

If it's something that someone is going to wear, I always put the flesh side of the leather towards the skin. That's just how I was taught to do it and I think it's more comfortable that way. I'm glad you like the armguards, MTH! I've sold a couple of the regular sized ones like the stingray item for $60 a piece. Yeah, I know I'm pretty much giving them away considering the cost of exotics and the time it takes me to carve the lace hooks but I do it more for fun than anything else. If had wanted to make money with a hobby I would have taken up pole dancing;)

[MTH]

You're right, that's a steal. Compared to what's available on 3rivers, you should be charging at least 3x's that price.

I'm also curious about how you sealed the dye on the under side?

Thanks!

AND

you've still got a shot at pole dancing - it's never to late to chase a dream !

[dhaverstick]

I don't do anything about sealing the dye. The veg-tanned cowhide I use are scrap pieces I pick up at Springfield Leather. They will put a bunch of pieces in a bag and sell the bag for under $10. I can usually get 3 or 4 armguards out of a bag. I don't care what color they are since it doesn't really show. All I care about is the stiffness of the leather.

The main reason I keep my price low is because you know how "frugal" the traditional archery crowd can be. They'll drop $400 on a Lone Wolf climber without a second thought but $100 for a custom-made armguard? No way!

[MTH]

I know what you mean!

So does that mean the veg tan leather you buy is pre-dyed? I've never seen veg tan other than a couple shades of brown.

Thanks again!

[dhaverstick]

Yeah, it comes in whatever colors they have scraps of. Usually it is black, various shades of brown, oxblood, etc. They have a bunch of undyed pieces you can buy for $5-$15 each. Most of them are rectangular in shape and are 4-8 oz in weight. Then they have the bargain-bin bags of dyed scrap where most of the pieces are irregular in shape. The bags go for $5-$10. You can pretty much see what's in them so you're not completely buying a pig in a poke. You just have to be good at guessing whether the pieces in the bag are going to be big enough for whatever you are making.

I am very fortunate to have a store like that in my vicinity. I can pick and choose what I want and they have some good in-store deals going on from time to time. We also have a Tandy store in town but they are a lot more expensive and I don't think the quality of their leather is as good either.

Here are some more photos of other armguards I have made from exotics. Two are out of caiman and one is ostrich.