Newbie Questions

[orctin]

Getting into Larping and have started collecting and reading up on how to make Leather Armor. Getting ready for a lot of work and time to put together an entire full upper body piece. I've spent the last month reading the information here and elsewhere and it's time to start doing some practice with the scrap i have collected to learn more. But have some general questions i would like to throw out there for ya'll to help with.

Stroping a Swivel Knife - have to keep them sharp. I've read of people using 2/3 oz. leather attached to a board but then see info about a paste of compound applied to the leather. So what is the "proper" way to make a good strop for keeping kinfe sharp.

Dyeing - trial and error testing this weekend but i'm curious how dyeing before or after harding effects the dye, Does water Harding cause you to lose some of the dye effect. How much more work is it to dye after Boiling as opposed to before.

Sealing - a lot of reading about how to harden leather (water/wax/glue). The next couple of days i will be experimenting with water hardening to find what i think works best for me but then that brings me to sealing. Seen mention of TB3, Snow Seal, Beezwax as ways to seal leather. As this will be for Larping and rain can be a factor any additonal thoughts of best way to seal would be helpful (Lot of info here - http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=144836&hilit=glue+hardening)

Lining - Now having a big leather armor suit for the body is nice chaffing might become an issue. I been tossing around idea of lining inside with Suede to comfort but attaching that to the armor i don't see a lot of info on. Have couple of thoughts on it but more input would be nice. First when using rivits to put pieces together simple have the lining precut (oversized to trim later) then just attach with same rivets i join my leather together with. The other thought is sewing or lacing, as some pieces will be overlapped the overlapped pieces could be used to sew or lace the lining and keep it hidden from visible view. So any thoughts on this as sewing will add additional work but i think make a more "attached" lining that just using rivets.

[random5000uk]

I'm kinda in the same boat as you are, with making stuff for larping. Although I'm still working up to making armour from scratch till I get my stitching right.

If you've got the armour made already I'd have thought that putting a bit of something like linen on the edges should work alright, although I'm just speaking about what I think will work.

Interested in swapping pics of projects and comparing? Have to be honest I'm only modifying instead of making completely.