leather bracers

[calanneh]

Here are a few pix of some leather bracers my son made. They are a two piece design with leather 'hinges' on one side and buckles on the other side. He rushed them a little and didn't get the edges burnished real good, but he is learning and it is somehting we have both enjoyed doing together.

He later took this design and adapted it to make shin guards too. He is working on leather armour gloves right now.

He plains to wear it all this Saturday at the Tx Ren Fest while I am in my home-grown Viking regalia.....

I will get pix of us in all our glory and post them!

William

[twofour878]

I love seeing ren fest stuff. Did he say why he wanted a hinged design? Or was it just what came into his head?

Question for you...is it a period accurate viking costume or a fur clad and horned viking? I think it was either you or someone in one of your threads that was posting links to a viking reenactment group.

Edited November 10, 2008 by twofour878

[SmoothZey]

nice !

i like the pattern he used/created its different from conventional bracer ...

did he molded em ?

i think it would be more ''realistic'' w/o the glossy finish ... compared to other stuff that people wear in ren fest or medieval events, it could looks like some kind of toy... plastic-like

nice job on the buckle job, the straps are straight but maybe too narrow... could have made em wider to fill the buckle space ...

keep up your good work ( to your son ) i hope he had a good time at his event

[calanneh]

The design is from an old Tandy Leather pattern flyer. I will PM it to anybody who would like it, just send me a message and ask for it. I got two other old ones that so with it.

He wet molded them to give them some shape. He did cut the straps too narrow as he did not pay close attention while he was tracing them. I suggested making new ones, but he didn't want to. After he wears them this weekend and they shift around some in the buckles, he may listen to dad and do a little more design work on them.

He likes the shiny black leather. I think it reminds him of Darth Vader or the 'dark knight'! He likes to be the 'shiny center of attention'!!!!

You can see pieces of my viking regalia in the following threads:

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=4798

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=4797

One shows my hat (no fur, Texas is too damn hot for fur for 11 1/2 months of the year) and one is my shoes. I will be dyeing them brown like the hat is later this week.

I have added a belt, a pouch(sporran), wrist cuffs and am working on a leather mug this week. I will post a thread with it all together when I finish it.

Thanks for the compliments!!

William

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

They look great for his first attempt! If he's looking to make more armor, I suggest this site: http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/

I can answer your question, twofour878: no, vikings did not wear horned helmets and very rarely wore furs. For the most part they had wool for their garments. Fur would be more of an accessory, so you wouldn't see a boatload of guys looking like Conan. (Well, I guess it depends on your vision of Conan really...)

In the thread for Cal's hat, I posted a pic of my viking gear. It doesn't look like a 'viking' but it's based on historic accounts and archaeological findings.

[twofour878]

Yeah I read all those threads about the actual accurate reenactment vikings. Pretty neat stuff taht I didn't know. I'm actually going to make myself a kyrtle to wear for my fighting garb.

[hivemind]

With those long sections, they're kinda similar to bazubands.

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

Yeah, they almost look like a combination bazuband / vambrace.

[calanneh]

The Tandy pattern sheet actually called them 'vambraces' but I also refer to the as bracers out of habit. It is proud of them. They turned out a little big, they slid aroud sound, so I am going to help him line them with some padding tonight to help snug them up.

We plain to add some white padding like in this pair I made for a halloween costume a few weeks ago.

William

[RuehlLeatherWorks]

I'm not sure what to suggest for preventing sliding. I've always worn them over a medieval style shirt and most people I know wear them over a padded gambeson.... So in short. I don't know.

Another thing you could do is to attach an elbow cop and rerebrace and affix those to spalders which you can anchor to your arming shirt!

...of course then you'd need an arming shirt, rerebrace, elbow cop, and spalders.