Darth vaders codpiece?

[bikermutt07]

I got a nine legged naugine heffer for sale. Answers to the name "Pleather".

Her only got nine legs, she lost one in a fight with the arm of my lazy boy.

[kiwican]

I lead what some people would consider a pretty interesting life. But I have to say that, for me, I never in a million years thought I'd be part of a conversation on Darth Vaders cod piece. This is one for the books 

[kbcubed]

The surface of the cod piece looks like buffalo. The straps likely are lamb.

[TheGoodSamaritan]

14 hours ago, billybopp said:

The "herd of naugas" joke is an oldie but very much still a goodie!    Marketing departments started actually advertising naugahyde as a "feature" in the 70's - before that it was just vinyl.   I suspect the change came about to set newer more durable vinyl products apart from earlier products that became brittle after a few years.  

Vinyl is pretty useful even for leatherworkers.  It's a great cheap material that behaves much like leather, and can be used to make mockups for stuff.  

I'm pretty sure the original is at least partly vinyl.  If you look at the piping around the center piece you can see a bit of very light color peeking through.  Since garment leather is usually mostly struck through, we wouldn't see that.  The inner liner does look like it might be leather, however, since that does look right for chrome tan (a bluish color).  

I'd also guess that there's some sort of bag stiffener behind the main front piece to help keep that curve.  There's also some sort of stuffing material there to give it thickness, particularly around the bottom edge and behind the center piece to give it fullness.  The piping around the center piece has either no cord or very thin cord.  Outer piece, piping and center piece are probably glued and sewn from the back side.  Front and straps appear to be a single piece of leather, so could take some creative design to get the straps folded over as in the picture.  (forgive the comments about a codpiece with stiffener and stuffing please - I know it's hard to believe that a bad-ass like Vader might need stuffing and stiffening - but then again he had a lot of medical problems - I guess the force can't do everything).  

Even if the original is pleather, there's no reason why you can't make yours from real leather!  Goat is pretty nice to work with in garment weights, but others are fine too.  The surface finishes on garment leathers can vary greatly, so your best bet would be to look at some in person to find the texture that you want.  I have some that is so smooth and shiny that it looks like vinyl, and other with various surface textures and amounts of gloss.   

Oh.  And just to make y'all jealous - I got meet James Earl Jones a couple of years ago when he did a play on Broadway.  His voice is even more amazing in person, and presence on stage is phenomenal.

Bill 

 

The construction is a shape cut out in rubber foam covered with leather glued on top.

What you see peeking through is actually yellow rubber foam. The center cut out is a hole in the foam where leather wraps over the ege but it goes only a millimeter or so over the edge. I do this as well. The reason is you get a sharper edge that way.

The picture is taken 30 years later and it has fallen apart a bit so you can see inside a bit.

It's made from real leather, this is confirmed by people who've actually handled the real codpiece in person.

I've made a few in cowhide and also in goat hide. I finally got a shipment yesterday of some really nice lambhide that I think will do the trick. It's really smooth and shiny with a fine grain and has some nice wrinkles in it.

[TheGoodSamaritan]

Is there a way to make the "piping" without actually folding leather all the way through? I want to fold the leather to make piping but is there a way to remove the bulk so the folded leather is as thin as only one piece of leather?

[TheGoodSamaritan]

6 hours ago, kiwican said:

I lead what some people would consider a pretty interesting life. But I have to say that, for me, I never in a million years thought I'd be part of a conversation on Darth Vaders cod piece. This is one for the books 

Haha, I realise this is weird but I promise you there are a lot of people who know the whole Vader costume like some people know all the brush strokes on Mona Lisa.

These costumes are made in the 70's and are art. All the original Vader costumes are different between films and sometimes even between different scenes. They have a lot of flaws that add character.

Edited February 23, 2017 by TheGoodSamaritan

[bikermutt07]

5 hours ago, TheGoodSamaritan said:

Is there a way to make the "piping" without actually folding leather all the way through? I want to fold the leather to make piping but is there a way to remove the bulk so the folded leather is as thin as only one piece of leather?

Skive or split it down.