The Armour Archive

carpathiavh99

I tried to make my own domed rivets once. I made about a dozen in an hour. Then I bought 100 from R.J. Leahy. After I saw that the quality of the purchased rivets was better and the cost was not bad, I didn't try to make them any more. As far as using nails goes, I will use nails in parts of the arm...

carpathiavh99

I agree, very nice. I would very much like to see the finished product, keep posting.

carpathiavh99

I've recently seen a special on bullet proof materials, and one they mentioned was layers of fiberglass and resin. This would probably be a realistic medium for Mjolnir armor. Just my $0.02

carpathiavh99

You probably jumped the gun on riveting at this stage. I make it a point to test fit all my pieces to make sure they're ready for riveting. I use small nuts and bolts to hold them together while they're being test fitted. I will have all the parts formed, fitted, planished and polished before I actu...

carpathiavh99

I got my 6" grider and all the wheels at Sears.

carpathiavh99

I've made a helmet from those very instructions. The way I came up with a brow size was to make the padded underlayment out of 1/2" foam first (sort of a foam helm itself) and measure the circumference of the foam helm while it was on my head. That ensured that I would have a comfortable fit. It wor...

carpathiavh99

It's a very nice helm. I especially like the rivets.

carpathiavh99

The first set of fingers I made, I used a wood broom handle and a channel in a block of wood. I quickly found that a steel rod would work much better, the rod and channel should be slightly larger in diameter than your fingers.

carpathiavh99

I'm still sort of a NOOB when it comes to armor, but here's the best of what I've got so far.

carpathiavh99

Wulfe wrote:http://www.rjleahy.com has a wide selection...

That's the one, thanks!!

carpathiavh99

A long while ago, I knew of a website that sold rivets of all types and sizes, and I think I found it in one of these posts. I got a new computer some time ago, and must have missed that link in the transfer. Does anyone know of the website I'm trying to remember?

carpathiavh99

To my recolection the spear toss was worth 2 when the first one veered off and colided with the second. I could easily be wrong as after watching the movies for the 5 billionth time my mind sort of tunes them out the same way it does to barney No, you're correct, one spear, two kills. It took Legol...

carpathiavh99

Unfortunatly, she wasn't in much better condition when I was stationed there. The ship may have looked better then, but the hull was always rusted. That and the fact that while it was being built, the ship fell off the blocks and the keel was bent slightly. Still, she had her days. I remember having...

carpathiavh99

Thanks for all the info, that powerpoint presentation by Konstantin was very helpful and the internet site was interesting. I think I've got enough to go by to make a prototype. Off subject, Konstantine, I noticed that you're from Port Hueneme. Is the USS Paul F Foster still there? I was stationed o...

carpathiavh99

It will be for SCA. Looking at about pre-crusades period (viking/norman) with the wood plank-type round shields, though not actually portraying that period, just some of the style.

carpathiavh99

What is a good diameter for a circle shield? ...an oval shield? I want something that will cover a good section of my torso without being too big or small.

carpathiavh99

If you plan to put rings on the underside of your fingers (the side where they bend inward) you won't be able to bend them. I ran into the same problem with a long sleeve hauberk, I couldn't bend my arm very far since the rings on the inside of my joint would bunch up. You'd have the same problem wi...

carpathiavh99

I actually do both. I cut a lot of rings closed and a lot of rings open. The closed ones are easier to close, then I use four closed ones and one open ring to build a small section. From there I build lines of rings as long as I need them then link the lines together with the open rings. I used to c...

carpathiavh99

The helm looks ok for a beginner, though I would be a little more comfortable if the grille was riveted to the faceplate instead of welded. Other than that, it really dosen't look all that bad.

carpathiavh99

I get my leather products at Tandy Leather. If you don't have one near you, they have a website, www.tandyleather.com

carpathiavh99

I recently refinished the surface of my breastplate, which was starting to rust pretty badly. I sanded the whole thing smooth, getting it to the shinyness that I wanted, washed it with soap and water, then made sure it was perfectly dry and coated the whole thing, front and back, with a few coats of...

carpathiavh99

The upper lame of a cuiss?

carpathiavh99

Check in the yellow pages under sheet metal or metal or the like. It may require a bit of a drive, but it's worth it to shop around.

carpathiavh99

If you can, try to buy your steel at a sheet metal dealer. Places like Lowe's and Menards are much more expensive than stores that deal soley in metal. A sheet of 16g steel 2' x 4' at Menards was around $40 (cheaper than Lowe's $50), but that same size sheet at a small, hole-in-the-wall sheet metal ...

carpathiavh99

I really couldn't say, I worked on them between work and school, so they took me the better part of about six months to complete. I have no idea of how many actual man hours I put into these pieces. I had thought of actually timing myself when I'm working on armour to actually figure out how much so...

carpathiavh99

I think I'm just going to use this armour as dress armour, not for fighting, I honestly don't think the leather decoration would stand up to the task of fighting. I'll probably end up using the same patterns for my combat armour though, I just won't cover or edge them in leather.

carpathiavh99

I recently posted some pictures of my pauldrons and mentioned that I was working on a cuirass to match them, well, I finally finished it. It's made from 16ga. mild steel, covered and edged in black leather. Its pattern is a very heavy modification of the peascod breastplate found here in the archive...

carpathiavh99

Is there any way of seeing some pictures of this? I may be able to give my humble two cents if I could see a picture.

carpathiavh99

dying leather is easy, just put the dye onto a rag and rub the leather until it is covered with the dye, the more dye you put on, the better it will soak in, you can also seal the leather with a leather finish, it will give the dyed leather a satin look. As far as painting leather, I'm not so experi...

carpathiavh99

I've played around with hardening leather by means of water hardening, I found that the leather gained a pretty good hardened state when I boiled the water. Of course this was leather that was about 1/4 in thick to begin, it ended up being almost 3/8 in thick and shrunk slightly. I just put a pot of...

carpathiavh99

I've been using the HF sheer for the better part of 2 years, haven't cut anything thicker than 16ga. steel yet, but I've had absolutly no problems with it.

carpathiavh99

1. Two things, some of my friends introduced me to the SCA and SCA fighting, that sparked the desire for mail armor, then the lord of the rings extended DVD of the fellowship came out and I watched the special feature on the Weta Workshop and I decided I had to get into it. 2. The chance to see some...

carpathiavh99

Just watch the special features of the extended DVD's. The bits on the Weta Workshop are very informative and the photo galleries are great.

carpathiavh99

Thanks for all the great responses, just a few replies. I do know that Theoden's armour is made from bronze (not brass) adorned with black leather, Eomer's (and Theodren's) armour on the other hand was made from steel and adorned with red-dyed leather. Since I don't have a readily available source o...

carpathiavh99

Here are some pics of my new pauldrons. They were made to emulate the pauldrons worn by Theoden and Eomer in LOTR, although, the decoration on the device plate is different. I spent a great amout of time studying reference photos and went through a few design stages before I came up with workable pa...

Need help finding rivets...

Shield Size...

My new cuirass...(pics)

LOTR style pauldrons... (pics)