I hope to make it. Right now I'm making every event I can. Acts as a good distraction.

I don't know off the top of my head, but since I work in a hospital and have some close pals who are surgeons, I bet I can find out. Just give me a couple of days.

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Lord Bainard Grey
Shire of Havenholde, Barony of the Flaming Gryphon,
Middle Kingdom

Hmmm, depends on which you want. For an arming coat, just make 2 rectangular fronts with a simple neck line cut out (you can use almost any shirt pattern for this and for sleves, just use a standard straight sleve pattern increased in size with the cuff line cut off. As for a doublet, try Janet Arno...

I'm kind of partial to Starfire Swords (www.starfireswords.com). Their ridged broadsword is light and ballanced nice. I like Highland Steele swords also (www.highlandsteele.com). They are not the most beautiful of swords but they stand up to TONS of abuse without any signs of wear. Both of these swo...

Thanks so much. This info is invaluable!

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Lord Bainard Grey
Shire of Havenholde, Barony of the Flaming Gryphon,
Middle Kingdom

Here is the way that I have seen a formed leather piece made that would be easier to replace and do less damage to the outer surface of the helm. Take good old plain felt and wet it in a mixture of 1/2 water and 1/2 white glue. Mold this to the top of the helm and dry with a hair dryer. This will fo...

I laid out a small section tonight at work and it seemed to APPEAR to work. The overlapping plates do a good job of spreading the impact (in theory on cardboard at 3 AM at the hospital....). It seems that an impact on two of the upper scales (a tippy rattan shot) would yield a protective surface of ...

Thank you so much. You are a life saver. Now I can start cutting the plates to start.

I need to find a pattern I have seen on the net for and armoured doublet using octagonal plates overlapped. Le Brassey put the pics in a post that I had up before, but the pics disappeared before I ran them off!

Val does some nice work from what I have seen. The only consideration is that if you plan on using the suit for combat (sca, etc.) the material that Val Arms uses is closer to historical weights which are often too thin to meet minimum safety requirements.