The Armour Archive

I have a COP kit coming what is the most cost efficient material to attach the plates to. Have seen a bunch of different thing from 5 oz leather, to 1-2oz leather over thick line or canvas. Thanks
-z-

I used 3oz for my recent one and feel I could have gone thiner. Fabric is the cheapest option IMO.

Really? I always worry about going light on leather if it is going to get used in reenactment combat. I'd use 3-4oz. I have used lighter but had to repair it far more than my other COPs when I was using it.

I tend to go fabric. Solid, historic and cheap. In fact I am thinking about making once with a velvet layer over canvas in the future.

RPM

Fabric is cheaper in terms of materials, far more expensive in terms of labor.

Leather is more expensive for the material, but much cheaper in terms of labor.

I wouldn't go below 4oz personally but the quality of the leather can matter just as much. Really awesome 3oz will probably be just as good as so-so 5oz.

Thinking on going fabric poor right now. As far as fabric what kind of canvas should I shoot for.

I use two layers for COPs. The outside layer is 3-4oz. goat skin and the inside layer is a 16-20oz. hemp canvas or twill.

I use double layered canvas. Cheap, strong, breathable, and available in a variety of colors.

One of the cheapest retail deals on canvas is Harbour Freight's canvas dropcloths -- the large variety, I suppose. Not frightfully pretty stuff, I'd expect, so you may consider getting a beauty-layer of a couple yards of some discount fabric someplace as well. Cleverer than a poptop tabardoid thrown on over all.

They particularly recommend planning for two layers of canvas around here to make up its structure, be it for a 15th-c. brigandine or a more 14th-c. CoP. Lots more durability, a smoother more graceful look, and if you already bought that much dropcloth and are cutting stuff out of it, well...

My CoP is a layer of upholstery velvet (bought on sale approx 60% off) with a layer of bottomweight trigger cloth underneath. It has held up quite well to weekly practices and a few events as well as less than optimal tub-based storage.

RandallMoffett wrote:Really? I always worry about going light on leather if it is going to get used in reenactment combat. I'd use 3-4oz. I have used lighter but had to repair it far more than my other COPs when I was using it.

I am fairly sure Galleron's red cop is 1-2oz chrome tanned and has held up for years even in SCA combat. I used veg tanned cow and felt the 3-4oz was a bit stiff when riveted together.



As to fabric I used two layers of 5.3oz linen for one I was working on. Just remember do not cut your holes push them open with an awl to keep the strength of the material.

My first CoP, made in Trimaris in 1977, was heavy 16gg steel riveted (using nothing but ordinary tinner's rivets) to three layers of heavy canvas. It lasted for several years. A few rivets pulled through, but there are so many rivets per plate that it wasn't a structural issue.

Next cop was plastic plates on 3 oz leather (in Japan). Then in the States again aluminum plates on 5 oz leather.

New CoP? Will be aluminum plates on a two-layer canvas covered with a brocade-ish fancier facing.

I like a couple layers of canvas or upholstery-weight fabric. Works great; poke your rivet holes with an awl instead of cutting them with a punch.

Hey all thanks for great imput. Just stopped at harbor fright and the canvas was 8 bucks and padded fabric was 6 so I am all set minus a metric tone of rivets.

Try the shortest roofing nails you can get, the 3/4" to 1" -- using slating nails of copper, plain shank, looks very good, though they seem to run longer than galvanized-steel rivets for asphalt shingles, which can go quite short. Cheaper than comparable rivets, they come in boxes. Galvanized nails are cheaper than copper. Shop around; you can find deals. That one's a 5-lb box, of over 1300 nails.

3/4", galvanized, bx of 7200, for pneumatic nailers. If you want, scout around for loose ones.

Their large heads spread the load out nicely, their points help get through the awled holes in the fabric -- you clip these off short behind the steel plates of the CoP, then pein like a rivet. The steel plates of the CoP act as washers all by themselves.

The heads of these nails we reckon are often, though apparently not always, oversized -- depends on what exactly they're for in putting roof cladding on -- but they're are fine for a first time. To give them a more period guise, you'd end up doing things like setting them in some kind of cup shape to bend them from flat to humped -- a lot of bother. The very determined might resort to spinning the heads down on glued-down coarse emery/autobody cloth to make them somewhat smaller, but that too is for the persnickety maker. A bigger consideration is the nails not having any flash from forming the nailheads under the heads. That's unimportant in shingling, but cuts up a cloth shell, fraying it, so the flashing needs to be either flattened down or filed away. A short length of gas pipe makes a good flattener; stand the offending nail point up on something sturdy, put the end of the pipe over the nail shank, and hammer to smack the flashing down smooth.

do u think i can still go without with washers or burrs on .09 aluminum plates?

Yes, for they are nearly a tenth of an inch thick and metal. Plastic and leather inner plates being softer tend to need washers, or else putting the heads to the inside and washering the outside. That's been done too. Just pein 'em down well if you put heads outside and shanks inside, so you don't have them so rough in there they beat up whatever you're wearing underneath.