Care and upkeep

[Dedric]

I've run across this a couple of times.

I line up at an event or practice and we start doing our thing. a poke here a jab there, and then we close for some good in fighting when all of a sudden you get a big wiff of the other person's armor, or even your own and for a moment all you can think of is "don't pass out!"

I've read on here all kinda of things about making armor, how to do this and that, but after I read though it all I can't find anywhere an area or topic on good upkeep, and maintenance of your armor and or soft kit to tell all of us some good maintenance tricks to keeping your armor in good order.

Lets see if we can keep it pretty general so we can cover many areas of armor, gloves, padding, helmet, liners etc... for upkeep.

I'm actually pretty simple I have a soft kit and I just use a washing machine once a month and febrese every week.

[Broadway]

Soft kit (pants, tunic, etc) is all machine washable, and I wash it after each practice and event.

Knee pads are machine washable as well.

Leather gets cleaned with this leather cleaner spray stuff I got at Lowes (and I only have 1 piece that is leather, half gauntlet... I hate mold). All my straps are dog collars, which damn near never get moldy... they're treated with something or other, I think.

Steel gets polished with Never Dull before tourneys.

[losthelm]

Drying your armour and waching arming garments is important.
You can use botanical herbs to help fight fighter funk for longer events.
Make sure your careig for your leathers as well as the cloth bits.
And wash down your armour bag/box with a minimum of disinfectant.
If your using open cell foam in your armour it needs to be replaced a lot more often to keep the Funk at bay.

Usualy Fighter Funk is caused by damp things being packed away wet.
Sweat, dirt and grime in a dark closed enviroment is just asking for fungus, mold, and mildew.

If your looking for sugestions for botanicals it realy comes down to a personal preference. Cloves, Sage, and Juniper berrieis work well on mild cases.

[Eirik]

GREAT topic.

Wear linen and hang it out to dry when you're done. Linen has a natural resistance to the odor causing bacteria as long as it is allowed to air out and dry. This is an awesome thing at longer events like Gulf Wars. If you're home, just wash it in between events/ practices.

I wear mostly leather armour, with a Sherpa vest lining. I use natural sunlight and lay may armour out, lining side up, to bake in the sun the day after I fight. It helps keep it smelling fresh and also rehardens the armour. I'll re-dye, use shoe polish or saddle soap on anything that looks too raggedy.

For my helm lining, I use a blue Shamwow, and just wash it out every so often.




I also give ALL of the credit for my tunics/pants/pads and soft kit to m'lady wife who does yoeman's work making sure that I have what I need to attend 3 practices a week (when I can, that is...)

[chris19d]

I've been experimenting with TopSaver on my mild steel and its worked well so far.

fabrize works well on the padding

[RenJunkie]

Wait...you're using a Shamwow as a helm padding? Or just as a lining between you and the padding?

Thanks!
Christopher

[hrolf]

1. Your armor and your padding are seperate things. They should not be permanently attached to each other (with the possible unavoidable exception of helmet padding), and they should be stored in different bags.

2. Wash your under padding and garments.

Done.

[Balin50]

bu but the mojo will be gone

[losthelm]

and thats a good thing.

Your armour should not resemble a bio-terror weapon.
It makes everything last longer and keeps the your SO happy.