The Armour Archive

Dear WTC customers,

It has come to my attention that my supplier sent me a bad batch of rivets. The rivets affected are my brass flat-head rivets which are used on my Coats of Plates and Brigandine Gorgets. No other products are affected.

In this batch about 1 in 10 rivets were not properly made and the head snaps off from the shank without much force. This is not an issue in how the rivets are peined but rather a manufacturing defect in the rivet itself.

I am having stern words with my supplier and will be getting a replacement QC tested supply shortly and I assure you that I will be double-checking them myself to ensure this problem is resolved quickly. This supplier up until now has been extremely reliable and I have used these rivets on my own personal armour and loaner equipment for years without issue.

As I am trying to isolate the scale of the problem and the exact batch at fault, any customers who have experienced problems with these rivets (IE. the head has popped off while the shank is perfectly intact) please get in touch with me ASAP. I am hoping I caught this early enough that only my most recent batch of rivets was bad, but I need to hear from the community to verify that.

I will of course stand behind my items and any customer who has experienced problems with bad rivets may ship their armour to me and I will replace any and all bad rivets entirely at my cost and send the armour back as soon as possible. Repairs will be given priority in my production queue.

For the DIY types I will also be happy to send along as many rivets as they like from a new and QC tested batch, replacing rivets is fairly straightforward.

I sincerely apologize to any customers who may be affected by this. As a craftsperson who really loves his work its heartbreaking to be experiencing quality issues due to mistakes by a manufacturer further up the food chain.

I assure you that I am sorting this out and any armour leaving my shop in the future will not have this issue.

For other armourers, the rivet in question is a #12 3/4" post solid shank flat head brass rivet that is commonly available through leatherworking suppliers. Any others who use this rivet may want to grab two pairs of pliers and test a bunch by pulling and twisting them to ensure their batch is good.

www.wintertreecrafts.com for contact info.

The only rivet problem I've had has been one pulling the head all the way through the leather. So, I obviously did not get bad rivets. (just missed a block.)

I hope that helps narrow down the timetable on when you got the bad batch. Good luck!

Thats good to hear.

I usually order 10-20 lbs of these rivets every few months and its actually looking like my most recent batch was fine. The problem seems to be restricted to items made in 2009. I'm still trying to narrow it down to my spring or fall supply order...

My own armour and loaner gear was made in late 2008 and early 2009 and out of 5 coats of plates and 5 brig gorgets in use in my class not a single rivet has popped.

Out of 100 or so CoP's and Brig gorgets sold in the last 2 years so far I've only heard back about issues with 4 of them, so while it would be nice if this problem is actually far smaller than I had feared, I still encourage anyone affected to at least send their item back to get repaired for free.