Lacing for Samurai Armor

ConquererHank · Post by **ConquererHank** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:13 am

I am new to the SCA and working on a set of armor, full laced samurai armor but I am having trouble finding the lacing.

I would like to use 3/8 or 1/2 inch flat nylon cord (shoe lace material) in either a peacock blue, cobalt blue or prussian blue. I need about 1000 feet. If anybody knows where I can get a spool of it please let me know.

Attached is a pic of a mempo with the color lacing I would most like to use.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

MattB · Post by **MattB** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:01 am

http://www.fabmania.com/#shoelaces in the UK I know but I've used these in the past. They have quite a range of colours and I've found them helpful and easy to deal with in the past. The 32-6017 is quite a nice lace.

Matt

Saburou · Post by **Saburou** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:02 am

A spool? I don't know. I go to www.lacesforless.com for my dou.

William of Stonebridge · Thu May 21, 2009 9:24 am

I know this is not a direct answer to your question, but have you seen Effingham's website? It is full of very good info on Japanese armour.
Check it out.
http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.html

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Thu May 21, 2009 11:01 am

I have a soruce for 1/4 inch in white.
not shure if the color is appropriate or not.

Mac · Post by **Mac** » Thu May 21, 2009 11:21 am

Hank,

Try these guys.

http://www.therainshed.com/webbing_and_cord.htm

I think they are the same people who used to have distributor in Ithaca about 20 years ago. I have used this stuff in the past. It is a lace, rather than a tape, so it will not look as wide as the stuff on the real armor, but it will look a hell of a lot better than paracord. It is strong and the colors are good.

If you are lacing an entire armor it will be cheaper and more convenient to buy it by the roll, rather than the yard. I still have the remains of a gazillion yard roll of red, which I use for arming points.

Mac

Cadfael_Mynnydd · Post by **Cadfael_Mynnydd** » Thu May 21, 2009 12:39 pm

not string related but check these sites out.
http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.html
http://www.samurai-armor-tokyo.com/deta ... hotos.html
the first link is good but the second is cool!

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » Thu May 21, 2009 4:14 pm

Flat lacing:

http://www.ricebraid.com/UMSS.cfm?page=page-index.cfm&template_code=Search.Do&category=6&bundle=1

Colors:
http://www.ricebraid.com/UMSS.cfm?page=page-index.cfm&category=5&template_code=Color&Submit=Search&area=store

Their minimum order is 144 yards but if you're doing a large project it works out pretty nicely. I got 144 yards of 1/2' wide for about 55 bucks.

Konrad
Artemisia

raito · Post by **raito** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:27 pm

I use stuff from St. Louis Braid, but they're not quite as good as before they were absorbed by some other company. I prefer to not get rolls, because the platic tips are a godsend for lacing.

Mac · Post by **Mac** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:43 pm

Konrad---That stuff looks very nice! Years ago, I tried in vain to find nylon tapes like that! Do you have a pic of something you have laced with it so we can see how it behaves?

Raito---I make points on nylon lace with a hot exacto knife. After a couple of tries you get the knack of cutting at the correct angle, and fast enough so the knife does not cool. A well cut point can last dozens of holes, and is easy to re-cut if it starts to fray.

Mac

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » Thu May 21, 2009 9:51 pm

Mac:

The source for the lacing was from Effingham's site but I think the link there is currently broken. I had some kozane laced together as an experiment but I took it apart a while back. Here's a picture of some suneate I 've been working on. I was going to use the green braid (ELC color: 'Kelly Green') but it got lost color wise against the black and I switched it to the red lacing you can see in this picture. The red lacing is the 'wide lacing' product from Laces for Less. I bought a roll of the green in 3/8" for kozane purpose and some 5/8" width for a Dou. As you can see it gets kind of wavy if left to its own but I think it can be controlled. I'll try and take a closeup picture of the tape and post that later on.

I like the shine that it gives and it should be pretty cool in the sunlight. As it turned out the 1/2" stuff was around 55 bucks for 144yds while the 3/8" stuff was closer to 70 bucks a gross. I was told the smaller width was something they didn't keep on hand for that particular color/width combination so they had to make a special run.

/edit

Dim light photo but you get the idea:

ConquererHank · Post by **ConquererHank** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:13 am

Wow, thanks for the help everybody. I am really glad I found this forum.

Konrad, you have ended my weeks of searching. I was almost to the point of giving up and using 550 cord. The ELC cord is exactly what I have been trying to find.

Is 144 yards enough for a full laced suit? The guys out here told me 300 yards but that seems like a lot.

Again thank you all for your help and the links.

I will post photos as I get things finished.

Mac · Post by **Mac** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:48 am

Konrad,

That looks pretty nice. That's 1/2 inch tape and 1/8 inch holes? Have you ever tried using a smaller hole? I'll bet you could get away with 3/32.

Mac

raito · Post by **raito** » Fri May 22, 2009 8:34 am

Mac wrote:Raito---I make points on nylon lace with a hot exacto knife. After a couple of tries you get the knack of cutting at the correct angle, and fast enough so the knife does not cool. A well cut point can last dozens of holes, and is easy to re-cut if it starts to fray.

Mac,

Using the stuff from St. Louis Braid, I could get a gross of 72" laces for the same price as a 144 yd roll. Cutting a lace in half gave me yard-long laces, which is about the limit that I want to pull through the holes. So I got more lace, already pointed, and I didn't have to point it myself. As a small aside, if I didn't need the full yard, the cut off bit still had its point.

It's not that you can't use the hot-knife method, but why do extra work if you don't have to? I use the hot-knife method to clean up the ends of the laces after lacing.

Haven't tried either the rice braid or paracord. It's have to look a whole lot better than shoelace to get me to switch.

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » Fri May 22, 2009 10:11 am

Don't thank me, you can thank Effingham for the product he's the one who did the work.

Mac- The second picture posted above is 3/8" material laced through a Noble Plastic Kozane plate so the holes are 1/8". The piece on the right is a piece of 1/2" material just shown for comparason. The material is quite a bit thinner than shoe laces or flat paracord so you can get a wider lace in a smaller hole. I'm working on some armour made form 16 and 18 gauge stainless so making a ton of holes in that material becomes a real pain. Smaller than 1/8" holes becomes a challenge fo me tool wise so wider material will be the way.

Kusazuri and sode lames ready to be cut out.

Effingham · Post by **Effingham** » Fri May 22, 2009 10:20 am

The big difference:

Braid is not shoelace, and shoelace is not braid. Braid is flat (ribbon) and one layer, while *most* shoelaces are actually flattened tubes (and thus by volume twice the amount of material you want or need).

Shoelaces are perfectly functional as sugake odoshi (and even okay if you're doing kebiki odoshi on solid lames), but if you're working with kozane they really mess up the scales.

Konrad, which 3/8" material is the green one? There are a couple of suppliers, and I'm not sure who you used. It looks perfect.

effingham

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » Fri May 22, 2009 10:28 am

The two pieces on the left are 3/8" while the slightly wider piece on the right is 1/2". I'll see if I have a better picture this evening.

Effingham · Post by **Effingham** » Fri May 22, 2009 10:53 am

And they're both the Rice braid? Cool. I haven't worked with their wider stuff -- it might be just the solution to a problem I've been planning to create for myself.

Effingham

raito · Post by **raito** » Fri May 22, 2009 11:03 am

Effingham wrote:Braid is not shoelace, and shoelace is not braid. Braid is flat (ribbon) and one layer, while *most* shoelaces are actually flattened tubes (and thus by volume twice the amount of material you want or need).

Shoelaces are perfectly functional as sugake odoshi (and even okay if you're doing kebiki odoshi on solid lames), but if you're working with kozane they really mess up the scales.

I'm not suggesting that one is the other. For example, shoelace doesn't have quite the right appearance because it isn't a ridged twill. And it's a bit more difficult to get shoelace to come out the holes correctly (more of a matter of developing the touch).

How does shoelace mess up kozane? It didn't seem to mess up my old stuff when I laced it...

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » Fri May 22, 2009 11:12 am

Yep. The 1/2" product I bought was:

BNF-311-16-ON1002 1/2-inch kelly green nylon flat braid

The can also lacquer the braid at an addtional cost to provide addtional stiffness if that's desired for an extra 15 bucks a gross. I ordered unlacquered but it might be worth investigating to see if that might in fact be a better option for armouring purposes. They mentionioned that it does darken the color slightly but it might take some of the wavyness out of the material.

Effingham · Post by **Effingham** » Fri May 22, 2009 12:52 pm

raito wrote:How does shoelace mess up kozane? It didn't seem to mess up my old stuff when I laced it...

It's just too bulky. If the kozane are properly rigid, it makes the tops jut out a bit, and that makes the whole thing just a bit too... well, thick. Makes it harder to fit into a tight dÃ´ without serious fiddling.

Effingham

Effingham · Post by **Effingham** » Fri May 22, 2009 12:54 pm

Cool! But I'm also a bit confused, now. Was the green braid bought on a roll -- and how long? The "per gross" has me wondering if I'm misunderstanding.

Effingham

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:04 pm

Sorry about that, it comes on a spool and is sold by the yard with a minimum 144 yard purchase. So I guess it would be a gross of yards.

Effingham · Post by **Effingham** » Fri May 22, 2009 1:36 pm

Gotcha. Muchos thankos!

Effingham

ConquererHank · Post by **ConquererHank** » Fri May 22, 2009 2:37 pm

The ELC flat nylon braid is exactly what I was hoping to find,

Effingham: I really like your armor website, it is very helpful thank you for all your efforts in making it. I had seen it months ago before I joined the sca and was going to build a set of armor for halloween. I ended up going in a different direction (deep sea diver), but I am really looking forward to building some samurai armor