The Armour Archive

I recently got a giant swatch of 12-14oz leather. I'd like to make some 2 piece vambraces and a pair of upper arms. How the heck do i measure my arms to make sure i've got the right size pieces of leather? i've looked up patterns online but they dont seem to fit me. Does anyone have tips on tailoring leatherwear to fit?

Also, will i need to harden the vambraces for SCA fighting? i have no idea how to do this, hahaha

I want them to look similar to this pattern. With the top and bottom vambraces and top arm with attached metal cops.
http://www.bladeturner.com/pattern/artarm/artarm.html

Here is a pic i saw in the classified section of this forum that i similar to what i want to do:
http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k134/ ... her004.jpg

The best way I have found is to use poster board or card board and just hold it up to your arm. Draw the shape of your arm on the poster board and then make adjustments and cut it out. After you cut it out you can put it back on your arm and see what else needs adjusted. Use the patterns online as a guide, but mostly just a visual reference.

I fought in unhardened leather vambraces for a few years with no trouble. They were really thick though, and I lined them with mouse pad. If the leather is thinner you might want to harden it.

Eamonn wrote:The best way I have found is to use poster board or card board and just hold it up to your arm. Draw the shape of your arm on the poster board and then make adjustments and cut it out. After you cut it out you can put it back on your arm and see what else needs adjusted. Use the patterns online as a guide, but mostly just a visual reference.

I fought in unhardened leather vambraces for a few years with no trouble. They were really thick though, and I lined them with mouse pad. If the leather is thinner you might want to harden it.

This. Even an old brown paper shopping bag will work.

Alternately, you can get an old long sleeved shirt that fits pretty closely and duct tape around your arm, several layers everywhere.

Cut up the inside of your forearm, and you have a pattern that is actually curved, that you can then trim and shape to get exactly what you want.

(if you wear a gambezon or pads, obviously, put the shirt on OVER that, so you take into account the padding)

For very simple hinged vambraces, I do this.
I measure my upper forearm circumferance, my wrist circumfarance, then draw out the lower vambrace with half that diameter. After that I just draw the upper vambrace over it, making it somewhat shorter.

Try this out: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... highlight=

Hmmmm...I tried to follow the link to make sure it was active and it does not want to work. Do a search for Author: Vitus von Atzinger and Forum: Armour - Design and Construction and look for "Wet formed leather Vambraces"

I may be off-base here, since my vambraces are in steel, but I made a pattern that was close, and after shaping it, cut off any excess so that it didn't wrap too far, but gave me sufficient material to work with. This was partly because I didn't have my gambeson with me at the time to get a closer measure. Imagine a long trapezoid that tapers toward the bottom for the wrist. The top two corners were then scalloped out by the elbows to prevent binding with the elbow cop. I curled it, tulliped it out and then cut the edges down. Hope that helps a little.

what I did for my neck armor is i melted down bees wax (in a coffee can) on a bunson burner and then I just applied it on with a paint brush
I hope I helped

The measurement data you will need are as follows for the upper arm.

First you will need to decide if it's a fourteenth century arm with integral spaudler-type articulations at the deltoid, or a fifteenth-century (or short fourteenth) arm with independent spaud. (The short 14th-c. model won't have the independent spaud in period.)

14th w/spaudleroid: length from 1" above midline of elbow joint to 1" below the bony point of the shoulder for everything but the shoulder cop, which rides over everything, overlapping. Spaudleroid articulation can be readily tweaked to a bit longer, a bit shorter. Circumference around bicep. Use only 2/3 to 3/4 of this measurement, leaving the inside of the biceps open for getting into the arm. So that's how tall and how wide your rerebrace's metal should be.

Take measurements around your arm at above the elbow joint, and around your upper arm as high in the armpit as your pecs let you. These are more or less checks to avoid annoying surprises near either end of the rerebrace.

14th w/o spaudleroid, Churburg 13 style: 1/2 the length established by the above method, everything else as above. If you want more length, go to about the insertion of your deltoid muscle into your upper arm.

Vambrace is forearm, rerebrace is upper arm. A later-arriving term was upper and lower cannons. Cop and lames about the elbow.

15th-c. style features, at least eventually, independent spauds that overlap and strap on around the rerebrace. These spauds run to wider lames and greater length to give coverage over the rerebrace, which as you probably expect, suspends independently of the spaud. Very often one or two more lames to the spaud as well, fetching up halfway down the upper arm rather than being kept up only over the deltoid. Rerebrace length runs from 1" above elbow's joint to insertion of deltoid, vambrace remains as explained by JoJo Zerach (who is learning rapidly and well).

Cud, re hardening: search the site on "water hardening". That will pull up all the threads we've got on the subject.

Welcome and well come to the Archive.

Expanding on what Maeryk said... Once your arm is wrapped in tape (with gambeson/padding under the sacrificial shirt), if you know what shapes the plates should be when they are on your arm then you might find it useful to draw the outline of those shapes onto the tape while you are wearing it. Then you can cut it off along those lines. Also, If you are working with a posterboard pattern - try wrapping it around your arm as the finished piece would fit (as best as you can).. Bend your elbow and move your wrist around with the test pattern in place. The pattern may fold and wrinkle in places around the inside of your elbow and at the end by your wrist... those wrinkly-foldy spots are where the finished armor made from that pattern will probably dig in (the dreaded "armor bite") and hinder movement and damage you and your clothing, so you might want to look at where it is folding at the edges and trim the pattern back a bit if it seems like there might be a problem.