The Armour Archive

OK so I am wanting to make myself some splint arm harness - and am seeing all kind of different leather weights used. What weight do other people use? I have never ordered leather before and am thinking of getting a half hide to play with. I am going to start with arms, then legs and possibly a COP/Corazina. Any suggestions? I am looking to make something a bit more accurate historically than the typical SCA splint armor - with splints on both sides of the leather overlapping.

I am looking for something along these lines:


Cheers!

~Kevin

PS - I did try searching. Found everything from 3oz to 9oz leather - that is a lot of variation!!!

Gunther von Schwartzburg's splint probably is the in-and-out variety. What weight of metal are you considering, along with your leather weight?

Using a middling ounce weight of leather seems like it would go -- 5-6oz. If I don't miss my guess, the nine-ounce tended most to appear in vambraces, with flat splints to them at that -- pieces of comparatively small extent. A bigger factor than any is probably people using leather they already had on hand.

Moderate weight won't change the price but it should make the workability better on all the projects you're thinking about.

Just from a functional standpoint, if you are using truly protective steel splints then 5 to 9 oz. cuir bouolli leather should be adequate.

I'd probably use 5 oz. for my shield arm and 8 oz. for my weapon arm.

I do like the idea of using different weights for the different arms , however not sure I want to order two different thickness of leather.

A lot depends on construction.
If the splints are farther apart you want thicker leather.
If your stitching the plates between two layers of material you want something a little thinner.

With the plates overlapping and sandwiching thinner leather should work.
You could likely use a upholstery leather in the 3oz range.
This is the stuff often used on office furniture not the supper thin stuff used in automobiles.
If your making a cop/corinzina the same material could be used even if its fabric.

I found some leather that is in my color that is fairly cheap. It is 5.5 oz leather jacket leather in a bright blue. I think it will work fine given I will have plates on both sides with the leather sandwiched between. The plates themselves will be 16-18 ga stainless (depends on thickness I find at scrap yard) - hopefully I can get some of each and vary the thickness depending on where the pieces are - thicker on the outside of the arms, thinner on the inside where less likely to get hit. I have another joust this weekend then hopefully I can start working on these pieces next weekend.

I also have a Jeep to finish welding for a customer, but that is only a few hours from completion.

Well I found 18ga stainless at the scrap yard - $11 for a 4'x4' piece with the film cover still on one side. SCORE!!! They had a ton of the stuff in 18 and 20 ga, but nothing thicker. I wanted to get some 14-16 ga to try my hand at making a helm. I made a helm a decade or more ago...
I ordered 4oz as well as 5.5 oz black leather. Not sure until it gets here if I am going to make the left side thicker or the legs thicker than the arms.

Anyone used these as washers for the brass rivets to connect the steel to the leather (on the visible side)?

I ordered 50 of them to give it a go. I think they will really dress the piece up.
http://www.amazon.com/Vintaj-Natural-De ... 201_text_y

They'd do that, all right.

Settle for nothing less than 14ga, .0747", and there's nothing at all wrong with using 12ga, .105ish", for the skull of the helmet or forehead plate of the barrel helm. 14ga is very stout in the spangenhelm application, with its overlapped bands and the barrel with its overlaps between its plates. That's really where the state of the art is for SCA rattan, and for rebated steel.

So, did you mean a helm helm, or a welded-up curvy-hat such as a bascinet or a barbuta, both of which can be fabbed up from three dished pieces, two skull halves and a nape?

In riveted hats, either a metal hand punch (RW #5 Jr or bigger) or a small, not too expensive drill press will make the hole-making quicker and a lot easier to do neatly.

While I have done some SCA rattan fighting, it is not what the splint armour and the helm will be for. They will be for theatrical jousting at renaissance faires. I want to make a Black Prince style great helm to go with the splint armour (I want to have a different suit of armour for each of our three shows a day). Ideally the front would be 14ga stainless and the side and top 16ga. We do not hit each other in the head, but accidents can and will happen. My current helm is 16ga mild and it has held up just fine. The arm armour should be fine in overlapping splints of 20 ga stainless. If not it will be easy enough to re-do the splints in a thicker metal. I made the vambrace pattern last night and will start cutting metal on Monday (we have a B2 Beverly at work I can use). This weekend I will be jousting at the Door County Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin.

I have a small bench top drill press as well as access to a complete machine shop with drill press, lathe and Bridgeport mill. I also have access to several CNC plate burners but none are setup to work stainless, and I am done with mild steel armour.

All rightee... you got some assets, then. Sounds like a plan. 16ga SS should be within the Bev's capabilities.

Waiting on blades but I picked up a new looking Ryobi 9" bandsaw at a garage sale for $40 - has a woodcutting blade on it now but I ordered two 18TPI metal cutting blades for it. I also got a medium sized 5" jaw vice with anvil top for $10.

I have my pattern all made and a cardboard prototype created. I am wondering what to do with the splints - should I ad a central ridge down each visible splint to dress it up and for strength or just put in a curve? With the ridge not sure what the best way to rivet it on would be. My plan was to run 4 rivets down the center of each plate, but if I ad a ridge then I have to move them to the edges, the plate overlap makes that difficult. My pattern has 1/4" overlap of each plate. Plates are roughly 3/4" wide at the wrist and a bit over 1" wide by the elbow. I have 3/16 brass and steel rivets as well as 1/8" brass and 3mm brass nails...

In that case, curve.

Curved, or creased, has the same effect.