The Armour Archive

Just so everyone knows it is not a good idea to rivit a strap directly to a piece of leather but rather cut a slot and rivit your strap to the inside with the strap emerging through the slot. This will eliminate any strain on the rivit and prevent it from pulling through the leather. Cut the slot in front of the punched hole the direction your strap is to go.

(______) <-- this is the slot

() <-- this is the hole


strap goes ^ up from this point.

Makes a strong connection and does not pull on the rivit but rather on the leather itself. Works with steel, but you need to round the edges of the slot. Do likewise with buckle end too, but you will need to punch a bigger slot for both ends of the buckle strap.

see example here

www.hosekileather.homestead.com/bucklepic.html

Hope this works for any out there.

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<A HREF="http://www.hosekileather.homestead.com" TARGET=_blank>

www.hosekileather.homestead.com

</A> "There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth"

[This message has been edited by Warren (edited 03-22-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Warren (edited 03-22-2002).]

Another approach with strapping to steel is the non-period but useful practice of attaching the most frequently blown straps with Clip & Dee assemblies. I think you can get these from Leather Factory. Having your strap go to a D ring means you only need cut the destroyed strap off and put another on, rather than having to drill out the rivet.

Of course, if anyone can show this to be a period strapping practice I shall be most humbly grateful!! Our forebears weren't no dummies, after all...

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"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone..."

I have a shoulder strap that is about to blow out for the 2nd time now, I'll try the D ring see how that works. I like the slot idea for staps when all the pressure would be in one dirrection, if there were any side to side motion it might over time cut threw the leather (on steel anyway). Thanks for the tips!

I have put D rings on nearly every strap on my armour. I use a small metal strip around the flat part of the D to rivet it to the armour and the leather strap goes around the round part of the D.

My advice on D rings is to either buy solid D rings or weld the butted ones shut. You don't want them opening up on you. I didn't think that they could since the metal strap was folded around the D into a =o shape, but I have had several Ds open up on me. In fact, I had two of them go at the same time Sunday! A smaller 1/2" D that held a lower leg strap and the 1" D that held the leg up to the leg belt. Wearing a 3/4 leg as a greave looks pretty funny.

If you don't use solid Ds, squeeze them back tight with pliers every few months.

- Scott

The one problem I had with d-ring strap anchors is the leather slipping though the rings from time to time. I fixed this problem by tipping the strap with a dome-headed rivit. Peaning a small solid rivit with front and back washers keep is adjustable (handy for loaning) and pretty much stops detachment failures.

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Sir Theodrik of Skane,
West, Mists, Blackwood Company
'Lude Fortier, Lude Juste, Nemini Damnum!'

Instead of a "D" ring, use a rectangular ring.
Then (if I understand what you propose) you'll be fully period (at least for non-West-European).

What I'm assuming you're talking about is something like this:
<pre>
___________ =====____________
/metal || |leather \
| O frame O || | strap >
\___________|| |____________/
=====
^
|
ring
</pre>

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Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
The Red Kaganate - http://www.geocities.com/kaganate
silkroad@spam.operamail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)