The Armour Archive

CAVEAT
If you have a problem with plastic armour in the SCA, I understand. Please bear in mind that this particular gorget is planned to be hidden and inobtrusive. It will be permanently covered with fabric when it is complete and will probably be worn where it cannot be seen (i.e. hidden under a gambeson, etc.). So if you have the need to make an anti-plastic rant, please start another thread and spare mine. However if you have any constructive criticism on my project, please let me hear it.

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Intro
I no longer have my brigantine (sp?) gorget for my SCA fighting kit, having sold it a few months back. With Pennsic fast approaching, I realized I no longer have a gorget to wear...whooops! So, necessity spurred me to action and I decided to create one for myself.

Why Plastic?
First of all, my plan is to wear this as hidden armour, so I wanted something I could sweat on and not have it prone to deterioration. Plastic seemed to be an easy answer. Second, I had an idea I could handle the fabrication with the tools and materials I had at hand.

Pattern
My idea was to shape it like a 16th century gorget (repro) I had owned. So, this would be a "plate project." I reasoned I could get the shapes and pieces I wanted out of a 3-gallon plastic pail. I started off by building a mock-up out of posterboard, shaped and sized to fit around a collar of 1/2" camp foam that was in turn sized to fit around my neck.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/finkas/PatternCutting.jpg[/img]

It took a couple of tries and some re-patterning but I got something I was happy with rather quickly. This was lucky, but partially due to experience I have with patterning fabric collars in the past (especially the standing collars for doublets).

Fabrication
The next step was to transfer the pattern to the plastic bucket for cutting. I disassembled the posterboard mockup and scanned the pieces. Then I used a drawing program to create clean line drawings of each, formatted to output on letter sized paper. I printed these patterns and spray-mounted them to the bucket.

I cut the pieces out with a pair of aircraft snips, drilled the holes and assembled the gorget with screws and nuts to check for fit. The fit wasn't as good as I wanted but I had hoped that some heat shaping would serve to smooth out the problems.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/finkas/PlasticGorgetApart.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/finkas/PlasticGorgetView3Quarter.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/finkas/PlasticGorgetBackAngleView.jpg[/img]

And that's what I came up with (see above). The rivets are the flat copper type with separate rove. I ground them flat after peening. Using a heat gun, I was able to flare the edges a bit and do some finessing to the overall shape. It was tricky and I got some slightly lumpy parts but since the gorget will be covered in fabric it is not such an issue.

To get the front and back to match up, I clamped them together and hit the overlapping sections with the heat gun to "normalize." Then I doused the whole thing in water and set the forming. I was surprised how well this operation worked.

The last bit was to sand all the surfaces well in anticipation of gluing on the fabric. I also made sure there were no sharp edges anywhere. This is probably not vital as this will be covered by thick canvas---but might as well be thorough, right?

Next installment: Fabric, Padding & Strapping

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Tools used:
Razor knife, drill, scissors, permanent marker, electric drill and bit, a couple dozen 1/2" screws/washers/nuts, 2 spring clamps, 2 C-clamps, RR track anvil, rawhide hammer, small peining hammer, heat gun, rove-seating tool (a small metal tube), large file, sandpaper, Dremel tool with grinder wheel bit, lineman pliers, large aircraft snips, PC computer, Macromedia Freehand software, scanner, laser printer, tailor's form, assorted stakes from Halberd's Beginning Armorer's kit.

Consumable Supplies:
Posterboard, white paper tape, spray glue, copper rivers with roves, plastic from one 3 gallon paint container, strip of 1/2" blue camp mat foam

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Cheers,
Tim

Nice clean line, and its going to be coved.

The only thing that come to mind is depending on how well the plastic hold it shape? I would probly rivit a second layer on the inside of the throat. May be overkill but better save that sorry, or may be I'm a little parnoid about my throat.

Looking forward to the next pic's

Marcus

Looks pretty good, I agree that the plastic might not hold its shape or stand up to the abuse very well but that depends on your thickness and it looks like its about 1/8 thick so you should be ok, Great job for a first try. I’d also be a little concerned with how it covers the top of your spine, it looks like it covers the chest great but it looks a little lacking in the back. That might just be how its setting in the pics but if it is short, consider adding 2 or 3 lames to the back and that should do fine. Also im interested to see how the plastic in general works out for you because im currently working on a plastic lamellar of my own now and it feels a little flimsy to me.

Great Job

Nick

Nice work. Looks almost like it could be white leather instead of plastic.

Rae

Good point about the coverage on the spine. I'll figure out a way to augment it. I am a combat archer so I don't expect to be hit much if at all. Still, I want adequate safety just in case.

The plastic is very rigid at this point but I am considering some sort of reinforcement. Maybe I will consider adding a second layer in strategic spots. However, I am wary of adding too much bulk. Good stuff to think about.

Thanks for the input thus far!

Tim

Tim-

It looks nice. Would that all plastic armour projects were approached with this level of detail in mind.

Good luck. (And can't wait for the installment which shows is fully covered.)

P d'ST

I'm familiar with those buckets, and I'd add a layer around the throat front, and over the spine. I believe it's not as ridgid as 18 ga mild steel unless you have 2 layers. Otherwise, way cool.

Hi!

Very nice work - congrats! Would you be willing to share your pattern files?

Cheers,
William

william wrote:Hi!

Very nice work - congrats! Would you be willing to share your pattern files?

Cheers,
William

Here you go:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/f ... tern01.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/f ... tern02.jpg

They are formatted to be at 100% size at 8.5" x 11" Please bear in mind that this is a prototype and you may have to mess around with it in order to make it work. I offer no guarantees that this design is appropriate or safe for SCA combat. I offer it only as a "costume piece". What you do with it is your business and any risks you take are on your own neck (quite literally).

Design notes: The back half is meant to overlap the front half (or front half overlap the back half) by an inch or so. I have a 16.5" diam neck and the gorget is sized to fit me + 1/2" layer of camping mat foam.

Cheers,
Tim

Tim,
I have a bit of experience with plastic like this.
All I can say so far is GREAT JOB!!!!
Be aware, when you unpack it, EVERY time, check it for cracks unless you pack it in such a way that it won't get bashed around in an armor bag. Plus, when/if you get hit...check it also, it is afterall, plastic.
I had one once that cracked at a very inopportune time, and I missed it untill it fell off in the middle of a combat, call it embarassing.
IMHO you could also rivet leather over the front to help increase durability, heck, you could even do it w/ aluminum and snips...

Thorfinn

Good suggestions. Thorfinn. Thanks!

I want to avoid leather if I can, but had considered aluminum. Now all I need is some time to get back to this project. I am dying to do the improvements suggested by you kind folks!

Tim

1st - great job!
You have some serious talent getting the idea in your head transformed into reality with your hands.


2nd - what others said:

- bad choice of material. I once made cuisses out of paint/spackle bucket and covered em with leather. The transfer of the ratan through them was 100%. Don't trust your throat to it!!!

I use some of that as a trauma plate laced into my lamellar and there is still some transfer.

- cover that spine! Especailly as a combat archer. We play CA's can yeild or get hit. A lot of times they go for that inclose shot and risk taking the hit (ballsy! ). Attacking a CA, at the last min they tend to tuck the x-bow to their chest leaving the head. The natural attack I see is the wrap as you don't want to hit the bow.

OTOH, if you're covering em in cloth - I think you could make a MINT selling to the rapier community.

Hows the colar restrict head movement?

Head movement seems pretty good.

On the subject of the paint bucket material, how would 2 layers be instead of one? Any thoughts? How about the thick vinyl they make the mats out of for under your office chair? It seems to be very resilient, fairly thick and robust, and although not cheap, no too pricey either. It has some give so I doubt it would crack under impact. But enough "oomph" to resist deforming drastically easily.

Mind you if I was back in SoCal I'd just take a short drive to my favorite plastic supply place and buy a sheet of 1/8" HDPE. But I don't know where to get that here. Maybe I need to look around some more...

Tim

Timothy_D_Finkas wrote:On the subject of the paint bucket material, how would 2 layers be instead of one? Any thoughts?

I would not wear one for heavy list.
I think they'd just crack on the rivet holes and (God-forbid) risk the potential for serious injury.

Go to a carwash and get the empty soap barrels. The usually throw em away.

I have used that material before. Thanks, I'll have to source some. There's not many carwashes around here...but if I try hard enough I know I'll find something.

Hey Tim...
Go to a scrap yard an old roadsign...(aluminum)
I used to cut them with a sabre saw on the lawn, the dirt helps keep the blade cool and clean of aluminum gunk and galls. Then you would not have to mess w/ plastic at all. It's not ideal, but it works.

I agree the rapier community would LOVE this plastic gorget...

Thorfinn

PS: scrap aluminum is .70/lb here...so ya may have to spend up to 5.00 and get enough aluminum for about 20 gorgets....sell at 30.00 each...hmmm, where was that pattern>? *grins*

Hi Tim,
I make my gorgets from 3/16" HDPE; I don't think that 1/8" is the equivelent of 18 ga mild steel. I keep mentioning "equivelent to 18 ga mild steel" because that's the SCA standard. I only use 1/8" for SCA armor if I'm overlapping it (coat of plates, lamillar), or if it's not required armor (greaves). Other than that, I use 3/16" or even 1/4" (for spaulders, knees, elbows, cuisses and breastplates). I've fought in several SCA kits and pounded a lot of steel, and these general rules are after a lot of thought. You could go a little thinner if you used ABS, but you would have a slight danger of cracking then.

Hi!

Thanks for sharing your pattern graphics - they will be of great help!

Cheers,
William

Taking your cautions to heart, I took the gorget out and draped it on a heavy packed duffel (a pavilion packed inside a canvas bag) then set to work snapping the hardest rattan sword shots I could muster. I very quickly fractured both the front and the back pieces! Success!!!

So...Plastic Gorget Version 1 was a failure. On to Version 02!!!

Photo of broken pieces to come...

Cheers,
Tim

Its nice that you found out with it on a duffel bag, reather than on the war field

please keep us posted on how mark2 goes

best of luck Marcus

Speaking of plastic...

I had no luck finding any plastic barrels. Pittsburgh is an odd place. There is stuff you just can't get here, and it frustrates me. I only know of one car wash and they never have any barrels there. It's the only car wash within convenient driving range so I have to try another route. Cripes, back in Long Beach, CA I'd have a 2 minute drive to find a dozen or so for the taking. Failing that, I'd go to the plastic store and buy a sheet of HDPE. The only plastics place in Pittsburgh went out of business. Arrrgh!

I bought a long strip of a very interesting material at this local building surplus place called De-Construction Junction. It looks like a roll of textured plastic material and is very thin. But it is incredibly tough. When I was destroying the gorget, I beat the hell out of this stuff (with my ratan baton) and could not get it to chip or crack. I think it might be the sort of fiberglass they use to do tub enclosures but it's hard to say. It's white on the back and a molded-in crackle-craze pattern in shiny black on the front. It's very springy and will bend but not hold a bend. I am contemplating using it for reinforcing plates to go into pockets on the inner side of my War of the Roses quilted jack to provide "body bracelet" area protection. I need to do some more torture tests with it before I put it to armor use.

I also bought a molded Christmas tree stand of robust polyvinyl. I wacked it as hard as I could with the rattan and didn't phase it a bit. So...promising material. Of course, it will may be a different story once I start cutting and shaping it---because perhaps it's cuuernt shape dynamics are adding a significant factor to its strenghth? Anyhow I may try making Plastic Gorget Version 2 out of it. Of course I need to change the pattern a little to provide more coverage/protection in the back, as some of you suggested.

Cheers,
Tim

You could also try UHMDPE, think construction barrels. (Obviously I mean get some damaged ones that were hit not steal them.)

Also don't forget a very valuable location to try and get materials such as ABS...


The local Public Works department. Even if they don't ahve the materials themselves, they should be able to point you to the ompany(s) that hold the contracts to produce the materials that you're looking for.

I'll post up as to how this works for me here in Midlands.

Cheers,

I did another experiment encasing shapes of that nearly indestructible fiberglass sheet in canvas, then sewing the canvas pieves together. It made an interesting result but is not maleable enough for the curves of the piece. The back edge will not keep a shape and will perhaps prove too difficult to mate to a back piece. So I am giving up this version, at this stage.

So...on to version 3! I need this to fight next week so it's Do-or-Buy...

Next version: leather + plastic? Leather + metal?

Cheers,
Tim

I got my 45 gal HDPE barrels from a bakery, where they go through a lot of molasses for making ginger snaps. Much nicer smell when you're washing it out. Unfortunately, they were all Smurf blue.

D. Sebastian wrote:OTOH, if you're covering em in cloth - I think you could make a MINT selling to the rapier community.

Maybe not, if only one layer of pail plastic, as in the first version.

East Kingdom Marshal of Fence wrote:3. Rigid material: puncture resistant material that will not significantly flex, spread apart, or deform under a pressure of 12kg applied by a standard mask tester, repeatedly, to any single point. Examples of rigid material are:
a. 22 gauge stainless steel (0.8 mm)
b. 20 gauge mild steel (1.0 mm)
c. 16 gauge aluminum, copper or brass (1.6 mm)
d. one layer of heavy leather (8 oz., 4 mm)
[snip]
If schlaeger is being used, additional throat protection is required; it shall consist of rigid material covering the entire throat and shall be backed by either puncture resistant material (such as a hood), one quarter inch (1/4", 6mm) open cell foam, or their equivalents. The cervical vertebrae shall also be protected by rigid material, provided by some combination of gorget, helm, and/or hood insert.

But for epee, I suspect that it would easily satisify the "puncture-proof" requirement for the throat, sides, and back of neck, permitting one to wear just a fabric puncture-proof arming cap (with extra-long back portion) to cover the area in back of the head not covered by the mask, rather than a full head-and-shoulders hood.
The gorget and cap combo probably provides better ventilation and hearing than wearing the full hood.

Timothy_D_Finkas wrote:I bought a long strip of a very interesting material at this local building surplus place called De-Construction Junction. It looks like a roll of textured plastic material and is very thin. But it is incredibly tough. When I was destroying the gorget, I beat the hell out of this stuff (with my ratan baton) and could not get it to chip or crack. I think it might be the sort of fiberglass they use to do tub enclosures but it's hard to say. It's white on the back and a molded-in crackle-craze pattern in shiny black on the front. It's very springy and will bend but not hold a bend.

I wonder if that isn't a polycarbonate material? Like Lexan, but with dyes and stuff in it.

I get ABS and HDPE off ebay all the time. You shoudl at least give it a look.

Hew wrote:I got my 45 gal HDPE barrels from a bakery, where they go through a lot of molasses for making ginger snaps. Much nicer smell when you're washing it out. Unfortunately, they were all Smurf blue.

D. Sebastian wrote:OTOH, if you're covering em in cloth - I think you could make a MINT selling to the rapier community.

Maybe not, if only one layer of pail plastic, as in the first version.

East Kingdom Marshal of Fence wrote:3. Rigid material: puncture resistant material that will not significantly flex, spread apart, or deform under a pressure of 12kg applied by a standard mask tester, repeatedly, to any single point. Examples of rigid material are:
a. 22 gauge stainless steel (0.8 mm)
b. 20 gauge mild steel (1.0 mm)
c. 16 gauge aluminum, copper or brass (1.6 mm)
d. one layer of heavy leather (8 oz., 4 mm)
[snip]
If schlaeger is being used, additional throat protection is required; it shall consist of rigid material covering the entire throat and shall be backed by either puncture resistant material (such as a hood), one quarter inch (1/4", 6mm) open cell foam, or their equivalents. The cervical vertebrae shall also be protected by rigid material, provided by some combination of gorget, helm, and/or hood insert.

But for epee, I suspect that it would easily satisify the "puncture-proof" requirement for the throat, sides, and back of neck, permitting one to wear just a fabric puncture-proof arming cap (with extra-long back portion) to cover the area in back of the head not covered by the mask, rather than a full head-and-shoulders hood.
The gorget and cap combo probably provides better ventilation and hearing than wearing the full hood.

AFAIK there is no Kingdom currently requiring that 'rigid' be used with any form of 'fencing blade' -- so it's more than is required with an epee. I'm sure it would pass 'puncture proof', since this is designated by a drop tester. Not sure it'd be any more comfortable though.

I believe that I would have no issues with a sufficiently rigid and backed plastic gorget; it's really how much will it deform. Rigid means rigid (note that the 8oz leather is deceptive and up for review in the new society rules). You're not SUPPOSED to get hit hard, but it happens.

-- Charles
-- KRM, Outlands

Blackstone wrote:AFAIK there is no Kingdom currently requiring that 'rigid' be used with any form of 'fencing blade'

East Kingdom does, for schlager blades. It's right there in that quote I gave, following the snipped portion.

So does An Tir:

All fighters must wear rigid neck protection. The protection must cover the front, sides, and back of the neck. Some examples of acceptable neck protection are a gorget with a high collar or a layer of rigid material covering the outside surface of the bib and the back of the neck"

That's for all rapier weapons form, if I read their regs rightly.

How about the Society regs?

Protective Gear
A.v. The rest of the head and neck must be covered by at least puncture resistant material. If heavier-type rapiers are being used, additional throat protection is required; it shall consist of rigid material, as noted above, covering the entire throat, and shall be backed by puncture resistant material (as a hood), one quarter inch (1/4") (6 mm) of open-cell foam, or their equivalents. The cervical vertebrae shall also be protected by rigid material, provided by some combination of gorget, helm, and/or hood insert.

Almost exactly the same as the EK.

Or are you saying that schlager blades (and the like) are not "fencing blades"?

Blackstone wrote: -- so it's more than is required with an epee. I'm sure it would pass 'puncture proof', since this is designated by a drop tester.

Agreed. As I said before.

Hew wrote:
Or are you saying that schlager blades (and the like) are not "fencing blades"?

My apologies; yes. Fencing blade/light rapier (foil/epee) to differentiate from heavy rapier (schlager/del tin/fibre glass)

Yes -- An Tir (as a heavy blade only Kingdom) would mandate gorgets for all combat, following society. Along with Atenveldt, Artemesia, etc.

-- Charles

Blackstone wrote:

Hew wrote:Or are you saying that schlager blades (and the like) are not "fencing blades"?

My apologies; yes. Fencing blade/light rapier (foil/epee) to differentiate from heavy rapier (schlager/del tin/fibre glass)

Ah. All is clear now. Fencing in the FIE sense.

Good job so far. I made mine out of 55 gallon plastic barrel. So it is 1/4" thick. I have worn it for almost a year with no apparent damage so far. The only complaint I have with it is that the front half piece has started to flatten out some from the heat in my truck as it sits in there most of time. So it constricts the front of my throat a little.

But my solution has been to make another one out of steel. And keep the plastic one as back-up\loaner.