The Armour Archive

Hi all, it's been a long time for me. I think it's been over 12 years since I last made any armor and I need some help/advice working on some gear for a small unorganized WMA freeplay group.

Ok, why leather? The hand protection rules of the group is basically minimal metal allowed since grappling is involved. Yet it still needs to be rigid enough to take a blow from full speed shinai, or the occasional hard shot from a wooden waster.

I'm looking to see if leather finger gauntlets are possible and/or practical. Clamshells don't seem to have the dexterity I'm looking for. So seeing the Wisby designs got the gerbils in my brain churning. Has anyone had any success in making wisby style gaunltets out of water hardened leather?

What I could use some help on (since search seems borked right now):
* Patterns and pattern adjustment (wet leather shrinks). Most patterns I've seen are for metal.
* Thickness of leather for the whole deal.
* Any suggested tips or modifications for better thumb protection.
* Any good links to shaping leather.
* Padding - where it would come into play in the construction if I choose not to use the pre-padded welding gloves.


Other projects on my plate: Non-metal hand protection for a vegan. Non-fencing mask head protection that's more authentic looking yet not a heavy helm.

I appreciate the information in advance.

some members in our group are trying to develope a leather gaunlet mostly for practice, so far it looks like a wisby-esque. a heavy hardened leather attatched to another glove, the leather pieces look similar to the wisby pieces I make from steel. We're with AEMMA so there is grappling,dagger, sword in 1 hand , sword in 2 hands, etc.,etc.

To add a bit to Whonew's comments...

First off, we use blunt tempered aluminum swords, both arming sword and longsword variants. Some of us have had it with the excessive weight of full steel gauntlets for what is essentially unarmoured combat at full speed. AL hits much harder than shinai but about the same as wooden wasters. We aren't trying to simulate amputation of limbs though. Blow weight is more measured to be firm but recoverable.

Some of us are tinkering with hardened leather, laminations of thick harness leather, leather/felt/foam combinations, et cetera. Wisby / brigandine style gauntlets made in leather are really clunky for the protection they offer. Laminating a couple layers of dressed harness leather is difficult on the fingers, often requiring a supplemental finger buckler. A hardened "cuir boilli" half gauntlet with some type of finger protection seems to work well. Either a finger buckler, plate strips or overlapped scales seems to be adequate. They are all intensely hideous solutions, IMHO. They are also a lot of work preferable only to those without any metal working experience or tools. And this from a leather tradesman!

The same patterns and assembly made in light metals do the job better. 20 ga stainless over 1/8" felt and a stout leather work glove are more than sufficient. 14 oz harness leather is almost as good but more bulky.

Shape veg tanned leather with warm not hot water and it will not shrink substantially. You might experiment with lighter weight leathers (8oz?) sized with glue as many here suggest. Search "rabbit glue" in entries over the past two years. Lots to learn there.

Good luck with that!