The Armour Archive

I made a gorget for a friend of mine, intended for use in SCA rapier. I (very)loosely based it off of some late period examples. The leather was hardened by soaking it in acrylic; a process i'm pretty pleased with, and I'm looking forward to experimenting some more with. My hope is that the acrylic will help waterproof/resist the leather. It worked really well as a hardener. I'm a little concerned about forming more complex projects with acrylic, as acrylic takes much longer than rabbit glue to dry. I'm a bit worried about how to shape complex things like bazubands or shovel greaves using this method. I have to find a way for the piece to keep its shape during the drying process.

I'm also working on my tooling skills. My next project will be more complex, and I will play with colored paints + acrylic hardening.

Many thanks for His Grace the Duke, Gavin of Kilkenny, for timely and sage advice on the use of acrylic.

Many MANY more thanks for the patient tutelage of Uillieag. I hope he sees it when he comes back.

Constructive commentary is welcome! Losers who start flamewars can sod off.



Front.



Different view of the front, closeup of tooling.



Back.

Cheers, y'all.

Dat's pretty nice, Baron.

That's slick, Alejandro. I eventually wanna do one of those for my fencing outfit.

Bout how wide does the mantle of that run over the shoulders?

And are you keeping the lacing or going with buckles?

I like the embossing.

Christopher

Thanks, audax! I'm jes' gettin' warmed up!

Christopher,

The mantle extends out to just inside the wearer's shoulder socket. Where the bony part of your clavicl disappears. About the lacing, depends on the wearer's preferences.

Something about the coloring of the lacing looks a bit "off" compared to the scalloping. Maybe it is simply the excess.

Any plans to color the tooled areas? Or are they simply going to be left black?

The lacing is from a spool, the rest of the scalloped edge is from a different hide.

The tooling will remain black (y'know, all sub-tile an' stuff). This is the finished product, except for maybe buckles.

Very pretty! What kind of acrylic did you use? I've tried soaking leather in wood hardener, with mixed results.

It's called Future.

I like it