The Armour Archive

NEW ARMORY STARTUP

Recently a friend and I have noticed a demand for a particular type of product in the armory circuit, and that is unfinished armour. The armour that we are planning on making is unfinished; it will be “kitsâ€Â

Question(s):

Do you have any examples of prior armour work?
Do you have any armouring experience?
Hollow speed rivets are not structurally sound for metal armour why not use actual rivets?

How will your steel be cut? If it is cut by shears or saw, will you smooth the edges? I like the idea and would love to be able to send new fighters to your website to help them armour up at a cheap price. The other thing I like about this is that I have found newbies are more likely to stick with SCA combat if they make thier own armour. Not sure if it is a cause and effect, but it works. Keep us posted on your endeavours.

Bjorn

[quote="Gabriel_Carduus"]NEW ARMORY STARTUP

Recently a friend and I have noticed a demand for a particular type of product in the armory circuit, and that is unfinished armour. The armour that we are planning on making is unfinished; it will be “kitsâ€Â

macrgra wrote:How will your steel be cut? If it is cut by shears or saw, will you smooth the edges?
Bjorn

Bjorn,

All of our parts are cut by plasma, and the edges rounded and smoothed by hand file and grinder.

Sorry I did not clarify that a little more thoroughly.

Thanks for your post,

Shawn

Budobudo wrote: Will you include instructions with the kits?

Budobudo,

Absolutely, assembly instructions will be included with the kits. That is, at least, the instructions on how to properly hook and rivet everything together.

Thanks for your post,

Shawn

Your endeavour sounds like a fantastic idea. It does seem to be a trend that is taking off. Of course the artistry of armour is not only in the design but the construction and finish.
I would love to send you a few patterns that I have designed for quotes...can we send them via e-mail? What would turn around time be?
Take a look at the patterns in the archive of this very site. Those are tried and true as any.

Good Luck!
Rabhairt

Your competition will be stiff... as their are plenty of members that produce various armour kits presently on this forum.

Good thing we have free enterprise in this country. Yes?

Best of luck on your quest.

Halberds

And as I always say.....

Rabhairt MacNeill wrote:I would love to send you a few patterns that I have designed for quotes...can we send them via e-mail? What would turn around time be?

Rabhairt

Rabhairt,
Absolutely, our email addresses are linkcar@aol.com, or cjmweb@aol.com, whichever you choose to use is fine by us.

Turnaround will be as fast as possible, no more than two to three weeks from time of payment, including time necessary for shipping (that is, assuming that the shipping company we use doesn’t happen to become absent-minded).

Thank you, and hope to hear from you soon,

Christian and Shawn

I know that a website may be a extra expense and or a pain but perhaps you should do a photo bucket or something. People like to see things. Make three or four fan types on your couter or poleyns? take a picture of them all. Take a picture of the items with a ruler or something so people can get a size approximation. Finished items of the pieces are also a good idea.... this is what it should look like, etc. when finished. I think it is a good idea but alot of it depends on your prices being low enough to beat the people who make items formed but unfinished. Thats tricky. You probably will have to do alot of web surfing every couple weeks to keep up. I more or less just do custom things for people I know or meet as I never had as much time as I wanted to to work on armour. Of course that is life for a worker/student/familyman. Good luck and if you need any help organizing a website/photo-bucket post here there are tons of people here with indepth wisdom of the computer force.

If you are looking for free web hosting just to get you started, you can try Freewebs. It's what I use. It's not perfect, and the designing process can be aggravating, but they do give you a couple of templates to choose from to get you started. They also do not use pop up ads, which is really nice. They will eventually put banner ads at the top of your page, but they aren't all that distracting. Most of the ads I have seen at the top of my pages have been just plain text (with clickable links) superimposed over my background. All in all, it's decent for being free and it's much easier to advertise your wares if you can just include a link to your site in your sig line.

I really think this endeavor is a good idea. It would be perfect for someone like me who (eventually) would like to learn to make steel armour, but I don't have access to steel. It would also be good for people who don't have a way to cut the steel. I have seen helm kits and gauntlet kits, but I don't recall seeing kits for breast plates, knees, arms, legs, GORGETS (hint hint), etc. and I think they might sell well.

Good luck with this! I am anxious to see what you will be offering!
Cat

Gentlemen,
I have sent you an e-mail for pattern quotation. I very much look forward to hearing from you. Take care...