My First Armour Project! Wisby Coat of Plates #7

Specifications:

This project was a joint venture between myself and Christian Tobler (Grand Master of Selohaar).  We finished it in decent time, but it was an on-off project of a couple weeks due to time constraints.

I had a friend of mine cut out the plates at his place of business (metal shop) with his laser cutter.  So luckily for me all I had to do was round some of the edges.  I used Wiss snips to round the egdes and modify two of the plates.  Here's my take on that, I don't recommend them.  Snips leave rough edges like you wouldn't believe and deform the metal as they cut.  

Well, here's some pictures of how it all started.  

Yup, the pieces were just lying on the floor, begging me to put them together into a piece of armour.  As a side note I have no idea what that white line in on the bottom right corner of the picture, go figure.  I then began riveting the plates to the leather, starting in the middle of a piece (three rivets a-piece) to make sure that there wasn't any bunching.  

Here's the leather with the first plate

After banging on the first rivet with an aluminum block underneath it on the carpet, we moved into the garage and set up on the workbench.  This saved us an immense amount of time.  Always make sure that the surface beneath the area you are pounding on is solid.  The more bounce your surface gives you, the harder it will be to make the hammer-blows count.  

Well, we finally got all the pieces riveted and strapped, and here I am trying it on in civies.  Don't I look like a silly hobbit going to war?  Also a picture of it put together, without straps, lying on the floor.

   

If you're extra observant you've noticed the small tear in the leather on my right side breast-plate.  We got a little overzealous and the leather was caught between the block and the hammer, rather than the rivet.  This was fixed later with stuff from Tandy Leather called "Leather Weld".  It looks like Elmer's glue but works wonderfully.

Here's the final picture of the coat of plates with my current harness.

Notes :

  1. I will never again use pigskin suede for armor.  It's not bad, but not nearly as tough and durable as cowhide suede.

  2. The plates were easily curved over a closed bench-vise.  Since the plates are underneath the leather they don't have to be pretty.  In fact, once I was done curling the plates I coated them in Rustoleum™.

  3. The strapping on the back for the buckle snapped during my second match in tournament.  I was dumb enough to use the pigskin for strapping.  This was replaced with belt-leather and will be tested again soon.

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