Leatherworking – Armour – Greaves

Well making things with bits of leather to be more precise.  When you’ve seen the work of a master leather worker like Ben Loder the things I do really are not worthy   I have a belt and a pair of wristbands made by Ben and know a few people who have armour that he has made.

I’ve made an armour tunic in the past which considering my lack of skill, came out fairly well.

Leather armour tunic

It is starting to look a bit tatty these days mainly because to save money I made bits of it with old leather coats that cost me £5 each.  The rest of the leather came from Ebay and is of a reasonable quality.

My new project is to make a leather tunic, bracers an greaves from thicker leather.

The leather I chose was a special offer from Le Prevo who I throughly recommend for all leather working supplies.  Buying cheaper leather seemed like the best plan as this was a first attempt.  The first step was to make a template/pattern out of cardboard to get the shape of the greaves (armour for the lower leg).  Then cut out the basic shape from the leather.

The first stage will be to try and remove the waxy finish that  is on the leather at the moment so that I can change the colour.

Foam Smithing – Spear – Pt2 “b”

The spear head was near completion. All ready for the first coat of latex.  The material to strengthen the join between the two types of foam was all stuck on and some latex spiral designs that I’d had a mould for from another project had been added.

In the end the  spiral designs looked a bit weedy on the spear head so I decided to make new ones.

This will add a couple of days to the project but will hopefully improve the look of the finished spear head.

For the first stage, making the master from which the mould is made, I use modeling clay mainly because it is

reusable and fairly easy to sculpt.   In fact the main downside I find is that it can be a little squishy but that can be got around by popping it in the fridge for a bit to harden it up.  The picture to the left shows the design unfinished.

Foam Smithing – Spear – Pt2

Ooo that is a snappy title!

I haven’t had as much time to work on this as I’d liked to.  Added to that I’ve picked up an old hobby which is also increasing my list of “things to do when I’ve got the time”.

For me though the scariest part of making the spear is over with – the carving of the foam!  I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I dread doing it.  It is the stage that can really mess up a project, although compared with a sword there is less to carve.

It didn’t go too badly in the end and I’m quite pleased with the result (although there is a bit of tinkering still to do before it is ready).

Spear head assembled.

The next stage is to reinforce the join between the two densities of foam with material before adding the first coat of latex.