Leatherworking – Armour – Greaves – Part 3, Vambraces and a Quiver

Having completed the greaves and being pleased with the result I made a pair of vambraces (bracers?) as well.  I think the acrylic paint works well.  Looking at a lot of leather dye products which seem to also be made of acrylic I think that possibly the secret is to 1) make sure that the paint is absorbed at least partially by the leather and 2) that you don’t lay it on to thickly, otherwise you will have a sort of plastic acrylic coating.   The test will be when I actually use them.   It will be interesting to see how they fare over a couple of events.   This is all good information for when I make the leather scale armour I’m planning, hopefully I’ll complete this by the beginning of May. I am hoping to experiment with decoration for the armour.   There are more than a few guides on the internet so I have a rough idea of the basics (although looking at some of the examples it is I think wise to practice on a few scraps first).  One thing in my favour though is that I’m not planning on any really elaborate designs.

Another thing I learned, which was obvious really once I thought about it, was that setting rivets needs a hard surface.  Previously I’d been using a corner of my tool box and of course the plastic was absorbing some of the hammer blow and the rivets were not setting properly.

After the success of  the bracers and greaves I decided to make a quiver for my arrows which had until now been carried in an old cardboard postage tube covered in faux suede,  which can be seen in a photo on this post.  It didn’t look too bad, just made an annoying rattling noise when ever I moved,  not great for someone trying to play a stealthy scout.  The quiver was a quick fix job really so I didn’t spend a great deal of time on it.  I had some softer leather spare, which I originally bought to replace some of the thinner bits of my current armour, but in the end decided not to use.  The quiver is basically a sort of leather bucket with a strap cunningly made from a very cheap leather belt.   It is a little too big for the task really and I’ll have to re do it at some point but it will hopefully be useful for a weekend.

Foam Smithing – Coreless Dagger

The advantage of having no core in a dagger is that in many systems it can be a throw weapon.  No core means you have in essence a lump of foam covered in latex, and while not the softest thing in the world it is unlikely to do any great harm.

From the point of view as being used as a prop weapon is that the foam has virtually no rigidity.

I’ve made a couple of coreless daggers in the past the first one although not bad was a little on the large side, so I never really used it and eventually removed all the latex to try out an idea I had for carving the foam.

The second was the stone/flint dagger  in the right of the picture to the left.   It was an experiment which worked really well and used up an off-cut of foam that was otherwise destined for the bin.

The current one is a little more ambitious and has the added  factor that I’m making it for someone else, and not having made anything for anybody apart from my son and I means I’m even more nervous about the result.

Coreless Dagger Blank

It’s based on the dagger in this photograph on wikipedia.  A fine looking celtic dagger with anthropomorphic handle. The blank was relatively easy to prepare using four layers of 6mm foam.  Well truth be told this was the second blank.  The first went horribly wrong during the dreaded cutting phase, which resulted in a nice handle but a blade like a stiletto, or possibly the first larp safe tooth pick.  As I’ve said before the cutting out the blade bit is the part I fear most.  In theory it should be easier with a dagger, shorter blade, less to cut.  So using the last of my foam I started again.  Hopefully this time it won’t be such a disaster.

Foam Smithing – Spear – Pt2 “c”

Too many projects!  I’ve sort of resigned myself that I’m not going to get the spear finished by the end of February.  Partly because I don’t have enough foam to cover the spear shaft.  It isn’t a huge problem though the February event is probably going to be “combat” light so I will make do with the weapons I already have.  The spear is to be a back up weapon anyway.  I have finished the mould and cast the first section of decoration though.

Leatherworking – Armour – Greaves – Part 2

So far so good.  I used some fine wet and dry paper to take the waxy finish off of the leather, then some fine sandpaper.

The first greave I painted went a bit wrong, the acrylic paints I was using (two different brands) kept seperating so I kept getting dark green “pools” that made the finish look a bad attempt at camouflage.  DPM greaves anyone?

With the second greave I kept mixing the paint as I went and this seemed to help.

After the paint dried I soaked both greaves with water and scrunched them up to give them more of a used look.

The main thing I am worried about is that the acrylic will peel off.  So far it is looking ok.  The one mistake I did make was making the straps too small.