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.

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.

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.