Riddle Game #6

[Marras]

One more guess. Is it going to be a linen armor?

[higgins]

Nope again. The correct add-on material has been suggested, but with a wrong form factor.

[Marras]

Metal studs?

[higgins]

Riveting will be involved, yes

[Marras]

Will it include metal bands (not heavy music bands, necessarily) like in legionnaire's armor? I don't know what it is called, though.

[higgins]

Will it include metal bands (not heavy music bands, necessarily) like in legionnaire's armor? I don't know what it is called, though.

You mean something like this?????

[Marras]

Something like that, yes.

[higgins]

And yes, in case you were wondering, those are the actual plates that I used. On the previous picture, they're looking all weird with oily residue from the tempering process. Here they're all cleaned up and painted to prevent rust:



I tried bending the curved belly plates completely flat on the floor by putting all my weight on them and as I released the pressure, they popped right back into the original shape.

[Marras]

Quite a tension Do you have pics of the finished armor?

[higgins]

I do.

The armor is complete, tested... and I even wore it to our national championships last night.

However, as people have expressed interest in build diaries, I'll document the whole process here. With all the mistakes made in the workshop and what we learned from it.

The first mistake was that most people put too much trust into the template armor we copied. Specifically, they measured the plate curvatures and tried to match them exactly. Instead, I put on my gambeson and bent the plates into shape so that they fit my body... that being the whole point of a custom build.

Alas, nobody listened to me in that regard as I was the "weird one" that bent my plates three times as much as everyone else in the workshop. The lack of sufficient curvature resulted in one guy needing to cut his side plates into two smaller sections, as the too straight pieces just simply would not close, creating some sort of roof shape on his back, instead of form fitting his body. The guys that missed the first tempering batch will definitely be adding more curvature to their plates now.

Another lesson regarding the plates is that you really should pay extra and have the pieces tempered one by one. We tied our plates together in fives and tens and this resulted both in uneven tempering (couple of the plates were actually brittle enough to crack as we worked on them), and the cheaper bulk method also meant that the craftsman didn't take the time to make sure the individual pieces came out of the tempering as they went in, resulting quite a few plates that twisted into... propellers, essentially.

The tempering part once more proved my curved plates an enormous success, as for some reason, they had no twists in them, probably due to their shape. The only relatively straight plates I had were for the back, and they were indeed the only ones with deformities in my bunch. As a general rule, the straighter the plate was going in, the more twisted it was coming out. Sheet metal weirdness, I guess.

Also, whoever had the job of counting all the needed holes in the plates counted the rivet holes correctly, but didn't mark the holes needed for the straps. As drilling tempered steel is a good way to ruin a bunch drill bits in a hurry, we decided to combine the straps with some of the edge side rivets. Turned out fine, but it's something to consider the next time around.

In addition, if you ever do such bulk tempering, keep in mind that all notes and names written with a permanent marker will burn off in the oven and it would be wise to punch some markings onto the plates. We did that, and it was still quite some work to tell the plates apart... me having an easier job because of the more pronounced curvature of the plates. Finding my back plates from the pile was still a hassle though. So, unless your punch marks are readable as braille, they're probably too shallow.

Now, the leather...

Being all concerned about right angles, I totally failed to realize that right angles in my armpits would be a bad idea, as they look weird and can result in tears (in the fabric, followed by the ones from your eyes). Luckily I had enough leather that I could sacrifice some of the armor's length to radius out the armpits.



The neck area is kind of weird on the above image as well. The shape of my leather piece didn't allow me to make both shoulder straps from one piece, so, it was clear that I had to add them later, but I kept one on there to leave me some options down the line.

And here's the most preliminary fitting. No rivets yet! Pieces are bolted together:



Notice the vertical cuts on the bottom section of the leather. These are made to allow me lift my knees while determining the fit. Apparently being 5' 11" is relatively short in our club, so, I ended up deepening the cuts later. The collar area also has cuts back and front to fit my head through. Having the cut-ins instead of a larger collar has the benefit of providing more protection for the neck during the fight, but also your head will still fit through when you need it to.

[Marras]

Very informative description, Higgins. There seem to be many ways to fail in a project like this.

[Agamemnon]

Very informative description, Higgins. There seem to be many ways to fail in a project like this.

I can imagine it really gives one an appreciation for the amount of time and effort that went into a suit like this back when one's life actually depended on it.

[higgins]

Indeed! For both your comments!

Case in point, I clipped an image of one of the tempering fail propeller bunch. The shot is taken as perpendicular to the table as possible.



If you think that this thing has to follow the shape of your body, it's pretty bad. Also notice the pronounced difference in the curvature compared to my plates.

...

Oh! And I totally forgot to explain (and document) the process of cutting plates. Basically we ordered some 100 mm wide strips of sheet metal, which we then cut into proper length with a guillotine. Then drilled the holes and radiused the corners and edges using an angle grinder with a sanding disk on. Bending was done mostly by hand. Some hammering on an anvil to get the very side edges bent back a bit so that they would not cut into the fabric.

The sheet metal was 1 mm G43, I think, which is around 19 gauge for your Imperial folk. If I could do it all over again, I would probably go for 0.8 mm or 21 gauge. You definitely need tempering with sheets that thin.

...

So, to the actual riveting now. I'm using "bronze" double cap rivets. Totally ahistorical, but the other option was to go for some roofing nails which didn't mesh with the leather half as well coloration wise. Plus the double cap rivets are easier to work with. The other method would have basically meant a lot of cutting plus ball peen hammering to rivet them).

When choosing the rivets, I would not go smaller than 8 mm in diameter and I think mine were 6 mm tall. With 3 mm leather and 1 mm plate, they looked good, but just barely. The 2 mm extra length to be hammered showed a bit.



Here's the inner side. Note that since I rivet the upper edge of the plates, I needed to start riveting from below, meaning that I couldn't test the length out as I went, but had to gauge the correct length right away. Despite having made 5 belly plates, I decided to use four as to be able to lift my knees.

All the riveting was made on an anvil of course. The plywood is there for cutting and measuring surface.



All the larger pieces complete. As are most the straps.



Inside view.



Chest area complete. Notice that I had to grind the lower three plates a bit shorter to avoid pointless overlap. I will also definitely shave the corners off the upper corners of the top belly plate.



Also notice that despite using four plates for the belly, I used five for the sides to give better protection for my pelvis.

And... the paint is rubbing off already. And I haven't even used the damn thing. Reason for this is that I was in a tight timeframe, as I needed the armor for the tourney and thus spray painted the plates. NOT a good idea for long term rust prevention! Use proper brush and proper paint!

The shoulder strap adjustment was one of the hardest parts and by far the hardest part in fitting. You could do most of the other stuff if you know what you are doing, but for the shoulder straps... you need another person to help you, and (s)he better know what they are doing as well!

...

And here's the final armor, complete with back plates and back straps. I put them in one hole in the middle as I previously mentioned -- we didn't drill holes for the straps, so, I put both into the central top rivet hole. On that one, I used a proper steel rivet. Worked just fine and the upside down V shape looks kind of unique.



Also notice that I removed the bottom strap to add mobility. With three straps, I was as if in a barrel. Removing the bottom one was a huge improvement.

The head hole is still quite tiny. I made the cut-ins and punched holes into their ends so that the transition would be smooth and they would not tear (no close-up, sorry).

As for the bottom ornament, I will have finish it at a later date. The deadline was pressing on and I didn't think of a cool design that I'd like to use. If you guys find some cool pattern for me to carve the bottom leather strips into, post it here and I will definitely consider it!

[Marras]

Thanks! Great pics and great description.

How much time it took for you to make it?

[higgins]

How much time it took for you to make it?

I cringe to think about it, but probably a full work week on my off time. Maybe a few hours more. If you count in the initial measuring and planning, it will probably reach to full seven eight-hour days. However, there's multiple factors in play here...

a) I pioneered the build, which made it more time consuming as I had to figure stuff out first
b) while we had people that had built armor, they hadn't built anything like this one
c) often I had to wait for an available workbench/guillotine/anvil spot
d) once I had to wait several hours for a guy to show up and help me test the fit
e) ...and quite literally more than half of the listed five days was spend just measuring and making sure I got the leather part right... as you truly can only cut it once, and THAT'S IT.

Some of the D factor is also present in E, as fitting and cutting tend to go hand in hand. And at 40€ per square meter, I didn't fancy ruining the piece.

Also, by our initial calculations, the armor used 1.5 m2 of leather, however, I wanted to build more stuff and bought 2 m2. Of course, leather being irregularly shaped, I think the other guys that bought 1.5 m2 will have to piecemeal their back sections.

So, one of the initial frustrations was about the wasted leather. However, as I soon found out, despite the irregularities, there was hardly any waste at all.



Fiddling around and making the most of your scraps consumed a massive amount of time. If I had just cut all the pieces and straps from a larger piece, I would have easily saved several hours. Basically all the time that I was waiting for the experienced fitter, I messed around with these pieces and I wasn't quite done when he arrived. In the end, the pieces that went into trash weren't much larger than my thumbnail and many of them were in fact smaller.