Three piece armour

click on the images to enlarge. This armour used some commercial shoulder buckles which I had picked up in a superstore. The side buckles are centre bar brass. The leather is a nice 5 ounce light duty leather that I had picked up just to make armour.

The backplate is flared rather than rolled. Although I normally charge a bit extra for this service, I did it just to show my student how it was done. The flare looks okay.

The faulds were as simple as I could make them. No frills here!

Yet they don't look all that bad all in all. Took two men working about 9 hours each to pull this one off. A full day, but a productive one!

Armour finished.

click on images to enlarge.
This is the new brass. Looks not too bad...I think it took about 4 hours all in all. But I think it was worth the trouble....it really makes the armour look nice.

Here is a nicer pic of the armour...with ME in the picture. As you can see, I am a little bit shorter than the client. And there are picadills behind the tassets and behind the faulds as well.

Not too bad...those oxblood straps really set the armour off well. That red lace. hmmm. Must tuck that away. The big round buckles are "home made", while the centre strap, buckle and lion are "off the shelf". I might let the outermost buckles on the tassets out one hole, allow them to hang more straight down.

The back has more than enough room for expansion...the client will cut down the straps when he sizes it to him. Right now, they are, like, way too long. But better long than too short.

The back is a little lighter than the front, not much, just a shade, and it has a high gloss lacquer finish on it. The shadow lines turned out really well. And of course the top tabs need to be bent down a bit.

So I can call this portion of the job finished.

Backplate woes

Above is the new version of the breastplate. It is not as dark as I would have liked, but its a LOT darker than the first one. Its the alloy.... thats as dark as it'll get. Thats from the batch of new steel I picked up on Wednesday. I will have to make the other two pieces from the same piece, just to make sure they all match.

This was the best I could get with the first batch of steel...sort of a streaky blue. This is a weird material....can't be a steel alloy. It just simply didn't match the rest of the armour, so I made a new back plate. And come to think of it, that middle piece will have to go as well....I am sure the client won't want horizontal stripes....more work on a Friday morning....grin!
So, anybody want a nice backplate?
The more you heat this stuff, the "lighter in colour" it gets. strange stuff. Can't be "steel". I have no idea what it might be other than steel though! Maybe some alloy of stainless which snuck into the pile.

Erin S's armour, blued again

Erin wanted blue armour, and here it is. Sort a dark greyish,blackish dark blue.

The original one was this colour, blue-purple. By going an extra twenty minutes at a 25 degree higher temp, it turned a deep dark blue. Have to watch it close though....it goes grey really quick once it starts to turn, so it behooves one to keep an eye on it. Below is a side view of the new armour.

above you can see the fine roll lines the different stress levels in the steel result in different colours.

click on all these images to enlarge.