This is a fairly simple pattern for a full arm made of
leather reinforced with steel splints. What you need: Steel, 18-16 gauge (I used 16 gauge stainless); Leather, 3-8 ounce (it does not have to be heavy leather at all, the steel is the armour, all the leather is is backing); Rivets, 1/8" inch wide (you can cheat with roofing nails, but rivets are better); Burs/washers (as many of these as you have rivets, and you want their inner diameter to match the outer diameter of the rivets). This arm is made in 3 pieces: the rerebrace (upper arm); the vambrace (forearm); and the elbow cop. I will instruct you in the making of the rerebrace and the vambrace but not the elbow cop. The elbow cops in the pictures I used were made by Wise Ogre Armoury, and
Ron Simmons. (see also: An Introduction to the Skill of Making Armour and Facts and Myths about Armour Patterns)
Rerebrace
First, cut your leather from this pattern:
Then, cut out the plates from these patterns. I used a plasma cutter for this. However, anything from a jig saw to a
Beverly shear would work also.
This is the center plate. You need one (1) of these:
The second plate (one from the center). You need two (2) of these:
The third plate. You need two (2) of these:
The fourth plate. You need two (2) of these:
The overlapping plate. You need only one (1) of these:
Drill or punch rivet holes in the plates, either using your own rivet pattern or the one I used. Then place
the plates on the leather like this:
Then mark the leather through the holes in the plates, take the plates off the leather and punch
holes where the markings are. Now that that is done, you need to give all the plates a bit of a
shallow roll this can either be done by placing the plate on a depression and whacking it with a
hammer, or you can place it on something round like a pipe and whack it with a hammer. You
can also get lazy and improvise some sort of press (for best results, or if your gonna make a lot of these,
use a press).
Now, place the plates back onto the leather, put the rivets through the holes, place the burs/washers on the ends of the rivets and peen them down. The piece is mostly complete
now. All that remains is to overlap the ends by a hair more than the width of the center plate and
sew/rivet the piece closed like this:
You have now completed the first piece of this arm armour.
THE ARADOR ARMOUR LIBRARY Webmaster:Eric Slyter Assistant Forum Moderators: Mike Brock, Kara Frost-Slyter, Glen Kyle, Ron McWilliams, W. Reid Ripley,
Christian H. Tobler, Dave Womble Forum Archive: Marcus Grymme
No part of this site nor it's content may be reproduced without permission from The Arador Armour Library. Please see our Legal Disclaimer.
