Armor (leather/metal and torso sides)

M

Madhawk

Newbie
I'd like to make a cool set of armor that uses many straps. Basically pieces of leather being held to my body by buckles and what not.
So, here's a few questions about armor design:

1) Upper chest says "from the bottom of the sternum to the neck." Where does the neck start? (As far as I know it starts where your collar bones meet... is that correct for armor?) Thus the neck line would be from the bottom of your collar bone to your armpit, anything above that is shoulder. Is this correct?

2) Sides... nothing mentions the sides... if I have straps holding my belly piece to my back piece is this counted towards area that is not covered? Where does the belly start and the back end? Is there an area between the belly and the back that is not counted?

3) Metal. Let's assume that the leather armor with straps covers 75% of the armor location. If I cover the leather with loosely fitted metal plates (18ga steel) in such a way that it covers 50% of the total area, meaning that 25% of the area is uncovered and 25% of the area is in leather. Will this get a 3 point rating?

4) Buckles. If I have square buckles, like normal belt buckles but smaller (1" x 1"), would these be a safety concern? I don't think they could tear up weapons any more than studded leather would.

Thanks,
Jonathan
 
1) Largly marshal choice but basically yea where the collarbones meet is a good basic call. There is no actual shoulder location its part of upper arm but the tops of the shoulder area is usually counted as upper arms along the line you described.

2) chest, belly and back wrap to the middle of your side there is no area not counted though many marshals will be a bit generous with these areas due to the need for fastenings on alot of pieces.

3)If 50% of the total area is covered in 3pt material you will get 3 points so the key is making sure that the plates cover 50% total. However if the plates are small and not close together they may be counted as full coverage of 2 pt material it depends what kind of gaps are left between plates most marshals look at the overall appearance so if there are lots of small plates scatered over the surface they may call it partial metal even if measured idividually the plates amount to 50% + coverage. basically if the plates do not come very close to meeting its more like scale (2pt) than plate.

4)as long as the buckles don't have sharp edges for some reason its not an issue. If however it starts to prove problematic you might be asked to alter or stop useing the armor. It sounds like it wouldn't be an issue though.

Overall the design you describe sounds a bit more like 2 point materials but if the plates are large enough and fited close enough together might be 3 point.
 
I get two points per for my belt armor. It's reasonably thick leather that overlaps a lot and has a fair amount of metal editions to it (mostly functional, I'm not sure what the effect would be if you added plates of some kind to it, I doubt it'd bump to 3 per).
Here's some pics:
Front.
Side.

I've never had a problem with the buckles. Be sure to leave plenty of adjustment room in the belts, I had to replace a bunch because I cut them too close and put on a little bit of weight.
 
Cool armor! The armor I'm trying to design would be more solid though, not just straps all across... More of a patchwork look with straps holding the pieces together.

For the metal, I was considering plates sized 3"x5" to 5"x6" separated by gaps from 1" to 3" (depending on location) making sure the plates account for slightly more than 50% of the area. It wouldn't look like studded armor at all.

Also another question... Would the leather backing influence the decision at all (3oz suede vs 10oz leather)?

Thanks for the answers guys :)
 
you definately have 2 points so the backing wouldn't really make a difference. As for the plates it sounds kinda borderline. The 3 point designation is really mostly for solid metal armor in general though some brigadine with close set plates qualifies. If you really want to squeeze 3 per out of the set I'd advise looking up some info online on the wisby (or visby) coat of plates if your able to basically mimic that but with straps holding the plates rather than the traditional solid leather you'd be fine. 3" gaps starts to move it towards 2 per though. the more coverage you can manage with solid plates the better off you'll be.
 
Thanks for the answers.

I found a link to patterns that would resemble what I'm trying to achieve

http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/klntr-s.gif

Now if the shaded parts are leather, and the white parts are 18ga steel. Would the bellies of these patterns count as rating 3 armor?

I'm thinking pattern #2 would be armor rating 2 for belly but that the rest would be armor rating 3. Is this correct?

And the only chest that stands a chance to have armor rating 3 is pattern #1. Pattern #5 would be 2 and others would depends on the leather used.

These are patterns for Kolontar Armor which is apparently Russian... for more info: http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/page9.html

Any feedback is appreciated,
Jonathan
 
Also remember, under the new armor rules, the Upper chest, lower chest, and back locations are double their old values, so 2pt leather is now 4pt and 3 pt metal is now 6pt per location. Bear that in mind when you're brainstorming new armor sets, I know I would be annoyed if I was going out of my way to try and get to a certain total point value and found out I overshot it by 6pts :lol: .
 
Yea except for #2 that would be pretty much 3 point armor and generous marshals would give three even for #2 I would guess. (Strictly speaking #2 is still 3 point material but only partial coverage so minus one point)

If thats the kinda look your going for I think you'll be able to pull 3 points off. Its basicly a brigadine design and that usually pulls in 3 points.
 
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