Armor

what kind of armor?
 
eBay is probably your best bet.
 
Even then, be careful. A lot of what's sold on ebay is mild-steel about as thick as tinfoil, and won't stand up to even the minor beating that running around in the woods and falling down will give it.
 
Why buy?

For info on the "how to" for armor smithing. (not just wisby plates)

Light reading:
http://www.livesteelarmor.com/how/asb.html

http://www.living-history.no/ click on Tutorials, fairly in depth with good descriptions

http://home.earthlink.net/~old_bear/sit ... attern.pdf

almost a must read for basic armoring: http://www.brighthelm.org/armour/
download and print it, read it over a beer or three.

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just armor ideas:

http://100megsfree3.com/kragaxe/howto/Howto.html

http://www.beautifuliron.com/links_bks_ ... ginner.htm
Lots of books and downloads. Plenty of reading... Get the books from the library. I had the The Armourer and His Craft by Charles FFoulkes in the garage for 2-3 weeks before it had to be back at the library.


http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.html

http://myweb.cableone.net/thor276/HOME.HTML
If you don't watch out with armoring your garage ends up like this!!!
This guy is my hero!!! Check out the shop and the tooling he uses!!!
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But if you want to buy, and have it reliable, and fairly well crafted, I can advise:
http://www.madmattsarmory.com
http://www.realarmorofgod.com/store/htm ... e-827.html
http://www.realarmorofgod.com/store/htm ... t-115.html
The real armor of god has good prices but really ding you on shipping...
 
I've gone the ebay route. I did get a bargain on one of those hybrid polyurethane pieces once. The steel pieces I've gotten have been OK but nothing spectacular. Azon chainmail is good (2 points per location) A shirt for under 200 I think will get 12 points or more if it has sleeves. Throw in a coif and you're at 16 (under 100). Pants and you're at 20 (just over 100). Costume points and master crafted if you're lucky...

All I have is the shirt but it's good quality. One of those helmets from Norton Armouries is also smart. With the exchange rate right now you can get some for 100-150.
 
Remember when buying armor that the upper chest, lower chest, back, and head locations are double their old point values, so a chain vest that used to get you 6 pts (2 per location) is now actually 12 pts.
 
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/perfect_armor.html

Step 1 - Go to that site, read it twice.

Step 2 - Look up leather in your phone book, call everyone listed, and ask if they have scraps of 6-8 oz. or 8-10 oz. vegetable tanned leather available.

Step 3 - Get your supplies. Go to a crafts store. Buy a leather punch that can punch smallish holes and a block of parafin wax from the candlemaking section. You'll also need a good, sharp utility razor or box cutter, some spare blades, some kind of hammer, and something to put under your work piece when you're punching holes. I use an old cutting board so as not to scar my work bench. Finally, you'll need a few hundred feet of some strong, durable cord or lace. I use nylon paracord that I can get for about a dollar per hundred yards at a surplus store.

Step 4 - You'll need a double boiler to melt the wax in. Not that molten wax is messy as all get out and will get everywhere, so don't do this in a nice kitchen. Also, parafin wax burns if you don't treat it right, so be very very careful and keep a fire extinguisher handy. Alternately, don't wax harden the scales and then with unhardened leather.

Step 5 - Follow the instructions in the website. Cariadoc provides a pretty good explanation of how it all works, how it laces, and so forth.

The upshot is that you can do it very inexpensively. Fifty dollars is a good budget if you can borrow tools. And you get to learn something about leather working. It's also fairly easy and forgiving, since what you're really doing is cutting out one scale from a pattern about 200 times and punching holes in it, then lacing all the scales together so that they form a tunic. Get a buddy who does leather working or repairs to stick a few buckles on it, or lace it closed, and you're good.

And it makes great armor. It's fairly lightweight, it briefs well because it's constructed of many overlapping scales instead of a single plate, and being waxxed, it's pretty durable. If it gets bent out of shape you can heat it up in order to melt the wax then reshape it to get it back to fighting trim. If you go with 8-10oz. leather then you should have two plates overlapping at any given point, for 16-20 oz. of rigid leather protection. I have no idea what that counts as in alliance, but from experience it makes getting smacked in the belly with an oak rod upleasantly stingy instead of painful and bruising. Lamellar scale is also very modular. You can make extra scale-maille and add it to the bottom of the tunic to cover your legs, or build shoulder guards out of it. I've heard of particularly clever monkeys who have worked out how to make helmets out of the stuff.

Eitherway, that's my two cents on the good/cheap armor issue. Best luck!
 
Eh. Cariadoc's method is great for SCA combat, where it has to absorb the impact of a real blow. But for our system, it's a lot of time, effort, and monetary outlay for 2 points of armor per location. A steel helmet that is good enough for LARP is doable for under $100, and brigandine or splinted armor is both easier to construct with about the same outlay in tools, and more forgiving of mistakes than leather and hot wax. Not to mention being worth 3 points per location, so long as the plates are at least 18 gauge and cover at least 50% of the location necessary. Six points each on the upper and lower torso and back, so a brigandine jack like the one pictured here is 18 points of armor all by itself these days.

I'm going to be making myself a new coat of plates soon, maybe I'll get out the camera and do up a full tutorial while I'm in progress to give folks an idea of how easy real armor can be.
 
Wraith said:
Eh. Cariadoc's method is great for SCA combat, where it has to absorb the impact of a real blow. But for our system, it's a lot of time, effort, and monetary outlay for 2 points of armor per location. A steel helmet that is good enough for LARP is doable for under $100, and brigandine or splinted armor is both easier to construct with about the same outlay in tools, and more forgiving of mistakes than leather and hot wax. Not to mention being worth 3 points per location, so long as the plates are at least 18 gauge and cover at least 50% of the location necessary. Six points each on the upper and lower torso and back, so a brigandine jack like the one pictured here is 18 points of armor all by itself these days.

I'm going to be making myself a new coat of plates soon, maybe I'll get out the camera and do up a full tutorial while I'm in progress to give folks an idea of how easy real armor can be.
Click to expand...

You forgot the shoulder pieces too, to make it 21 points. Add a set of plate gauntlets and leather boots - and there's your 25 point suit for a templar.
 
To give you some ideas, here are 25 reconstructions based on coats of plates found in the mass graves from the battle of Visby. If there's interest, I'll post up my design sketches for the new armor as well.
 
I would suggest appealing to your fellow players before going to E-bay, simply on the grounds that you might get a chance to look at what you're buying before you actually put down the money.

To totally contradict myself, Think Geek is selling Aluminum rivetted maille shirts at a very low price.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-appare ... eric/9080/

I believe one of the folks who showed up at the March game for Southern Minnesota was wearing one of these. I don't recall her name, unfortunately, but she seemed quite happy with her purchase.
 
That would have been me.

Great shirt for the price. It's lightweight, comfortable to wear and so far seems to be durable. It's a bit oddly sized and you might have to take a ring or two out of the neckline, but all in all, good purchase.
 
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