Beginner's armor help

so i need to learn how to make armor, and i'm not good with my hands, i am taking 20 hrs of school plus working 15hrs a week in a lab, so i don't really have much time and i don't wanna spend a fortune to go out and buy made reps. Can anyone tell me how to make cheap armor easily?
 
How much armor are you looking to have? Generally, in building this stuff, there's a trade off. Cheap, fast, and good : Pick Two.
 
Cheap and fast. this is for new players before they really get their armor if they didn't come with any.
 
never have before in my life. don't even own a needle and thread. I could try, i just don't really wanna invest the time and money if i can't do it.

though a tabard would be a very good project because there are these wonderful iron things from home depo that can be sown into a tabard to make it plated armor...

I am open to trying new things, but i don't have a lot of time. soon i'm going to have more because i don't have to teach someone lab work, and can work more on school, but i'm pretty swamped
 
So, making the quilted armor actually doesn't have to be as hard as it sounds.

Buy a large t-shirt... used is fine. It's going to be your pattern piece. Lay it flat and cut up the sides under the arms so that it will fold out to one flat piece over the shoulders. (You can also cut along the shoulders to work on smaller pieces of fabric.) Cut the arms off leaving the seam on the body. Reserve arms.

Buy your fabric. Place the shoulder of your pattern piece on the fold and pin down, being careful not to stretch the pattern piece. Cut it out. You can either stitch the sides closed (do so with right sides of fabric together) or just buy a grommet tool from Jo-ann's or another fabric store and leave the sides to be laced. If you leave it open, you want to hem the edges. Hem the neck hole. You can also sew the sides together, then cut the front open up the middle, hem it, and add grommets there for something that ties closed.

You can add sleeves by laying the sleeves from the t-shirt out and cutting them out as well. To make longer sleeves, you just cut longer along the length.

Putting arms on the body is best done in the following manner. Take the un-sewn body and un-sewn sleeves. Pin the sleeve to the body, right sides together, along the shoulder. Sew. Pin sleeves and body along open seam. Sew. This lets you sew straight lines... nothing fancy and very good for getting the hang of a machine.

Hem anything that's an edge and isn't getting sew to another piece. I also recommend going over seams a second time just to reinforce the stitching.

This probably sounds more complicated than it is, but you could reasonably do this in one to two hours of work. It's fast, fairly easy, and can be done fairly cheaply if you hit the sales. Use canvas and you have a material that's sturdy enough to support studs, rings or plates.
 
where you out of? chances are, there might be someone with the know how and/or tools to help you out.
 
If you'd like, I do quite a bit of sewing, and I'd be happy to make something for you. I made my friend Ron a pretty sweet quilted tabard for hella cheap. It was also damned fast. :) I'd be happy to put something together and mail it out to you, and, depending on size, materials and complexity, i should be able to quote you something less than $60.
 
Something else that is fairly easy but time consuming is a patchwork leather armor.
Hit the scrap bins at your local leather store, simply sew them together using the pattern that you want - tabbard, vest, etc.
This gives a nifty adventurer look to it, or you can pick up a leather trench fairly cheap any more (such as here - http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Leath...YH34/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1299190044&sr=8-2)
and do some simple snip and sew, stud it out, however you want
 
Silverharp said:
Something else that is fairly easy but time consuming is a patchwork leather armor.
Hit the scrap bins at your local leather store, simply sew them together using the pattern that you want - tabbard, vest, etc.
This gives a nifty adventurer look to it, or you can pick up a leather trench fairly cheap any more (such as here - http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Leath...YH34/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1299190044&sr=8-2)
and do some simple snip and sew, stud it out, however you want

I'm considering something similar with an old jacket I own...it's already a patchwork thing I had for 15 years now. Getting rid of zippers is a pain though.
 
I just came up with a cheep, Good looking, High armor point solution. I grabed a vets from a thrift store, about $6, and some electrical plates someone had lying around, and I sewed them into little square pouches and used that to sew to the inside of the vest.

The vest is kind of heavy but very elegant looking. people won't realize you're practically wearing plate mail.
 
Really only cheap if someone's got the plates laying around, though. Did you remember to clip the corners off the plates to round them? Otherwise, trust me, you're not going to want to fall down in that thing. I've bent enough plates on my coat of plates at this point that I -really- appreciate the time we spent to round them out so they don't stab me.
 
The plates cost me about $12.50 that Gorka used. You can find out about that here. 25 x 4"sq plates gave my 190lb, 6', longer than average torso, 70% coverage.
 
Davion,

As Wraith pointed out a common pitfall which makes armor fail safety inspection is not "rounding out" the edges on those square plates. They can make dangerous little points that snag and ruin weapons and or the wearer if/when the weare should fall atop them. From what I understand the process of rounding them out will also allow the armor to last much much longer and doesnt take that much extra time.

I look forward to seeing you strut your new armor at the castle, I am sure it will look awesome.

Paul
 
I would probably suggest sticking a metal gauge guide on one of those before you buy, as well. If I recall, most utility box covers are 22 gauge, which isn't thick enough to merit 3-point armor. The 18 gauge 3" x 5" mending plates we used in my last set of armor ran about double what you're quoting for those box covers. Worth the expense, though, it's held up to five years of several different people trying to beat it to death. Josh did good work on that design and build out.
 
and where might we be able to find those mending plates or something similar?
 
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