Wooden armor. Viable or not?

[glaive_21842]

(NOTE: I just realized that using my gamer tag for a name prolly wasn't a good idea. For those of you who don't know me by that title, I'm NIck Schwanbeck and will be playing an orc named Wussup at the next April 3 (4?) event.)

So i was thinking about various ways to physrep some armor, and the idea of wood came to mind as it would be cheap, easy, light, and with my resources, really cool. However, I'm not sure if wood would be a viable material for armor at Alliance LARP. Soooooooo....good idea? bad idea?

If wood is actually viable, then i want to know if my idea for implementation is sound. My plan is to take 4 squares (per side) of 1x6 8" and tie them to a canvas tabard. It would look something like this...mind the quality, i did this in paint.

I plan on using a light red wood stain and a finish as well... unfortunately, i wont be able to have it stained, burned, and finished for my first game with it...meaning it'll just look like crappy whitewood (maybe with routed edges...).

I was also thinking about doing something similar with sheet metal. If i do go this route eventually, what gauge of metal would work? I was thinking about gauge 18, which would be just under 1/16". As for attachment, i was thinking the same thing, but with 16 pieces rather than 4 (so each piece in the pic above would be divided into 4). I might also be able to get them scorched, which would be cool ^_^.

 

[Maxondaerth]

I would recommend quartering your panels to make smaller panels that will allow more flexibility and less likelyhood of cracking/splitting/ruining your armor. I'm sure otherwise it'll look sweet and be very personalized, but I think for durability of the armor and mobility of the wearer, you'd be better served with 16 panels than 4. Maybe do your woodburning pattern first, then cut it so the decorations on it just have a minor broken up look to it? I think that'd be sweet personally.

 

[Wraith]

Wood is a pretty terrible idea for armor, simply because any thickness that is light enough to be viable to carry is also likely to shatter if you fall on it hard and provide ample splinters to hate. It would look pretty cool, though, if you're willing to put up with the chances of breaking it falling. For lamellar like that, I'd suggest leather, light steel, or if you can stand the looks of it, plastic.

The plate style you illustrate above appears to be the Newcastle-type plates, which are available in several colors of plastic and pre-cut and drilled for lacing for a fairly reasonable price. I've got a bag of them around here somewhere myself, that I need to get around to finishing some scale accents with.

You could also resort to going wisby coat-of-plates style and riveting that 18 gauge metal plate to a leather body, and still get the artistic looks you want by tooling, burning, and/or staining the leather that faces the world.

 

[glaive_21842]

(NOTE: I haven't actually bought any of this yet, so my plans can still change ^_^)

@Maxondaerth
I definitely agree that i prolly should quarter those panels. I had designs that were 6 panels (3 wide, 2 high) that would have used 1x4 6" plates, but when i got to the hardware store, I made the decision to go with 1x6...but i can't remember why. Either way, 16 of them would still prolly be better.
As for the panorama, i plan on using a router to curve out the edges of the wood, which would remove parts of the picture...which is really too bad cuz that would have been really cool! I'll definitely have to consider trying to just make a panorama from scratch or something.

@Wraith
the plates were going to be 1" thick, which should hopefully be think enough to be strong. As for weight, i feel confident that i can wear this with 1" thick wood. I've already made a trip to a hardware store and held enough wood to complete this suit and it was lighter than the metal armors i held at my last LARP event...but i totally see your point on the slivers! I might be able to alleviate that a bit with the edge routing and extensive sand paper, but it would probably be in my best interest not to wear it until i can get a good coating of varnish on it. Unfortunately, that probably means i won't be able to use it next week (assuming a decide to make this) since i can't varnish it till it gets burned.

 

[Gunnar]

Actually, I used to wear wood armor - its a matter of how large your plating is, and as others have said, how flexible it is.
My armor was made from (crazily enough) place mats of lacquered bamboo we found in Chinatown in Philadelphia, strung with tiger's tail.

It has since been handed down to another player who looks more awesome in it than I ever did:

But my plates were obviously much smaller than just four solid, however you would lose the wood burning idea unless you were really patient in laying out the design, or it wasn't too complex.

Hope this helps,
Ali

 

[markusdark]

I have used wood armor in the past and I am working on a couple of sets for a game in August right now. The thing that you should do though is first discuss it with your local chapter. In the rulebook, the only mention of using wooden armor is for a 1 point per location. Although that is under "Light non-metallic armor" and supposedly you should be able to make a 2 point per area for "heavy non-metallic", they don't mention what thickness of wood that requires (or bone or rope as the case may be). My thought process is that ALL wood armor is 1 point since most of the other non-leather items really can't come in more thicknesses (doeskin, suede, vinyl, etc.)

 

[Dreamingfurther]

You should be able to get 2 pts per location for thick enough wood armor. "non metallic plate mail" is listed from the rulebook on page 77 as qualifying for 2pts per location. For example I have 1 piece breast plates made out of 1/4 inch thick pvc foam board (shaped plastic) that qualifies for 2 pts per location. So if your wooden armor qualified for that it should be able to get 2 pts per location.

 

[jpariury]

I had this whole thought process about whether or not armor could be damaged when not worn, and if so, why can't you cut down a door by doing it's armor value worth in damage, which led to a door is not armor, and then thought "when is a door not a door? when it's a jar!" and giggled to myself a bit.

That said, it seems like there should be some thickness of leather that provides two points of protection, and even if you can't buy it, you should be able to layer thinner layers to account for the appropriate thickness. But then I remembered that our armor rules are silly and gave up.

 

[Wraith]

@Wraith
the plates were going to be 1" thick, which should hopefully be think enough to be strong. As for weight, i feel confident that i can wear this with 1" thick wood. I've already made a trip to a hardware store and held enough wood to complete this suit and it was lighter than the metal armors i held at my last LARP event...but i totally see your point on the slivers! I might be able to alleviate that a bit with the edge routing and extensive sand paper, but it would probably be in my best interest not to wear it until i can get a good coating of varnish on it. Unfortunately, that probably means i won't be able to use it next week (assuming a decide to make this) since i can't varnish it till it gets burned.

1" wood? Wow, that's going to be a heavy suit. Love it see it when it's done, though. You're planning to play Southern MN, right?

 

[glaive_21842]

1" wood? Wow, that's going to be a heavy suit. Love it see it when it's done, though. You're planning to play Southern MN, right?

Nah, I'm fairly confident i can handle the weight. I've already held enough wood to complete the suit and it seemed lighter than some of the metal armors I've held at larp events...or maybe it was about equal. Either way I should be fine....hopefully. But yeah, I'm in the Southern MN chapter and will be at SoMN, but I doubt I'll have the armor ready by then. I don't wanna get covered in splinters, so I'll only use it when I've completed the staining, burning, and varnish, which sure as heck won't get done in a week T_T.

 

[Wraith]

1" wood? Wow, that's going to be a heavy suit. Love it see it when it's done, though. You're planning to play Southern MN, right?

Nah, I'm fairly confident i can handle the weight. I've already held enough wood to complete the suit and it seemed lighter than some of the metal armors I've held at larp events...or maybe it was about equal. Either way I should be fine....hopefully. But yeah, I'm in the Southern MN chapter and will be at SoMN, but I doubt I'll have the armor ready by then. I don't wanna get covered in splinters, so I'll only use it when I've completed the staining, burning, and varnish, which sure as heck won't get done in a week T_T.

I don't doubt it'll come out lighter than full plate, but as a lot of folks have experienced, plate has a pretty poor weight to performance ratio when it comes to a game entirely based on speed like ours is. That said, I hope to get a look at it at some point.