Making of 'Conan the Destroyer' Bracers

Leatherworker

Well-Known Member
Ok, since I am on hold with my Conan Headband project (Making of 'Conan the Destroyer' Headband) because of missing material, I have some time for approaching another cool item. During all the research for the headbands I found a lot of images showing this nice piece of barbarian equipment ...

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These bracers appear in both Conan films. In the first one sometimes at the right, sometimes on the left arm. In the second one only on the right arn. In the second image we see that many of the rivets were lost or removed during filming. So I will build a prototype to figure out the pattern and how best to approach this project ...

What we need: First, the leather parts ...

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The used leather for the main part is very thin – looks like goat or sheep leather. One can see it in the pictures with all the wrinkles of the leather. So I decided to use sheep leather with 1mm thickness. The borders seem to be turned over. So the leather was humidified and knead into shape. We can see the wrinkles as in the movie version, so I think the thickness is ok ...

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The straps will be made from thicker cow full grain leather. The suede lining is optional but will make it much more comfortable to wear and avoid contact to all the metal rivets.

The metal parts ...

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I found some cone shaped brass rivets that seem to have the right dimensions. Is 'killer rivets' the name in english – as in german? Another movie shot with some details of the barbarian version at the left arm (I think it is not the same one used in destroyer, since the rivet pattern and orientation of straps is different) ...

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The parts rivet together, leather aged and prepared to add the rivets ...

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This will take a while :) Tried to figure out the exact pattern of the rivets from the movie images. Very difficult. However, since the rivets are too pointed and smooth as compared to the originals (see lower row of rivets), I hammered them in shape (top row of rivets) ...
 
I had to sacrifice nearly all of my rivets – only four left. Since it is a prototype, I will play around with aging. Not sure how far I want to go ...

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So in principle its done ...

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However there are some points to improve. I was told the killer rivets were brass. When hammering them in shape some coating came off and we see silver metal underneeth :mad:. Although this adds a nice bicolor look I think its not screen accurate. The rivets holding the straps are too much (aged / 3d surface) and it turned out a little large. It fits, but I am in the last hole of the strap with only 1-2 cm space between the ends. Here a movie shot showing the distance in between is larger - unfortunately I do not have the muscles of Mr Schwarzenegger, otherwise it would definitily fit. So the final one will be 2-4 cm narrower ...

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Another nice close up shot (barbar Version) showing the bullet shaped brass rivets (frosted oxidized surface) that I have to find for the final build...

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As usual these metal parts are a pain in ... ... . Seems I will be on hold also with this project ...
 
Such a cool project! I want on so bad.

Weird how the stud pattern varies. I haven't looked into what's going on there.

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maybe an alternate pattern was made for comfort? I bet having al those studs under your wrist would be annoying when you want to set your arm down on a table to eat lunch or whatever.


At the very least 2 bracers were created-
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Cool shot with both bracers! Completely missed this point. That explanes the different orientation of the straps - mirrored. For the completely accurate pattern it would be great to have the originals as template. But considering how they looked afer the fight against Dagoth I am not sure that they survived :)
 

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