Recent content by Leatherworker

As announced, I have now also build the barbarian version. If anyone is interested you find some pictures here ('Conan the Barbarian' Headband) ...

Since I have finished my Conan the destroyer headband recently (Making of 'Conan the Destroyer' Headband), I had to build the barbarian version also. During the research I fell in love with the martial appearance and the nice contrast of cognac color and darker brown. There is not much of a...

I think I am done. Final pictures of this project ... Hope you enjoyed the show. I will make the "barbarian" version also in another thread (different coloring, modified nosepiece) ...

Suede and a foam layer prepared ... Both glued into the headband ... We have to be aware that usually such an inlay has to be sewn or rivet in place. This will not last to eternity in particular when the band is used a lot and gets bended often. But there is no other option, apart from...

Rock solid! Everything sewed together, nails attatched and all open edges sealed with Gum Tragacanth ... It is not a helmet but I rate this to provide quite some protection. Now the fun part starts. Trimming to old and final surface treatments ... We are almost there ... Comparison...

All 5 layers in place ... Borders do not yet perfectly overlap. Here some fine tuning is necessary. Here again comparison shots ... Now we are facing the most difficult steps. To make it perfectly durable the final stitching has to go through the whole construction. We are talking about...

The parts adjusted prior assembly ... There is a small leather wedge to fill the hight difference. The 1mm steel spring giving strength to the nose piece was carefully bend in the appropriate shape (potentially a thinner, much easier to handle brass plate would also do the job, but we want...

Phew ... several hours later and fingers hurting the thing starts to take shape ... Time to start with the nose piece section ...

So its getting tricky now. We have to sew in the borders. We have to stitch everything in shape – no way to do this on a flat surface! Without wetting the leather and modeling the band in its final shape you will end up with tons of folds. The band will be much to massiv to bend it strongly...

Second round of staining and aging and everything prepared to sew in the borders, as announced, I will go with one nail missing as seen on screen in the destroyer movie (see next image as comparison – only the nail hole in the original is off center??? How??? ) ... By the way, I decided to...

So, the post man made me happy :) The round nails arrived and I could start with the modification. They have a ugly brown finish and a not 100% accurate cross section, but the important things are that they have the right diameter, have a thin shaft that can easily attatched to the leather and...

I think you are right. I also plan to add a thin foam hat band layer covered by suede. The nail ends, if one add them before sewing in the borders are in principle covered by the french binding. But there is still the final stiching of the nose piece that has to go completely through the...

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...

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... As usual these metal parts are a pain in ... ... . Seems I will be on hold also with this project ...

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 ... So in principle its done ... However there are some points to improve. I was told the killer rivets were brass. When hammering them in...