Anyone familiar with Leather Armor?

[Immortal Goat]

Ok, so I went to my local Medieval faire recently, and I want a costume for next year. I looked at what the vendors there had to offer, and it was quite outside of my range, so I thought "I'm sure SOMEONE on the RPF has information on how I can make this stuff myself."

So, has anyone here ever made any leather armor? I'm only in need of shoulders, arms, and legs. The torso will be left for my tunic. Also, I may need headgear. The kind of leather I'm going for is, for the most part, the hardened kind. Some soft, but I can do that myself easily enough. I'll have some sketches of what I'm going for within the next day or two, if that helps.

Also, I would like to know what some possible sources for this type of leather would be, and how much I can expect to pay for it. Thanks.

 

[Shadow Duchess]

Alright, I've a bunch of resources on armor creation, hardening leather and shaping so, I'll share them with you and if you need more I'm sure I can dig up more for you, also there's a link to measuring yourself for armor as well:


http://www.themiddleages.net/life/leather_armor.html

http://www.plessisarmouries.co.uk/price/measure.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_15425_shape-leather.html

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carls...ather/plwt.html

Also, here are some leather and supply places one thing to note though, if you do dye the veg tan that will be a good choice for armor and weight depends on what you're looking for I'd say 6-7 oz is the best jumping off point for this and then you can pick and choose from there. Sometimes Tandy has some great sales on veg tan and Brettuns is a great supplier. So here are the other links:

http://www.tandyleather.com/Leather.asp

http://www.brettunsvillage.com/leather/sides.htm

http://www.leatherunltd.com/lu/leather_unl...d.html#shipping

Hopefully you'll find some of these useful to you and I'm sure there are a lot of others on here with some more information to be able to further assist you.
If you do this, remember to share pictures I know we'd love to see what you come up with.

 

[SmilingOtter]

http://www.arador.com/construction/index.html

http://www.armourarchive.org/

 

[reaper63]

http://www.ashtonomicon.com/