Making Samurai armor costume.

Re: Sheet plastic: polypropelyne, polyethelye, other?

Thank you again for the replies. I did some reading yesterday and it was suggested on a few resources that Weld-on #3 could do the job. I've done extensive scratch building with Polystyrene so I have a ton of Weld-on#3 and am familiar with it's use. I have the needle tip bottles, the medicine "syringes" from when my daughter was little, and other applicators. Should do nicely. I'll practice on some scraps first of course.

I just want to say thank you so much Imgill & Darth Lars for all your attention and advice on this thread.
 
Re: Sheet plastic: polypropelyne, polyethelye, other?

I just recently used acetone for bonding ABS and was shocked at the bond strength. On my test pieces I could only separate them by damaging the parts.
 
Re: Sheet plastic: polypropelyne, polyethelye, other?

I did a little experimenting last night with cutting methods, punching holes, using a split shank rivet and decorative washer, rub'n'buff, and Weld on #3 with various surfaces glued together.

It worked out pretty well. Next, some decorative work and trim edging testing.

25527833627_20e933f64a_k.jpg
 
am I seeing things, or does that red armor example have chain mail on the sleeves? That looks awesome, do that, historical accuracy be damned :p (I have no idea if it's accurate or not, my guess is that it's not)
 
Strikerkc said:
am I seeing things, or does that red armor example have chain mail on the sleeves? That looks awesome, do that, historical accuracy be damned :p (I have no idea if it's accurate or not, my guess is that it's not)
Click to expand...

Checkout "Chapter 3: Before Beginning" and Chapter 11: The Kote" on the Nihon Katchu Seisakuben website.

The Kote (sleeves), Wakibiki, Haidate, and even the Shikoro on the helmet (depending on the period and armor type being discussed) did sometimes use a type of chainmaille. But not like the European 4-in-1. They often used both flat and round rings in various patterns. I stole this from the above linked website as reference:

26628850398_e42a8dc30e_z.jpg


I will likely not do this, sticking with fabric for my Kote. However, I did find this fun fabric on spoonflower (I know it's 4-in-1, but this is a costume). Not sure what I want to do though.

25629489757_da4d182f0f.jpg
 
Last edited:
Following your build. I've been wanting to do this for years to the point I almost bought an ebay set from overseas, which really look awful. How did you scale the patterns to your size? Did you do a cardboard mock-up?
 
I used the patterns from the Japanese Armour Manual linked previously (made sure to scale everything 1:1) and taped it together from card stock. I put it on and figured out how much bigger I needed to make it, and did it again. Here is the second attempt below.

After that I took it apart and used it to directly trace the pieces on my plastic.

39605343525_0edb511bea_k.jpg
 
I drew up a basic lacing hole template. My goal is to start cutting the parts out tonight then use this template for the blazillion holes. I don't expect to do it all in one evening, but we'll see.

39792582464_a666101876_h.jpg
 
You may already know this, but when drilling holes in thin plastic sheet, regular twist drills can cause issues. Step drills work very well in sheet material.
 
lmgill said:
You may already know this, but when drilling holes in thin plastic sheet, regular twist drills can cause issues. Step drills work very well in sheet material.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the tip, I did not know this. Mostly in the past I've only had to put a few holes in plastic projects and I've just used a metal hole punch pliers.

I don't suppose stacking up the rectangular lames that have the same hole patterns and using tape to to make a block out of them would allow me to use a traditional drill bit and drill them all at once?
 
Stacking up pieces would make using a twist drill less of an issue. The issue is, they have a tendency to grab just as they penetrate the sheet and drag themselves violently through the plastic. Twist drills can be ground or purchased specifically for plastic. These drills have a special style of tip grind that reduces their tendency to grab. If you stack them, make sure they are tightly packed so the chips can't get between you sheets and force them apart. Look up drill speeds for the size bit you plan to use, the correct drilling speed will make drilling smoother.
 
lmgill said:
Stacking up pieces would make using a twist drill less of an issue. The issue is, they have a tendency to grab just as they penetrate the sheet and drag themselves violently through the plastic. Twist drills can be ground or purchased specifically for plastic. These drills have a special style of tip grind that reduces their tendency to grab. If you stack them, make sure they are tightly packed so the chips can't get between you sheets and force them apart. Look up drill speeds for the size bit you plan to use, the correct drilling speed will make drilling smoother.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the advice, I will do just that.

- - - Updated - - -

I got a little over half the pieces cut out between dinner, dishes, and other things last night.

26645650158_6afca0106c_k.jpg
 
rickhoward said:
Looking good, Sulla.

- - - Updated - - -

Sulla, where did you get your split shank rivets?
Click to expand...

Thank you.

The ones I am using on the small kanamono plates are just decorative as I plan on gluing these plates to the armor with weld-on #3. They are little scrap booking decorative rosette washers and split rivets I covered with antique gold rub'n'buff I got from Amazon. The rivets are tiny and intended for paper so without glue or something they won't hold anything together on this armor. They are just the right size and have the look I wanted for this armor so I decided to use them. Just the scrap booking split rivets by themselves can also be found at Amazon.

Regular strong split rivets of all shapes and sizes can be gotten from Amazon, Ebay, McMaster-Carr, Grainger, etc. I plan to use stronger rivets on some of the more load bearing parts of the armor (still in addition to the Weld-on #3).
 
I got all the pattern pieces cut out (except for the pieces that will have to be patterned to attach to anything that has to be heat curved first like the watagami.) It always amazes me how much square footage can be compressed into a few short stacks of cut parts. :)

26683753138_a0d824655e_b.jpg


I experimented with using heat to curve the plastic plates using scraps in my oven. The 300° test worked best, but I got too much pliability at the ends. I may experiment with moving the parts further from the element, or tweaking the temp or time a little bit.

39844380374_cf02b1c0eb_b.jpg


I also experiented with various adhesives to attach the rubber trim edging to the ABS. I found that good old cyanoacrylate works best. The glue and rubber worked fine over strait edges, gentle and tight curves, and even around a sharp corner when notched. And the rubber flexes with the pieces after being glued on.

I used Gold Rub'b'buff on the rubber and found a method that worked pretty well.

26683753068_22c0855c0e_h.jpg
 

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