Armor – Aegis Leather

Here are the final steps I took to make my gauntlets. So far we have patterned, cut, formed, stained and wax hardened the heavy leather. We then riveted and sewed the pieces together to form the gauntlets. The next steps are to add straps, add padding, and sew the gloves in.

I have to admit that I wasn’t happy with the orientation of the thumb pieces. I ended up drilling one of the rivets out and rotating the thumbs a bit to make the space between the thumb and fingers so a piece of rattan can be held more easily.

Anyway, what I did last night was start by adding a strap across the palm. I just used some scraps of flexible chrome tanned garment leather. We will see if it can hold up to the abuse. I simply cut a strip, drilled holes for the stitching, and used a blunt harness needle and some of the waxed, braided nylon thread to saddle stitch the strap to the glove on each side of the palm.

Before sewing the glove in, I cut some strips from the black 6mm yoga mat I have for padding. I duct taped it into the glove behind the palm, thumb, and fingers. I really love this yoga mat for padding. It is anti-microbial and excellent at absorbing force. I just ordered a mat off Amazon.com and it is going to last me for quite some time.

Next I sewed the gloves in. I really like how this part turned out. Initially I was concerned that the gaunlets were too floppy and didn’t stay in position. Sewing the gloves in really added stability to them and makes me much more comfortable in wearing them.

Really, I am quite satisfied with how they turned out. We will see how they perform on Monday’s practice. 🙂

Greetings all!

I am attempting to make a set of gauntlets for myself so I can begin to learn spear and possibly polearm. I requested a pattern from a friend who had a set that seemed easy and reduced the size by about 20% because my hands are much smaller. I cut the pieces (Making sure to flip over the hand and thumb pieces on the second piece for the right and left hand) from a piece of heavy saddle skirting that I had laying around.

After cleaning up the edges and scraping the flesh side down, soaked the leather for a minute or so in water and then I molded them to my hand roughly and let them dry atop our dehumidifier. I am sorry but I forgot to take a picture of this stage.

After they dried, I stained them a flat black color with Tandy professional water based dye. For hardening, my waxing process is descrbed below:
1. Gently melt canning wax in a junk pot on a stove covered in tin foil to catch the drips.
2. Warm leather on tin foil covered trays in an oven set to the lowest setting it will go. I think mine is 200 degrees. Make sure the leather is quite warm all the way through.
3. Take the leather out of the oven and paint the wax on each side of each piece with a junk paint brush.
4. Put it back in the oven and watch it until all the wax has soaked in. Repeat the above steps several times until no more wax soaks into the leather. You can also just dip the pieces into the pot of wax instead of painting. It is faster this was but you have to be careful not to get too much wax on the pieces or the wax won’t soak in. It will pool and harden on top of the leather instead of inside it.

Leave the waxed pieces to harden overnight (or at least for a couple hours). In the morning, your leather should be hard like plastic with a nice waxy, silky sheen to it.

The leather I used was Tandy crappy leather and was an inconsistant thickness. I was unhappy with the hardness of my pieces and since I am kind of fond of my hands not smooshed, I recuited my machinist brother to whip out a couple pieces of aluminum to reinforce two of the hand pieces.

Anyway, the next step is to sew and rivet the pieces together. First I sewed the cuff to the palm.

I used the smallest drill bit I had and just drilled a series of wholes in each side to be joined. Then, using two blunt harness needles and some waxed, braided nylon thread, I sewed the pieces together with a stitch similar to saddle stitch bbut that creates an “x” on one side and straight lines on the inside. I also had to restain the wholes I drilled with black dye to make them not stand out.

Next I worked on riveting the moving pieces to the cuff. I am using copper rivets purchased from Brettun’s Village and a little bit larger drill bit to drill the holes.

They look pretty good so far! I am pleased. Time for bed though. Thanks all for looking ay my very first post. I hope to document all my crafting adventures here! Don’t forget, I am open to commissions, if you need anything made!

Category: Armor

Clamshell gauntlets, part 2

Clamshell gauntlets, post 1