Chain Mail Ressurection

So ten years ago, I actually had started a chain mail shirt and had created a coif (chain mail headpiece). I brought it out of storage and decided to go to Lowes and buy more galvanized steel to finish the project. I had wanted to purchase stainless steel riveted rings to make this shirt... but lets face it. That will be waaay to expensive for this purpose. So, for $8 fr 100ft I will keep using galvanized steel. Here is the progress so far.

You can see my additions tonight, as that is the shiny portion. Galvanized steel oxidizes and turns dark gray and smells a little funny when exposed to air... At least it doesn't rust just from air. Supposedly dumping the stuff into a bunch of sand can work the oxidation off, but I haven't tried yet.

There are articles all over the web on how to do chain mail, but I will probably over then next few days post how I am doing it so it is in one place.

The Prince Caspian Under Tunic

Aside from where you can see it peak up under the the top of the bringandine or along the top of his vambraces, this is the only picture I can find of Caspian's Battle Armour Under Tunic. The picture comes from The official illustrated movie companion, and has many other great pictures for reference.

For my rendition on this undertunic, I utilized Butterick Pattern B4828 and Simplicity 5574.














If you look at Caspian's tunic in the picture, it was not a solid color throughout the piece. It has a wedge cut out for the next and the sleeves are a varied color as well. So, I had to modify and conjoin these two patterns in order to get my desired look. In the pictures above you can see the wedges darn onto the pattern.











I also had to add in some seam allowance around my modifications. Also since I am using a vest pattern, I need to add length to the bottom of the chest and back pieces. Note... I did not add enough width... As a vest piece this was designed to fit closely according to the pattern, but for a shirt this is not as good... so unlike me, also add some more width to the lower portions of the front and back pieces.















Above are the pieces laid out pinned and then cut out.









Now we come to more creative work on my part... The modified front and back section. It is important to remember that when working with material, to iron/press it so you get the true dimensions you want. Pressing your interfacing to your material also makes it easier to work with so it will not slide as much. The strips above are what will make up my three sets of ties for the front of the tunic.










Here is the front piece pinned together before sewing the seams, and then the two halves complete and ready for assembly into the larger sections.

Here is the middle portion attached to the front along with the back pieces. I think it turned out very well, especially since I am just making this up largely as I go. If you notice the black threads on the shoulder seams, that is serging. I recommend a surger for anyone who makes pieces meant to last. It keeps your edges from fraying and overall makes a much nicer piece.












Here are the final pieces. As I said above the sides are a little snug around the lower waist but look great in the upper torso when on. The cuffs since I did not follow the pattern closely are a little to big, but nothing that cannot be gone back behind and either modified or lived with.

Leatherwork Part V

OK, the leather is dry and it is time to dye it.

Here are pictures before and after.














I waited another day before I waxed the leather.

The wax I use is 50% bees wax and 50 % paraffin.

To melt the wax, I heat my oven to 220 degrees in a roast pan. Then I dip the leather in and keep it there for about 3-4 minutes till the leather quits letting air bubbles out. Then I take it out of the wax and wipe off the excess wax with paper towels.

It is important to shape your leather at this point while the piece is hot. When it hardens will be too late.

I will now let this harden overnight and hopefully tomorrow add rivets/straps so finalize the pieces.

Leatherwork Part IV

I noticed today staring really close at this picture of Caspian that his the edge on the armour appears to be a stitched and rolled over piece of thin leather all along the edges... Since I have never done that kind of work, and frankly think what I am doing will be close enough for now, I doubt I will do that addition. Instead I am going to simulate the affect by just beveling the edges a little.

Click the image to view it larger...






Here is a picture of one of my vambraces with a ball peen hammer and a bevel tool. You can see that in order to make the bevel I first make my lines using the swivel knife and then use the bevel tool to indent down the leather along the line giving the bevel a raised appearance.



I was able to reach my goal for today and completed the tooling of one side of the leather armour. Some pieces are darker than others due to them still being wet. Once dried (tomorrow), I will dye them using the dark brown stain I purchased last week.

If you click the image here, and zoom in, you can see that I have a few flaws... Firstly, my lines with the hatches in them are not a uniform size... they do not line up properly, and I put them on the wrong side on the main piece but correctly on the upper and lower... :-) Now I have to decide if I make my other side match this one, or do it correctly. Decisions, decisions... I can tell all ready my next shoulder will be a big improvement over this one... Oh well.

Leatherwork Part III

I completed the first set of designs yesterday. The top piece of the Prince Caspian's Spaulders and the lower portion both. I still have the top portion and then of course the vambraces and the other side... Again I am doing one side at a time to make sure the final product turns out the way I want it to.



So far I would guess I have somewhere between 10-20 hours invested so far into these pieces not counting research time. It would probably be faster, but I have a three year old who needs attention often. :-) I also have to work on my other project, http://www.tampahomeguides.com a real estate website for the greater Tampa Bay Area.


I hope today I can complete the final designs on the top piece of the shoulder and at least one vambrace so I can go ahead and do the first set of dying tomorrow. I bought a dark brown dye and am most anxious to get this stuff dyed and then waxed so I can piece it together... but at the moment that is looking to be about three days away at the soonest.

Leatherwork Part II

Finally after hours and hours of pouring over fan sites, books, forums, etc. I have found enough pictures/references to do my best at drawing the symbols on Caspian's pauldrons.

The symbol on the main shoulder piece is that of a lion with a crown and some other added in curves an such. The size of it though is such that it does not cover the entire shoulder piece.




The lower portion does cover the entire leather piece from the best I can tell. I tried to draw the symbol as best I could from the pictures I could find on the internet. It is not 100% symmetrical... I am ok at drawing but not a perfectionist. :-)


To set the design into the leather I wet the leather using cool water and then with a paper towel soaked up the excess.

I then used a tool I got from Tandy Leather to "trace" the printed version of the design onto the leather using only moderate pressure to mark the leather. Once done, I used a swivel knife to deepen the outer edges of the design.

Now for the tedious part. Using mostly screwdrivers... Ya none of my leather tools were small enough to do this detail, and I cannot justify spending more money on this project atm... I set about making the design with my hammer and screwdrivers. I think I drove my wife nuts doing just this much...



I hope to complete the design on this shoulder tomorrow so I can finish the edges and dye it. I want to complete one shoulder including waxing before I do the other just in case somewhere in the process I do not like how things go... Easier to redo one shoulder than both...

Leatherwork Begins

I am trying to hunt down some good pictures of the design on Caspian's shoulders. All of the promtoional photos I have found have so much affect on them it is difficult to make out. I think I remember seeing in the book about the making of the movie a picture of the detail... I will have to check that out tomorrow. In the mean time, here is the progress on the leather items so far.


So, As usual I have cut out the pattern for my pieces out of paper and then tried it on using masking tape to hold the pieces in place. I was rather impressed I got the sizing right on my first attempt. Usually it take several iterations before I am hapy with the fit.

When you go to do this yourself, make sure you measure/try on pieces wearing what you plan to wear under the finished item.

I wore my current vambrace pads, which are basically cut off football pads (i think) from sports authority. The finished product will probably have some padding built into the under tunic, but I have not yet decided for sure.

Since I was happy with my paper patterns I traced them onto the leather to be cut out. Luckily everything JUST fit onto my piece of leather.






Making extra sure not to cut my good kitchen table I cut the pieces out (over my cutting boards) using a razor blade. The results were very satisfying. The vambraces upon trying them on again turned out to be a half inch too long and was pinching in my inner elbow so I cut them back a little. It is very important to do as much testing of fit before tooling the leather as possible to avoid having to recut and tool a piece due to size issues.

And now for some of the photos I am using as inspiration for these pieces:

Purchase Supplies

So far I have yet to make any REAL progress... Semi disheartening... To make it all better, lets go buy stuff! Off to my local Tandy Leather Factory and Jo-Ann Fabric store for some goods.

Knowing I was out of armour weight leather I sought out a piece I felt was thick enough and large enough for the leather needs of this project. Out of this piece I hope to make the vambraces (forearms), and spaulders (shoulders) for the outfit.

Now this is a beauty! I have never purchased anything aside from raw tanned leather such as the above, so selecting the leather I was going to make the brigandine out of was a very difficult choice. I am pleased with how huge this piece is, hopefully I can get more than just this project out of it.

Armour is not enough... I also need to have smashing shirts to go with this outfit. I am still mulling over what patterns to use to make the shirts, but I will post on it once I decide. None the less, I chose some colors I liked, since in truth the under tunic or arming doublet that Caspian wears in the movie is hardly seen at all, except for the sleeve and collar. I chose 100% cotton items since I live in Florida, and this is going to be hot as it is... The white material is actually an off white material called Muslin. I make most of my shirt for SCA or renaissance festivals out of this material as I find it to be very comfortable and rather durable.

Cardboard Brigandine

As I mentioned yesterday, if you plan to make your own brigandine, I recommend trying it in cardboard and scrap material first. In hindsight, use a stiff, canvas material rather than cheap cloth though, as this cloth was extremely difficult to work with.



To start, I cut out a paper version of my pattern and then cut out the material. The material was then sewn together. I traced the pattern of the pieces adding an inch all the way around on the cardboard so I would know what size pieces to cut out of the cardboard.










Now the fun part... figuring out how to attatch all of these squares to the material...

Using the reference of the brigandine construction site I referenced yesterday, I decided to try and make the cardboard pieces overlap, and thus I guess make a more solid protection for myself. Quickly I discovered that using the 15th century design as shown in his article that concept seems great! (Using much bigger plates.) But for this instance not so good.

Looking closer at Caspian's brigandine I realize the costume designer felt the same way. I am guessing that Caspian's armour is actually 2 in x 1 in plates (I think I actually read his were plastic plates) which are riveted in place...

Oh rivets... For my test run I tried my larger nickel rivets which I use for steel work... But they were way too big... so then I went back to my butt and cap rivets from Tandy Leather and they seemed to work great... Except that I did not pay attention to my alignment on the material. I will say again do a cardboard/cheap material run first as it saves you $$ for these simple yet potentially disastrous learning blunders.