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Knight
 
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Last Login: Monday, February 19, 2007 10:14 AM
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Coffmeister,
'Japanese' armour is likely the most complex of the Lamellar armours, there are several patterns for Mid to Far East Lamellar, many of which are easier to construct than true samurai armour.
An excellent website for the multitude of patterns and variations of the Central-Asian types: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505/page6.html (See if this new fangled coding works)
I'd be happy to answer specific questions but I will give my general tips here.
Material Selection:
Sheet Metal: Difficult to cut, steel or copper will produce an authentic suit of heavy Lamellar armour. Poorly finished holes with rough edges will drastically increase the wear on the binding thread coupled with the weight of the piece this can lead to failure within the armour - it is definitely worth the time to bevel and sand the edges of all holes in the plates as well as the edges of the plates themselves.
Leather: Probably my first choice for Lamellar armour, I would use a medium thickness (4-5mm) veg-tan leather with as high a stiffness that I could find. If I was feeling keen I might be tempted to heat treat this leather to stiffen it some more, but that is a different topic altogether. Leather will aid the suit to take the body's shape, looks authentic, is light enough to form an entire suit and will safety check far easier.
Plastic/Wood/Other: I would not generally use these materials unless I need to make a large number of suits, eg. for use by a monster team. I would either then cover each scale with a thin leather coating or rough up then paint to look passably authentic. The easy of machining would possibly make plastic the choice for some one looking to produce an exceptionally fancy suit, eg. dragon scales, leaves or the like. The result will be a suit of light and durable Lamellar.
Thread Selection:
Generally thread for Lamellar armour should be static so that it will not stretch and deform the piece, should be available in single long lengths to avoid joins and be resistant to abrasive wear.
Silk: The traditional material for armour of this type, expensive and not always easy to get in the form you need. Silk ribbon is probably the best bet in this category (although for light suits synthetic ribbon can do just as well).
Bootlaces: Resilient to wear and strong, tends to come in too short lengths to be truly useful.
Wire: 1-2mm multi-thread wire will produce a very strong but stiff suit that will be all but indestructible, recommended for very heavy suits. Difficulties are how to tie the ends off and to guard from sharp exposed ends - consequently wire will scare the B'jesus from a lot of weapon checkers.
Leather thonging: A tad too thick but otherwise an ideal material for lacing, can be a little too weak for heavy suits, also as it is a natural material can include weakening flaws.
High Tension Synthetic Cords (Single and Dual Weave): Excellent strength characteristics good for all armour types, can be venerable to abrasive wear although practices can be undertaken to mitigate this. This type of code is typically used in sports applications can be found in sailing suppliers and kite manufactures (especially power kites).
As a general point fibre base cords can be improved by running them through a block of bee's or paraffin wax before lacing, the wax will lubricate the thread reducing abrasive wear and increase its water resistance.
Enough writing for the time being.
Hope this helps, I'll have a think about what I've missed.
-H
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Knight
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Last Login: Friday, September 26, 2008 9:30 AM
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www.plasticlamellar.com make kozane like those used in Japanese armour.
Not overly cheap once import taxes and such are taken intoo account, but good none the less.Have you considered Paracord as the threading material?
It's strong, and comes in pretty much any length.
----
Power Corrupts.
This is only a problem for the powerless.
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Knight
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Yes a good site, for anyone buying items from across the pond its a good idea to keep and eye on the pound and on a good day you can get a real bargin.
It's a shame that the close-ups reveal the imperfections in the plates, with some work they could produce an good suit. It would be ideal Monster or NPC kit that might have to carried around without being worn for longer periods. I would think that for most PCs kit it would not be as suitable it is harder to be emboldened into a warrior mentality when your only wearing plastic.
I think that the Plastic Lammellar site would be good reference for anyone wanting to see what plate shapes are used, it would then be an easy matter to produce a design and manufacture their own plates from locally available materials. As you say they are rather expensive (even with a favourable exchange rate).
W.r.t cords, para-cord I believe is very similar stuff to kite and sailing cords and you right that they have excellent properties.
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Squire
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| I'll stick my oar in. My lamellar armour, based on the Byzantine Klibanion, can be seen here http://www.saxonviolence.co.uk/item.php?id=30 It's made out of over 200 plates of 16g steel (IIRC that's about 1.6mm thick) laced together with about three miles of thick 3-4mm square thonging. I was very careful to round off and deburr any edges that could make contact with other people and their weapons. Likewise, the holes for the thonging were checked for spiky bits that would wear on the thonging. I wasn't so worried about the inside since I have a leather Thoracomachus(arming jack thingy) to protect me. So far, after over a year of fairly robust combat testing, only one length of thonging has actually failed and it's no great job to re-lace a few plates. In fact the whole thing lends itself very well to having plates added and removed (which I think is why the Byzantines preferred it over chainmail, for example). I do like the look of the plastic lamellar stuff and would happily buy a shitload of it for monster kit - should I ever be mad enough to run a club  Don't use their gallery as a reference, though. All of their suits are laced upside-down. The loons!
Furore Normanum - LARP in the North East of England.Website http://www.furore-normanum.co.uk/ Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4665609207&ref=mf
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I do talk a good fight
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According to the aforementioned Silk Road Designs Armoury, scale armour is generally laced so that each scale overlaps the one below, whereas lamellar armour is generally laced so that each lame overlaps the one above. So it depends on precisely what you're looking to make.
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Squire
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Ian Sturrock (5/30/2006)
According to the aforementioned Silk Road Designs Armoury, scale armour is generally laced so that each scale overlaps the one below, whereas lamellar armour is generally laced so that each lame overlaps the one above. So it depends on precisely what you're looking to make.
Actually, lamellar can overlap either way, depending on the function of the armour (for cavalry or infantry). The difference is that scale is laced/sewn/riveted to a backing, whereas lamellae are laced to each other, with no backing.
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