So, since I really like my armor (It is old like me), I want to re-furbish it. As you can see from the picture, it has a motley assortment of rivets and one of the buckles has finally broke off.
Ideas:
1) I hire a badass leather worker to break all the rivets and replace the straps with light brown leather strips for contrast on the black.
2) Same badass worker would replace the broken black strap and do some custom stamping (painted white) on each of the straps, going horizontally and vertically.
3) Hire a badass leather worker/metal worker to create some square metal plates to go in the spaces between the straps. These plates would be stamped in awesome ways using artist brain techniques.
I am thinking about doing 2 & 3.
Concerns:
1) How will the metal stamping "come out?" Maybe if the design is stamped convex [like a relief(bumpy)] map. It seems to me that the stamping would have to be highlighted in some way or it would be too hard to see. Do you paint metal plates?
2) If I do 2&3, as described above, will the strap stamping and the plates make the greaves look too busy?
Anyway here are some pictures for reference.
