Armor?

[Emerson Bridges]

I'm not worried about $$ but rather durability. Modern materials can make armor more durable, easier to make and easier to take care of. I mean having stainless steel buckles saves me lots of pain.

Arguments seem to boil down too. We don't have a compeling reason to use modern materials. There are reasons, they just don't appear to be powerful ones. We can get around every single arguement offered against modern materials. So there appears to be no reason not too.

However, I have no personal interest invested in having modern materials in armor. I have made my armor period and have plans for more period armor.

I just think people are being close minded.

[The Claw]

I think we should keep it period and make sure it looks good and works good.

[Elerosse]

By-The-Sword does have leather armor... But so do many places, if you just want to buy it versus make it. For that matter, we have leather armor!

I might just have to do that

[Emerson Bridges]

I can make some pretty crappy lookin armor that meets our current requirements... why are you so worried about looks anyways?

[Rurouni Valyn]

I liked the idea of making weight requirements and such. If it looks period and weighs the same as period, why not allow it?

Though none of this matters to me as I hate wearing armor anyways =)

[Enoch]

it aint broke, don't fix it.

[Emerson Bridges]

That is false logic. If we followed that blindly like you are we would never invent better things. Just what did the job "ok".

[Enoch]

Right, because the point of medieval combat and re-enactment is to invent better things. I stand by my curmudgeon-ness.

[Mercer]

There's a difference between "improving" something and "debasing" it.

"Wow! If I mix this dross in with this gold, it makes more gold! Sure, it's not as pure, but it's just as good!" Duhr...

[Aidoann]

Umm. Before you ALL go knocking plastic armor, check out this site www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/0.Katchu.html
It's Called Katchu Seisakuben and is My Nihon Do Bible.
If you look at the kozane, I think that it would be fairly easy to make these out of plastic IF you can't find the Rawhide needed to make them the traditional way as using 16 or less gague steel would make the Do weigh a fraggin' TON. It would, of course be covered with a thin Leather and then Lacquered properly.

Yes, I know this is an excellent site, and I am really going out on a limb by giving it out to you all, because I know that soon some tacky Newbie is going to be running around in crappy suneate and whole Hauberks made out of oversized asa-no-ha gusari influenced by this site.

I think If I see some one wearing Nihon armor piecemeal or being lazy about it's construction I will go into an apoplectic fit of rage, so don't, okay.

[Quake]

I agree with V-Hil on this one.. it's pointless to wear armor and not pay some kind of a price for it on the field. I mean specially some of us "kids" out here who have to make the stuff ourselves or buy it.. we don't mave the money or materials to be getting lighter stronger armor. It's bad enough that the weapons are becoming lighter and faster.

[Kyrax]

Umm. Before you ALL go knocking plastic armor, check out this site www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/0.Katchu.html

I never said that all plastic armor looked bad or tacky, but for what we do it isn't appropriate. Build it out of heavy leather or period metals, not plastic or aluminum. That's pretty simple. I've seen ugly armor made out of period materials, so looks isn't the point as much as functionality and some kind of realism. It isn't a perfect system, but it works.

[Calarn the Black]

Oh for God's sake, no plastic!! You can make anything look cool; it just depends on the person wearing it. Here's another point I don't think has been brought up yet...what if this plastic armour shattered fro some impact, and showered a few people with shards? Three blind people and a couple of hospital trips later, we remember that we never wanted this in the first place.
Stay period. Please. The first time I see plastic armour on our fields I leave the fields.

[Satanaka]

I have chain and leather- I like switching them out and switching every now and then. I don't have plate yet.

To me- what makes it is the weight and how it is combersome. If we had sets of stuff that was like 2 pounds- that would be unfair and would not be "cumbersome".

It seems that the skill with leather has really increased and I see a lot of armour that looks great- Gallin produces some really good armour.

S

[Tibriel]

A little off topic but not too much What guage and inner diameter of steel is generally accepted as far as making chain mail links go?

[Xipher]

Do a search for "wire gauge" or "chain gauge" and that info should come up.

[Camber]

From the Book of War, Appendix A:

3.6. Metal Armor must be made of period metals and alloys such as iron, steel, bronze, brass, or copper. Modern steel alloys are also allowed.

A few people have said in this thread that stainless steel is not allowed. The BoW disagrees with you.

I support the period materials requirement. However, it should be noted that non-period materials are sometimes needed to make armor safe. I'll give a case in point. I bought a set of stainless plate spaulders and bracers and used them in combat for 8 months. [Source was the eBay store Wyndsyngyr's War Gear, found at http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=31025215 . I recommend them highly.] I had no problems getting them passed by heralds at Spring War.

Then at a summer event someone's sword got damaged by one of the rivets, and they were given extra heavy scrutiny by the heralds. Even though the edges are penny-round and smooth, it was strongly recommended to me that I pad all edges with some thin rubber tubing, just for extra safety. I got 25' of car window molding at an auto parts store and went to town. The result is stunning, and you can't tell its rubber unless you look closely. But it IS a non-period material, and it is visible.

[Beorn Tordensjold]

That's a LEETLE bit different of a sitation, Camber, but I understand where you are coming from.

Aidoann:

Plastic armor can look cool. No one has argued that. The point that has been made is that untill there is an armor REQUIREMENT, we should stick to the "period materials" that we have at present.


Killian:

I just realized I sounded like I was hating on ugly armor. I should have restated that to CRAPPY (i.e poorly made) armor. Look at Ralimar's armor, it's ugly as sin! But it's put together RIGHT. Shrat's "ghetto Breastplate" is the same way, it's ugly as all get out, but it's LEGAL. And they are both GREAT!

So no hating on ugly armor here.

[Emerson Bridges]

Plastic armor doesn't shatter when struck with bare rattan in the SCA. It isn't going to shatter with foam based weapons.

Someone above pointed out that we do allow modern materials for saftey reasons. So I'm fine, I didn't realize till recently you could do things like that.

If you want cheap make chain mail.

[Camber]

Right, cheap if your time is worth nothing to you. I spent 13 months making a chainmaille shirt of 20,000 links, and I even bought them premade (stainless steel split rings from http://www.worthco.com ). The only reason why I MADE my shirt was because I wanted a shirt design that isn't available commercially. But if I had just wanted a vanilla galvanized steel shirt of butted mail, I wouldn't have hesitated to put down $80-120. If you have excess time and not enough money, sure, knock yourself out.