How-to: Faux brigandine [Image-heavy]

Teonn has given me a new craft project: brigandine armour. Real brigandine is made of overlapping steel plates, riveted to a cloth outer with teeny-tiny rivets. It looks cool, but is a lot of work - plus, it seems a bit too good for an ordinary mercenary soldier of the sort I’ll be playing. So, I am going to go with something like this: utterly anachronistic, and with small gaps between the plates - but it will look the part. And because it is for larp use, and does not have to protect me from actual weapons, I’m using plastic, from these:

[attachment=2]brigandine-01.jpg[/attachment]

Things you will need
[ul]

  • Thick fabric for the shell. I’m using brown durasuede.
  • other fabric for the lining (optional)
  • ~8 plastic buckets ($1 each at your local supermarket)
  • heat gun (~$20 at the Warehouse)
  • rivet punch
  • ~400 single-cap rivets (~$20 at GDL)
  • steel ruler
  • scissors
  • craft knife
  • hammer and rivet anvil
  • straps and buckles for the sides
    [/ul]

The actual armour part will consist of 2.5" squares, riveted to the fabric. The rivets are spaced to give a rectangular grid on the outside - approximately 1.25" horizontal seperation, and 2.5" vertical.

The first step is to get your personal costumer to do the outer shell for you. Mine used the same pattern used for my surcoats, which gives a bit more space than I want thanks to the flared sides. That’s fine; I’ll trim it down once everything is riveted and its time to put the straps on.

Step 2 is to work out how many squares you will need. I folded the front of my outer in half vertically to give a centreline, then worked out roughly where the first row would start (allowing for seam allowance for the lining), and worked my way down. The general pattern is stacked rectangles: a big wide rectangle on the bottom, with a narrower one on top to cover the upper chest while giving room to swing your arms. In my case, this meant the top two rows were six squares wide, and the bottom 8 were 10 squares wide, with the potential for an extra two squares on the second row depending on arm movement. The back of my pattern has a higher line for the collar, so it will have an extra row of 6 squares.

Step 3 is to turn those buckets into plates. First, you dismember them into the largest pieces you can. In my case, this involved cracking the rim off (it was weak), trimming out the holders for the handle, then cutting down vertically and then around to remove the base (you need to be careful to manage the stress here and avoid cracks). The result was a pile of half bucket-sides:

[attachment=1]brigandine-02.jpg[/attachment]

Which were then attacked with a heat gun to flatten them out into roughly flat plates:

(No photo, because it didn’t come out, and I then cut the things up. But it should be easy to imagine)

Note: heat guns are dangerous, so don’t start a fire. Wear thick leather gloves to do the squishing with, and to avoid burns. Also, plastic gives off fumes when heated, so do this somewhere well-ventilated.

Step 4 was to mark out the squares, using a ruler and craft knife (because it was easier to score the surface than use a pen). I didn’t cut them all out at this stage, because I wanted to test my layout:

[attachment=0]brigandine-03.jpg[/attachment]

This shows the front (L) and back ®, folded in half, with the squares (still grouped in the chunks they came off the bucket) laid out to show the pattern. Fortunately, I had enough of the things.

Step 5: cutting them all up

[attachment=0]brigandine-04.jpg[/attachment]

(a small number of cut squares. Not shown: the other ~150-odd).

At this stage I remembered that I’d wanted to make the bottom row slightly bigger, so they could be riveted at the bottom as well as the top. Fortunately, I have some spare ones which haven’t been cut up yet, which I can resize. If that fails I have a couple of spare buckets…

The next step will be punching these things. I have a cardboard template I can use to mark dots, and then its just knocking holes in them with the rivet-punch. If I get it wrong, I can just rotate them to a new side and try again.

And while I’m on this: anyone know where I can get suitably thick leather for straps? I have some thin stuff, which will do in a pinch, but it might not survive the rigors of combat.

You can get pre made straps from$2 shops. Dog collars :slight_smile:

Good plan.

BTW, having played aroudn with this, I’m wondering whether the plastic bucket and heat-gun technique could also be used to make lorica segmentata. Though you’d need to paint it silver. I wonder how well paint sticks to buckets?

Spray paint adheres poorly to shiny plastic like that. If you rough the surface up with sandpaper it works much better.
Dave McIsaac made some lorica with light plastic strips many moons ago. Worked well but I am not sure a bucket gives you enough wrap around.
I have also seen lorica made with brown vinyl flooring (a staple of old Quest armours) which looked ok.

Step 6: punching holes in the squares. I used a cardboard template, vivid marker, and leather punch. it took me about an hour to do a hundred:

[attachment=2]brigandine-05.jpg[/attachment]

Step 7: riveting! This involved drawing up a grid on the back for where the holes should go, punching them a few rows at a time with a leather punch, and riveting the plates in with a hammer and rivet-setter. During this process some of the plates split slightly. I’m not sure how much this matters, but i may try and replace them later.

Two hours gave me this:

[attachment=1]brigandine-06.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]brigandine-07.jpg[/attachment]

(Inside and outside of half-completed front, showing plates. Also shown: the nasty gap where I had to remove a plate because the split was too bad. I’ll go back and get rid of the rivet later).

If the weather holds up (I do my riveting outside), I should have this ready to be lined and stitched together by the end of the week.

Update: two afternoons of riveting later, and I’ve just got the final row to go. Once that’s done, its pin it together and do some testing to work out whether to stick a few extra squares in.

All riveted, with the straps on and the edges trimmed:

[attachment=0]brigandine-08.jpg[/attachment]

And now its off to the costumier for lining and final assembly.

All done:

[attachment=0]brigandine-09.jpg[/attachment]

And it even fits!

That looks really good. Also, looks like lots of work!

Not so much work; the riveting took a few “afternoons” (meaning the time between 4:30 and 6; about 6 hours in total I think); and the buckets didn’t take long at all.

Identified problems: it doesn’t fold well (well, duh). Sometimes the plates get caught in one another and it needs a good shake to straighten them up again. And one of the buckle prongs is slightly too long (bloody $2 shop dog-collars) and can catch me (so I need to trim and sand it down). Other than that, its comfortable to fight in, and gives a satisfying thunk when people whack it.