Armor Progress 2014-10-19, Now With More Pics!

As mentioned once or twice previously, I've been working almost daily on the armor, and I took a few photos today to show the current progress. You may recall that I was working with Worbla, using it to add edging to each of the armor pieces. As you will see below, I've made some pretty good progress -- with a few pieces still to do.

My dining work table. These are all of the pieces that are done or in progress. Conspicuously missing is the huge breastplate, which will be the last piece that I do. Also, the knee protectors are just off the left edge of the photo. I haven't started them yet, but they will go just before the breastplate.

Closer-in shot of some pieces. Clockwise from lower left: hip protectors in progress; small parts of the breatplate; the right shoulder pauldron pieces; greaves, one inside the other; vambraces, also one inside the other; and thigh protectors.

Closer-in shot of other pieces. The only additions here (from the previous picture) are the left shoulder pauldron pieces, in the upper left.

Tools of the trade: heat gun in the lower right; shears for cutting Worbla (Sintra is too thick); box cutter; the little blue glass bowl has scrap pieces of Worbla that I can use to patch up little gaps (these really work great for that); the blue tape is used whenever I need to hold something in place and I can't do it with my own hands; the pen and ruler are used for drawing my cutting lines on the Worbla; along the left side of the photo are one-inch wide strips of cut Worbla, and a single half-inch wide strip. I measure and draw cutting lines for the one-inch strips. For the half-inch strips, I take a one-inch strip and just eyeball the cut rather than trying to measure and draw a line.

On most of the pieces, I used one-inch strips, where about 5/8 to 3/4 of the width is on the facing side, and the remainder wraps over the edge and onto the back of the piece. I used the half-inch strips for the smaller hip protector pieces, which themselves will be overlapping as they hang at my sides. The half-inch strips do not wrap around to the back, they are simply heated and stuck to the facing side of the pieces. As I mentioned before, one side of the Worbla has a very thin layer of glue, so all you need to do is warm it up and stick it to the Sintra.

This stuff has been great to work with. The heat gun makes it very easy to soften up the material and shape it to whatever I need, including some pretty tight curves, and the glue facing makes it easy to simply stick to the Sintra wherever I want. No additional adhesive is needed, ever.