Kauyon La'Rua - "Patient Hunter Team"

[mihangelion]

well on one side its just a small piece of armour and the other its pretty much a shield lol. it can easily hide a fire warrior's body if in the right stance

[john]

Thats what I thought. I'll try and get something together for this in the next couple of weeks.

[mihangelion]

once I finish uni for summer i will be developing the suit myself

[shadowwolf]

Hi
You could make the armour plates for your Tau out of either 2mm thick ally sheet easy to work with and form, or you could use Veg-tanned leather.
Veg-tanned leather when added to boilling water harddens up as it drys out allowing you to shape it straight after its come out of the water and then once it's dry it'll hold its shape, if you only allow it a few minutes in the water and use water that boiled about a minute or so before you'll get the the leather to hold a shape but stay flexable, once it's dry you can dye it whatever colour you want, you could then rivet a strap inside the shoulder armour and if you used a boiler suit with shoulder epaulettes you could fix them straight to the suit.
You could also carve the unit insigna into the leather and colour it after it's dried.
The one thing you must remember it that the leather will srink as it dries not a lot but some depending on how hot the water is the hotter the more harder and the more srinkage you'll get.

[mihangelion]

thats a nice idea. i never considered leather. i was going to use compressed polystyrene sheets and vaccuum form each part but i like the sound of that. do you have any pictures of what can be achieved? also welcome to the forum ^^

[john]

Leather is very flexible material and Cuiboli is very tough stuff, however if memory serves hardened leather softens when wet. The big problem would be sourcing veg tanned leather of sufficient thickness, there are very few tanneries around that do it and supply direct to the public (the only one I know of is up Whitworth way near F&O Urban) I found another but they would only do a run of 300 hides and didn't keep stock. It is worth a trip up to see if its still there though, up for a road trip sometime? expect to pay anything from £60 - £100 per hide.

[Manius]

In my research into armour for myself I considered hardened leather.

The plus is that it is good to work with and form however….

As John mentioned, getting good thickness of Veg Tan leather is difficult and often expensive (Veg Tan is not the norm these days).

Depending on how long its submerged will change the finished size of each piece as well as how ridged and brittle it is. So, its pretty hard to get a good piece to work with, once its dried and hardened though its just like using semi-ridged plastic so its nice to use to actually construct armour.

However, the other choice is to use a homemade vacuum former – which is quite cheap to build – and use plastic sheets from a craft shop. It’s a far more forgiving material to use (you melt it in your oven and its…melted…as long as you don’t go so far as to make it runny you’ll be ok).

I’m currently looking at finding a supplier for a particular class of plastic that would be ideal for making scale armour. It has to be ridged but NOT brittle, so I’m hoping I can find the classification of that type of plastic – thick black stuff that wheelie bins are made of.

Cut to shape with a jigsaw, hold it together with leather or cloth strapping and rivet in place with pop-rivets.

[roguesword]

I’m currently looking at finding a supplier for a particular class of plastic that would be ideal for making scale armour. It has to be ridged but NOT brittle, so I’m hoping I can find the classification of that type of plastic – thick black stuff that wheelie bins are made of.

That would be High Density Poly-Ethylene or HDPE, injection or rotational moulded. It would normally come to the factory in pellets but you can get sheets for vacuum forming.

[Manius]

Thank you Rogue, thats the info I needed but I won't be vacuum forming it.

Just getting a big sheet and cutting plates out of most of it (ok, perhaps heat forming some pauldrons).

;D

[roguesword]

My pleasure

[shadowwolf]

Hi
well heres one supplier I've used over the years for leather.
www.leprevo.co.uk/hides.html
striaght to the veg tan section.
They also do end of run special offers at a discount.
once you have your shape in leather and have formed it then you water proof it unless your dyeing it then you dye it first and then waterproof it.
My favourite waterproofing medium Halfords cycle maintance spray it don't discolour your leather it sprays on and it has teflon in it so crap done stick.
I though everone wanted there leather kit waterproof.
Heres a piece of kit I did as a commision, the shoulders have hot water hardened leather hawking plates.
s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn60/shadowwolf-Tomk/?action=view¤t=94ac.jpg
Did I just read the words pop rivets, please nice a sharp edges and they'll diggin to either the wearer or anyone you brush against, two piece snap rivets no need for tools just a block of steel or concrete and a hammer and they be flat.
Sorry about the rant I've seen the damage pop rivets do.