Sunday, June 24, 2007

Arm armor update

More progress!

I modified the pattern a bit, made a cardboard template and cut out the leather. I'm only making one to start (the right). If the pattern works out, I'll do the left the same way; the pattern isn't specific to the right or left.

About you see the leather cut to shape, with holes punched for straps and stitching. I forgot to allow a slight overage for shrinkage when waxing (even though I wrote on the pattern "allow 1/4" for wax shrinkage!") but, since this is the first attempt, I just left it be. We'll see how it goes after wax is applied.

Above is the back-end halfway stitched up.

I cased the leather (that is, soaked it in warm water) and let it dry for about eight minutes before bending it to shape, above. That's Lily's mini-basketball in the center; my hope was that it would give the elbow a rounded profile.

Hanging up to dry. I was hoping that it would dry more evenly if suspected from the ceiling.

The next day. It's still damp in this photo and took most of the day to dry completely. An unexpected benefit of tying up the ball inside the elbow was the cool scalloped shape around the elbow. I like it a lot.

Tonight I'm going to wax it and hope to have it ready to fight in come fight practice on Wednesday.

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