- Joined
- Sep 11, 2013
- Messages
- 332
Back in the early 80's I had a group in highschool that I started as an alternative to soccer or basketball. We dressed in limited armor and beat each other senseless with wooden bokens, dulled steel swords, and makeshift axes made of plywood. I seldom used armor, preferring the increased mobility over the other members who wore some padding or makeshift armor.
When I heard about the SCA, I went to try out and they wouldn't let me participate unless I wore armor. My father owned a business that had a lot of the blue 55gal plastic drums kicking around. I found that if you make cardboard patterns for a roman muscle-plate style cuirass breast-plate, you could cut the shapes out of the 55 gal drums. Then, using a blow torch and a bucket of cold water with a towel, we shaped the pieces to match the 3d shapes we needed to fit our bodies. The towel and cold water was used to set the shape once the heated plastic was bent the way we wanted.
We cut shoulder cups out of the same material, and hung 3" wide strips of the plastic from the bottom of the cuirass to protect our thighs. Once we lined the pieces with foam rubber using spray adhesive, and painted the armour black, we had a pretty decent looking set of armor that you could not cut thru with a sword. Direct blows to the chest with a baseball bat set you back a bit, but didn't hurt. The only thing that would consistently penetrate the armor was a tomahawk or pointed war-hammer.
We were only in our mid-teens, so we didn't put a ton of detail into the stuff, but it was a real hit at the SCA events and allowed us to use real blades for our own events where the rules were no cut or thrusts to the head, and last man standing wins.
I don't have pictures. Sorry. The cuirass armor sets are long-gone now. Given to a friend I haven't heard from in twenty three years. I would strongly encourage you to give the plastic drums a try. If you are patient, and made a rough mannequin mold to drape the pieces over so you could get better conformity to a specific shape, you could pretty easily make an excellent and extremely serviceable suit of plastic armor that will protect from real blades with sharp edges.
Good luck.
Tombo 65
When I heard about the SCA, I went to try out and they wouldn't let me participate unless I wore armor. My father owned a business that had a lot of the blue 55gal plastic drums kicking around. I found that if you make cardboard patterns for a roman muscle-plate style cuirass breast-plate, you could cut the shapes out of the 55 gal drums. Then, using a blow torch and a bucket of cold water with a towel, we shaped the pieces to match the 3d shapes we needed to fit our bodies. The towel and cold water was used to set the shape once the heated plastic was bent the way we wanted.
We cut shoulder cups out of the same material, and hung 3" wide strips of the plastic from the bottom of the cuirass to protect our thighs. Once we lined the pieces with foam rubber using spray adhesive, and painted the armour black, we had a pretty decent looking set of armor that you could not cut thru with a sword. Direct blows to the chest with a baseball bat set you back a bit, but didn't hurt. The only thing that would consistently penetrate the armor was a tomahawk or pointed war-hammer.
We were only in our mid-teens, so we didn't put a ton of detail into the stuff, but it was a real hit at the SCA events and allowed us to use real blades for our own events where the rules were no cut or thrusts to the head, and last man standing wins.
I don't have pictures. Sorry. The cuirass armor sets are long-gone now. Given to a friend I haven't heard from in twenty three years. I would strongly encourage you to give the plastic drums a try. If you are patient, and made a rough mannequin mold to drape the pieces over so you could get better conformity to a specific shape, you could pretty easily make an excellent and extremely serviceable suit of plastic armor that will protect from real blades with sharp edges.
Good luck.
Tombo 65
Current solutions are either to weak or too expensive and usually not fitting right I'm sure there's a big market for your armor. 
