Cold workable steel for mittens?

Lieblad said:
Sure.
Its purpose as I understand the guys needs is to absorb blows/dissipate energy over a broader area from strikes of blunt swords. This is upon a leather or fabric glove of some kind.
I dont expect its to take on a full force strike on the back of ones hand whilst placed upon a solid object.

Maybe Badazz appearance plays into the need too...
Click to expand...

Ah come on. If it's badass I'm after I would go bare handed or buy some custom gauntlets for 500. If I make it myself it'll most likely look cheap even after many hours of hammering and riveting but work for me better than the available options up to 250, I hope :-p
Also I'm not into reenacting and wouldn't care much if they were pink and my kids paint a few flowers hearts and rainbows on them. Also I don't see how thicker or thinner would make it look more badass? Shouldn't really show, right?

If the steel isn't too much I'll try both thicknesses bend them in the needed radius and check what they can take and go from there. I got a feeling for what they need to handle but no concrete numbers.

Thanks and the more input the better.

Edit: the thicker steel might be better since I'm not armoring every finger separately but want to arch the shell over 4 fingers it needs to be more crush resistant.
 
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I am moving this to the sword forum where there are people who do this sort of stuff.
 
Metalhead and Aaron thanks for the link. I couldn't find Ron but they have templates there down to the tiniest segment!! That will reduce trial and error significantly.
Will start with cardboard to adjust the template sizes roughly to my hands then mock up in Kydex to confirm everything works and in the final step steel.

Thank you. :-)
 
Heavy kydex works really, really well for this sort of thing (like .100-.125)
Easy to mold, light, strong and doesn't cut up wasters or your sparring partners
 
I agree with Metalhead on the thickness. I'm going to assume you're part of a HEMA group from what you're describing. From my experience those guys don't hit anywhere near as hard as SCA heavy fighters do, but the metal swords (if you guys are going that route rather than wood/plastic) put out much more concentrated pressure.
You could probably get away with 18 gauge mild, but you will be hammering dents out of it on a regular basis. I personally would not do it though, it's not worth the risk, particularly over your thumbs. If you're going to go with mild steel 16 gauge is what I would recommend. 18 gauge SS or heat treated carbon steel would probably be fine as well.
If you're going to be doing any polearm work like you mentioned use clamshell gauntlets rather than fingered. They're both easier to make, and will give better protection. Make sure that whatever design and material you use wraps around the sides of your fingers so that if your hand is struck the plates bottom against the haft of the weapon, not against your hand.
As someone who had to give up fighting following an injury I urge you to be careful. I fought for years with waxed leather demi-gauntlets because they passed the minimum requirements and I could make them myself for cheap. And then while having some torn ligaments in my wrist cleaned up last fall the surgeon also decided I needed some bone scraped out of my hand because it had softened due to "repeated trauma" as a result of sword fighting.
 
^that. I fought in hockey gloves and it was a bad idea.
(As far as HEMA goes I'm not inclined to let somebody swing a steel sword, blunted or not, at me in a sparring context. Too much room for error.)
 
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