Introduction: Making Leather Modular Armor From Pieceables
Lately I've been falling in love with Pieceables, this new design we took to Maker-Faire NC this past year. I made this to stretch my nerdy side with a spiky looking exterior and soft inside black leather. You can use it to design clothing, armor, or just goof off for fun. Sparring matches are AWESOME! I love how quick and flexible prototyping is. This step-by-step tutorial takes you through the nuts and bolts of using your own. Generally you can put together a vest in 30 min to 1 hour from scratch.
Yeah!
You will need:
A pattern- either buy a pattern (my favorite sources are Wearable Quilts and the SCA)
Lots of Pieceables
Fingers
Time
Step 1: Get Supplies- Pattern and Pieceables
You can take any freely available pattern you buy in a store and convert it to grid form. You can either draw one yourself on ABC pattern paper or take an existing pattern and lay it out. I found this really good book called Wearable Quilts which showed how to do this as the first quilts were actually protection from arrows for warriors. It's got a couple hundred patterns and is inexpensive. I highly recommend purchasing a copy off Amazon for $.01-$4.00. The SCA also is a great resource for traditional armor patterns. But my favorite is Wearable Quilts.
Once you have your pattern you can figure out how many Pieceables you need one per 2 square inches in theory. In practice I feel that it is closer to 3 square inches as they overlap around the edges so small pieces use very little to go a long way.
Step 2: Begin Snapping Pieceables Together
Pieceables operates on a tab system so to put them together simply feed the male side through from back to front and snap.
I like to snap mine together in rows. Once you have enough for gauntlets (20-40 depending on arm size), simply snap in the back. the more connections you have, the sturdier the construction. Think like building a house, more reinforcement is good.
You can also make a bracelet to give you a feel for size.
Step 3: Practice Bracelet
Wow, ok...I'm obviously goofing off and having fun. Here's a goofy bracelet I made in between the gauntlets and vest. Yeah 4 pieces! I'm always surprised at how a little leather goes a long way.
Step 4: Make the Vest
Alright, now you are ready to make your armor. It generally takes 200 pieces to fit an adult male, while my chick top only took 70 (more skin showing).
What will you make?
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11 Comments
11 years ago on Introduction
This is awesome! I'm going to be trying to make some armor for Halloween, using snaps is a perfect idea for certain pieces.
11 years ago on Introduction
Where do you get the Piecables anyway? Arts and crafts stores? I really wanna make Altair Ibn-La'Ahad's costume from Assassin's Creed and Ezio Auditore de Firenze's costume from Assassin's Creed II and I might need to make the armor.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
They are only available online for jewelry and cosplay/reenactment/prototype purposes out of our online store. We just released this new design for a very limited market so it's not widely available as it's something we use in our local shop, but couldn't find exists anywhere. We are hoping to change that. :-) If you would like to get some/support the starving artists, you can do so here:
Jewelry Amount (6 Pieces for $11)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/103041929/pieceables-bracelet-modular-leather
Breastplate/Outfit Amount (200 Pieces for $210)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/103042842/pieceables-breastplate-modular-leather
Happy making! And thank you!
11 years ago on Introduction
When I saw this, I thought it would be a DIY guide to cuir bouilli!
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Very cool.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
This is the closest I've seen to the actual process, but there's actually a better way to do this with almost no prototype loss in the process: https://www.instructables.com/id/Leather-flask/. I think I may have my next Instructable.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Thanks for the suggestion.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Ohhhh, that's really hard for most people to get without turning their beautiful leather into crumpled ashes. There's an oven baked alternative to that which works really well provided you have access to a normal-sized oven. Maybe I will do an instructable on that next. That's a pretty good idea.
11 years ago on Introduction
very clever, nicely done
11 years ago on Introduction
so cool.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
I'm soo glad you like it! Pretty addictive stuff.