[Steppes] Steppes Loaner Armor and You

[Mike]

Heilsa,

The issue of loaner armor needs to be address - we are having explosive 
growth and are actually having more people than armor. This results in 
people sharing armor. A number of more experienced fighters are loaning 
out some of their own personal armor to get each individual who wishes 
to fight out on the field to do so, still there is only so much armor 
that is available to loan out. What we all want is to see, is everyone 
who wishes to fight to be one the field at the same time, especially 
this is true for melee practice.  Which comes down to this, if you have 
been coming out for the last several weeks and still depend upon a 
complete set of loaner armor to fight with, you need to start working 
upon acquiring your own armor and get away from having to depend upon a 
complete set of the loaner armor each week to fight in.  If each of you, 
will start building and/or acquiring your own set of armor even if it is 
a piece at a time, then you will find that things will fit better, you 
will become custom to the fit. In the long run, you will actually be 
fighting better, since you will be in the same armor every time that you 
come out to fight, be it at the practice or more importantly when you go 
to an event.

There are a number of people who are present at practice, who will 
assist in answering questions, there are various patterns for armor 
available as well or the necessary information on where to locate them 
on the web, where to acquire either the raw materials (leather and 
plastic) and/or whom one should be seeking out to purchase these items, 
in some cases, tools are available and the necessary advice on how to 
properly use them or where to acquire them.  The major item that we all 
require is the helm and does take some major commitment ($$ dollars), 
just a fact of playing this game and there are "Good" resources for 
acquiring this item, need to ask before you buy. This also applies to 
armor in general as well, you can buy an entire set of armor from the 
web, again Please ask one of us before you buy, this to insure that you 
will be getting "good" quality armor that meets SCA standards.

On the issue of raw materials: The Leather Company merged with Tandy 
leather sometime ago, plus there is a saddle shop in Royce City which 
also can supplied leather - need to ask to what type of leather and the 
weight or thickness necessary to be safe and SCA legal.

There are suppliers for sheets of plastic the "Barrel" plastic, ABS, and 
even Kydex, plus a source for the fiberglass pole which can be purchase 
which met the standards of the SCA for a fiberglass spear. Once again, 
there are people available to assist you in building these items into 
SCA legal armor and/or weapons. A sheet of plastic will start at $35 for 
a 4 x 8 ft for barrel plastic and go up, you will get almost 2 1/2 sets 
of armor out of one sheet. This means that you and someone else could 
pool your funds to purchase a sheet of plastic and get a set of your own 
armor, so if you are not sure about what time period to base your 
persona upon, then plastic will get you on the field until you decide 
that time period.

Plastic is what most of the loaner armor is made from. Plastic is a good 
"Cheap" means of getting onto the field with your own armor and compared 
to leather and especially metal it is light.  One of the down sides to 
wearing plastic armor is you will need or rather be asked to cover the 
plastic in more "period" material - such as tabard, fighting pants, 
etc... I know one lady who took the time on the same pattern as the 
loaner armor is based upon and placed light weight leather over it as 
she built up each piece of plastic armor, so that her plastic armor 
looks like leather, it did take longer to build though.  I will mention 
the following before someone else does - Yes, you can go out and find 
plastic barrels for almost nothing, using this material will still cost 
you in time - cleaning the inside of the barrel out, cutting off the top 
and bottom of the barrel, dealing with the curve that is already present 
in the plastic, plus logos, etc..., then tracing out a pattern to cut.  
It is your choice.

Next weekend is Steppes Warlord. Some plan on being there the entire 
weekend, others will day tripping one day or other, others will not and 
will be in the park Sunday afternoon same time as regular practice time. 
There will be no loaner armor available.

YIS,

Lord Michael Fray
  Combat Archer for the Condottieri
  King's Archer
  Steppes Deputy Knight Marshal
  Steppes Deputy Hospitaler