Of Armor and Prototypes

Summer semester is finally over for my schooling which means that I now have a more time to spend working on products, right? Sort of. Besides continuing to take care of my kids so my wife can make her business grow I also took to picking up a gig troubleshooting and repairing an old RV generator. With finals having been last week I had put forging and making things on the back burner and with this job my thought is "Cash in hand is worth more than what I might have".  So I focused on studying for my tests and trying to find the parts to fix the generator. However I have been thinking about my products and you dear readers. I have not forgotten your requests. In fact I have, when I had time, been working on bow steel armor and prototyping PVC bows.

The first PVC bow I made was for a friend who has taken it to several costumed events. She seems to really like it. I learned the basic process for making it from a cool guy named Nicholas Tomihama. He is the author of several books concerning home made archery projects. However it was not his books that I learned from. It was his Youtube channel; https://www.youtube.com/user/BackyardBowyer. 

What I learned from him was some of the basic of PVC forming. I had tried my hand at PVC forming prior to seeing his videos but that was for making scabbards for a machete for myself that 3 years later I still have not finished. I did finish the scabbard though. I think I used a gas torch, an iron, and an electric charcoal starter as my heat sources. I also used weights as my flatteners…I proved it could work but I didn't know I was reinventing the wheel... I now use a heat gun as I learned to do from Nick's videos.
Anyways, I had a bunch of 2 foot sections of PVC pipe leftover from making other stuff. I'm wanting to make some small bows for kids costumes so I wanted to see if 2 foot sections would be long enough.

Turns out they are about 6 to 12 inches short. I was unable to get an even bend in the bow due to the lack of working room. Not wanting to waste the material I continued pressing on and now have a cute tiny functional bow prototype. I even made a makeshift arrow from a short broken piece of a wooden dowel and a 2 inch bolt. For fletching I used clear tape. The arrow consistently flew about 20 feet before it hit the ground when fired horizontally. That being said, I would not use this particular bow for hunting. I would use a larger one.
 

As I said above, I have been working on steel armor as well. The current example pieces I am working on are a pair of spaulders. What is a spaulder you may ask? Well it's like a pauldron, just smaller and does not cover my armpits. In other words it's shoulder armor. Pauldrons are like them except pauldrons can be bigger. 
This particular set of shoulder will have a dished piece called a "cop" from which at least 3 segments will be suspended. I'm considering adding a segment above the cop that will be designed to protect my neck from lateral blows. I'm still working on the shape for that. 
I want it to look good, be functional and still be able to carry a pack and possibly a person on my back in case I need to. You never know when some one will pass out from dehydration when out at a medieval fair or on a film. Being some one who likes to help others and having plenty of practice carrying people wearing armor while wearing armor myself I have no qualms carrying some one to an aid station. Besides, I'd likely be carrying my kids after a long day at a fair I'd wear these to. I don't want to hurt someone I'm carrying just because I got pokey stuff on my shoulders.

As you can see they still have a bit of ways to go. I need to smooth out the cops on both (only one is pictured here) and do some more bending and shaping to make all the pieces fit and look good. After drilling holes I will the harden and temper these and add leather straps.

In other news, I have transferred all my Ebay items over to Etsy. I get more traffic on Etsy so that is where more products will be listed for  now.

Speaking of Etsy, I honestly didn't know what it was until a few months ago. Because of that I avoided it. Thought it was like Pinterest or Myspace or something like that. I was wrong. I think. I actually don't go on either of those. Anyways, Esty is actually a pretty awesome place to sell things and see what other cool things people are making.

Well, that's about all for today. In the coming weeks I be finishing some child size and full size bows. I will put those up on Etsy as soon as they are done. Also I will be having a history lesson and tutorial coming up. Until then check out Nick's stuff on his website. He has lots of tutorials on how to make beautiful PVC bows.
http://backyardbowyer.com/

Forging on,

Stephen