Posts: 599 Location: Brooklyn, NY
Sun 23 Aug, 2009 9:38 pm
My favorite material for armor and
shields is aluminum. Easily workable with a hammer and anvil, yet ridge enough to run a car over. Very light, very strong, fairly cheap and does not rust. It come is different grades. At the low end you have have street sign aluminum. Its really not bad at all for armor. Not too good for shields cause they will bend at the corners and crack where you bolt the straps. My shield is 5052 H38 aluminum (this is good stuff). Weighs 9 lbs strapped. Another choice is 7075 T6 Aluminum. T6 is very much loved as very good aluminum. Aluminum can be polished to a brush or mirror finish.
I would not use aluminum for a helmet. Too light. The mass is a big component of the protection as it absorbs impact. You don't want your head being knocked around too much. My choice for helmets is stainless steel. Some armorers give a life time warranty of on stainless steel helmets.
I saw a pair of titanium elbows at Pennsic. Light as paper. I would love to try them out but at $300 a pair... I'll stick to aluminum at $35 a pair. We are talking about a difference of half pound for aluminum elbows vs perhaps one quarter of a pound for titanium. I really can not feel the weight of the half pound aluminum on my elbow anyway so its not worth paying all that extra money. Stainless steel elbows (1 lb) by comparison are about twice as heavy as aluminum. That is still light. Mild steel in 16 gage is twice as heavy as the stainless. I fought in that for two years in mild steel and that is a weight you will feel in your arm a lot if you use any high guard. It does slow you down. With mild steel you are talking about 2lbs for the elbow+ 3 lbs for the sword+ 1 lb for a vambrace + 1 lb for a portion of any shoulder armor that comes down your arm. So 2+3+1+1 = 7 lbs on your arm. With mild if you want it light, you have to go with a light 20 gage and temper it for strength. Tempering means more money. The thinness means it will rust through sooner rather then later. Too temporary to be worth the trouble for me.
Using the lighter modern materials is not really cheating because in period I would have gone with the lighter gage steel, had it tempered and changed it out every year... or six months if necessary. The modern materials just extend the life of the armor. I don't want to have to buy new armor every few months.
Plastic works good too if it is cut and shaped like real armor. I like the shiny stuff though. Aluminum still comes in a tad bit lighter then plastic of the same strength. The plastic tends to be a little thicker and bulkier to maintain the same strength / protection qualities.
There is nothing wrong with getting period made armor either (thin and tempered). Its just too nice and expensive to use in practice 2 or 3 times a week and have it beat up. I would save that for special ceremonies and events.
Just for fun... how about a armor made out of Depleted Uranium. Super hard, very heavy, very expensive and radioactive :)