Roku mai do

[alfredofromsanmarcos]

I am in the planning stage for my armor and am thinking I may want to make a roku mai do. Can someone give me an estimate for the time period that they were in use? I am having a hard time finding sources for that. Thanks!

Al

[Mega Zenjirou Yoshi]

Per Effingham-Sensei's site existing examples of roku mai do are mostly okegawa do (constructed of solid lames rivited together). That places them mid 1500's.

You have found the site Sengoku Daimyo, already I hope?

[alfredofromsanmarcos]

I have! I couldn't find any dates attached. I found his chart on do types vs styles is very useful. I am planning on Effingham plates for the boards/lames.

[alfredofromsanmarcos]

So Effingham-Sensei recommends adding shiki to the back of each "board" for added strength and also to hold shapes such as curves. He suggests 16ga steel strips. Is this something that should be done on every board or would every other board be sufficient?
I am wondering who has experimented with it and what kind of weight that adds. Also, has anyone experimented with other materials such as plastic or aluminum for the shiki?

[touma]

I am currently working on building a Do Maru like Ishida-Dono's using the Effingham plates. I am using some Shiki like Effingham-Sensei suggests, and there is a complete difference in terms of strength and rigidity, between boards with and without, and the weight difference should not be too noticeable as the weight should be distributed evenly. I should take pictures to document how things are going. Also the pace is slow. It has taken about me about 5 hours to lace 22" of the shita garami, and there is a lot of it.

My wonder is with the shiki, should it run the entire length of the lame, or should there be some spacing? For example, I have my top lame of 11", but the shiki attached is only 8", spcaed in the middle of the lame.

[alfredofromsanmarcos]

Are you using 16ga steel? How wide is the strip? I would love to see pictures of what you're working on! Everyone's pictures on here are tremendously helpful as well as inspiring!

[touma]

Well since you asked, Here is my progress so far.

First the tools I have used so far:



From left to right. Hole punch I have been using to open the holes in the top lame to attach it to the Kanagu Mawari. Next is a hand Shear for creating the left and right edges from a key scale. Standard scisors for cutting the lacing to length. Last is a lighter, used to melt the little balls at the beginning and ending of the laces for each lame so they hold together and also to create a little ball at the beginning of the lace to make lacing easier( next time I will take a picture of what this looks like).  left edge, Key kozane, right edge. Then a small paper punch(3/32) to push the thread through the holes. Just above the ruler is what I am using as Shiki. They are strong iron rods 3/16 in diamater. I could not located bars in the sizes Effingham-Sensei stated and the bars would be too small for me to cut size safely so this was the best option. I found these in a bin at Home Depot/Lowes with a bunch of other rods and bars of varying toughness, size, and material.



2 completed lames laced together with a shiki on the backs. I am concerned that the shkiki will shift and move over use so I will have to either hot glue or take some additional lacing and melt it on the ends of the shiki like I would if I were soldering something. The one with an extra hole at the top will become the top lame to be attached to the Kanagu Mawari.



Here we have an incomplete lame, compared to a complete lame. Very loose and after 10 inches gets somewhat annoying to deal with lol.



Completed Lames from the Front.

I ordered my lacing from ELC/Rice Braid. I spoke with Jennifer and she is aware of our large orders of lacing. It took about 2 weeks for everything to arrive. I am going with Evergreen Base, with Red for the Hishinui no ita, and Gold for the Mimi Ito for a little ostentatious-ness.

[alfredofromsanmarcos]

Looks good! I like your plan for colors! I was wondering how well a rod would work in place of a strip of metal. According to Effingham-Sensei in one of his comments in "Bushi's First Armor" thread, the shiki could be acceptable at 6 to 8 inches long, implying they didn't need to be full board length. Rods would seem more difficult to curve than strips, though. I will be swinging by a recycler that is a block from my work and I am hoping to find some sheet metal I can cut with my hand shears. If I'm super lucky, he'll have some brass also for other bits and pieces!

[sandokai]

Looks really nice.. i like to buld my own... nut, where can i get those plastic pattern? Is it possible to order this stuff or anything else?

[alfredofromsanmarcos]

The plastic kozane I am using comes from Noble Plastics via plasticlamelar.com. Plan on 1600 to 2000 kozane per suit depending on your size. There are various places to get the lacing from, most of the good sources being mentioned in various thread here on tousando, as well as on Effingham-Sensei's site Sengokudiamyo.com.

[sandokai]

BIG BIG THX... Now i can create a prototype YEAH I hope the taxes to germany not so high. But it doesn´t matter. I don´t know where I can get this pattern here in germany.