Kabuto imitation help

[Toastygawa]

I seek suggestions

I have contacted Kiyohara in the hopes to purchase or learn-and-construct an authentic kabuto for SCA use. He and I have not been able to work up a schedule for this yet. While I want to take the time to learn how to do this right, I also want to get on the field (and I want to do so in Japanese gear)!

I have no metal-working capability at home, so I've been purchasing black plastic. Limited money prevents me from splurging on any of the helmets I've found that are made to resemble kabuto, and few of them are to my liking.

I've considered getting an ashcraft-baker basic spangen or conical helmet with removable grill and adding plastic mabizashi and shikoro. I know this could VERY EASILY turn into a nightmare of wanna-be armoring and turn up in the vomit-inducing-pic threads.

I don't want to be ridiculous, but I don't know of a better/faster way to get myself into combat. I'm certain I can do this in a manner that doesn't look wretched (I've got enough experience making theatrical props to pull it off).

Is there another way? This is a better idea than grabbing the nearest great helm for $75 and using that, right? I'm almost ready to make the purchase (and some horse-hair to help hide the non-Japanese helmet bowl). I just want to heed what suggestions, cautions, warnings, and or threats to my life that you all may have to offer.

I'm aiming for late muromachi, early azuchi-momoyama.

[Kitadatedenka]

Well, every attempt I've seen to produce the silk purse from a sow's ear has ended in failure, so let's see how bad your situation really is.

Do you have a drill? Electric, brace-and-bit, doesn't matter. If you're doing Japanese, you need some way of puttng a hole through stuff anyway.

How are you cutting the plastic? Chisel, sabre saw, hacksaw, whatever. Again, you need some way of cutting plastic, and chances are that that method works with metal, too.

Do you have a hammer? Preferable a big old ball pien. If not, that's a small expense, and you'll want one anyway, even if just to put rivets in things. If you're extravagent, you'd spend 10 bucks on one. My advice, get a big one, and a little one. That's maybe 10 bucks for me locally.

Do you have any ruined jeans? If so, chop off a leg and fill with nearly anything (sand, dirt, shot, I've even seen rice, but that breaks down rather quickly), and sew it up and use it to dish into. If you don't, buy some denim. You'll want some fabric that wears well anyway, right?

If you have 75$, you should be able to get enough tools and such to get you on your way. Call it:
12$ for 2 ball piens
10$ for denim (enough for a shot bag and liners for your kote, with some left over)
2$ for a new drill bit
call it another $10 for rivets, assuming you have to have them shipped, or less if you just go with a box of nails.

Even buying sheet steel at Home Despot at their exhorbitant prices, you can get enough, and a chunk of 1/8" X 3/4" bar (for a grill, unless you want to learn to make somen, too) and some 3/8 barstock to make a nice zunari.

If you don't have enough left over for lacing, rivet the shikoro down.

It's not the tools that make the armourer, it's the skill. All the tools do is make it faster for the skilled armourer to make stuff faster. If you can't make armour with a ball pien and a shot bag, you probably can't do it even with every tool you want.

The basics are quite simple to get, and inexpensive.

Heck, I can make mitten gauntlets with nothing more than some way to cut, some way to drill, a hammer, and a chunk of round stock for an anvil. A zunari is much easier.

Go for the good armour. It's well worth the effort. And if you're just starting out in SCA combat, you can use your practice time to learn proper technique. Not as sexy as getting hit, but better for you in the long run. I've had too many get out on the field too soon, and get bad habits of technique.

We'll still be here when you get your armour.

[Toastygawa]

I hadn't heard of a denim sandbag as a dishing surface! How cool.

I am more fortunate than most in the tools at my disposal. I do have a small ball pien (that statement invites some horrible commentary, I know) amongst other hammers. I didn't think dishing and forming could be done properly without heat - either a forge or at least a decent torch.

Nails as rivets? Do you mean push them through and cut the remainder, hammering the remaining post flat?

Thank you, Kitadatedenka. You have given me ideas that I had not previously considered...

[Kitadatedenka]

Hey, with the right technique you can dish on a flat surface. It's just easier with something that gives, or is curved. A leather bag filled with lead shot is perfect, but demin with sand works well enough.

Mild steel can be worked cold, as long as you're not too extreme with it -- and zunari sides aren't that extreme. Usually I don't even anneal elbows, and they're the deepest thing I do regularly. Raising is another matter, but you won't need to do much, if any, on most kabuto.

As for nails as rivets, that's exactly what I mean. If you can swing it, though, definitely get some rivets. The domes heads look better, and you won't have to cut them off. But any nail will do.

Really, you CAN do this. I just hate to see people not get what they want when it's right there for them to take.

[Kurodachi no Mykaru]

If funds are the biggest hold-up, I am producing SCA jingasa. The first run are all smalls and are not yet all spoken for. I'm starting the next run (larges and mediums) June 3rd.