A Detailed Guide To Building

The Norgir Armour

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 Table of Contents
The Essential Tools Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Ball Point Stylus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A leather workers mallet or maul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Cutting Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Two small hole punches for leather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Hammer tool for rivets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Edge Beveller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Edge Slicker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Utility Knife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Extra tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Stitch Groover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The Consumables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Vegetable Tanned Leather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Two Piece Tubular Cap Rivets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Surface Finishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Disposable Gloves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Leather Dye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Edge Finishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Buckles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Shoulder Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Edge Beveller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Wetting Leather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

The Drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Sheet 1 of 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Sheet 2 of 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Sheet 3 of 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Assembly instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Building the Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Building the Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Suppliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

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 The Essential Tools Required
Here at Lederkraft we have a workshop full of fancy tools not to mention a huge industrial laser for cutting out the
leather, but to build the Norgir Armour you won’t need anything like that, you will however need a few essential
tools.

Ball Point Stylus

To transfer the pattern to the leather the most effective method is to use a
clean sponge to dampen the surface of the leather with cold water, making
it soft and then trace over the pattern with a ball point stylus, if you plan to
do a lot of leather work it’s better to have a professional stylus, but you can
get away with using an empty ball point pen.

Fig 1.1 Ball Point Stylus

A Leather Workers Mallet or Maul

Usually these have a synthetic plastic head though they also come in rubber
and rawhide finishes, a mallet will have one or more often two flat faces used
to strike whatever tool you wish to hit whilst a maul has a cylindrical striking
surface.

For the beginner a mallet is both easier to find and use since a maul requires a
greater degree of accuracy when striking or it will glance off hitting the user.
Do not use a steel hammer, this will damage the various tools that you are
going to be hitting, do not use a wooden carpenters mallet since the tools you Fig 1.21 A Poly Mallet
are striking are metal and they will damage a wooden mallet head.

Cutting Board

When cutting or punching holes in leather use a cutting board underneath,

a white plastic chopping board such as you might find in a kitchen will
suffice, this helps prolong the life of your tools, but please don’t use your
kitchen board.

Fig 1.22 Poly Maul

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Two small hole punches for leather
The armour is fastened by many rivets, you need to punch out the
holes for the rivets to go through, now you can buy a revolving head
or interchangeable head hole pliers punch from almost any good hard-
ware store, but you will typically find it impossible to punch a hole
much more than 25mm (1 inch) from the edge of your material.
Fig 1.32 Set of Punches
Instead we suggest either a single hole punch of 3mm diameter (1/8th
Inch) and one of about 4.5mm (3/16th Inch) or if you prefer a set of
punches two of which must be this size, you will be using these with
your mallet to prevent damage to the rear of the punch. The 3mm
punch will be for rivet holes, the larger punch is used to make holes
for the buckle pin to pass through.

Hammer Tool for Rivets

We will only be using two piece tubular single cap rivets for this
armour and to set them properly requires this simple tool, typically
these come as a set with the tool and a small disk of metal to be used
as an anvil.
Fig 1.31 Pliers Punch
To use, the rivet is inserted from the inside face of the armour through
all the layers (typically two or three) and then the cap is pushed onto
the projecting shank, the rivet length should be chosen so that no more
than 1.5mm (1/32nd inch) of shank projects beyond the front face of
the armour

Now place the small anvil on a hard surface, if you don’t have a good
solid worktop use a concrete floor, the back of the rivet sits on this
anvil and then you place the hammer tool over the dome of the cap,
the tool has a recessed face so that when you strike the tool with your
mallet, the rivet head will not flatten, one or two good strikes are all
that is required to set the rivet firmly, the back of the cap will lie flush
with the face of the armour.

Fig 1.4 Rivets and Tool

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Edge Beveller

To give a nice professional finish to our armours we always

bevel any exposed edges with an edge beveller, A number 3 size
is the one we use most frequently.

Edge Slicker Fig 1.5 Edge Beveller

Once you have bevelled the edges of your armour you need to
smooth them, there are a wide variety of tools on the market for
doing this, but there are essentially two types, the rotary edge
slicker, a wheel like form which can be mounted on a shaft and
powered by a motor or an electric drill, or a purely manual one.

Often stick shaped with one or more grooves in its side, with
either you rub the edge of your cut leather smooth, applying a
little Gum Tradacanth to the edge of the leather before using the
slicker will give a beautiful smooth
finish.

Utility Knife

You want a good heavy duty knife with a really sharp blade a Fig 1.61 Wheel Slicker
well made Utility Knife will suffi ce but not one with snap off
blades, replace the cutting blade regularly as leather is very
good at blunting knives.

When cutting or punching holes in leather use a cutting board

underneath, a white plastic chopping board such as you might
find in a kitchen will suffice, this helps prolong the life of your
tools, but please don’t use your kitchen board.

Fig 1.62 Traditional Slicker

Fig 1.7 Utility Knife

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 Extra Tool
Whilst not required to produce the armour the following tool may be
useful

The Stitch Groover

Although the Norgir armour has no stitching anywhere in its design

this handy adjustable tool allows you to create shallow grooves
parallel to the edge of your leather, normally used to set the stitches
slightly into the surface the tool can also be used as a way of adding a
decorative groove to the armour.

Fig 2.1 Stitch Groover

Using the tools of the Trade. See Fig 1.5

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 The Consumables
Vegetable Tanned Leather

Commonly called Veg Tan this is what we at Lederkraft use for all our leather body armours, it’s fairly easy to work
with, can be etched or embossed for additional detail, dyed to a wide variety of colours and is tough and hard wearing.

For the pattern as required you are going to need a minimum size of 1150mm x 750mm (46 x 30 inches)
approximately 3.5mm thick (also called 9 oz) this is for the main armour plates, for the side gussets and various straps
we typically use slightly more fl exible leather approximately 2.5mm thick (6 oz) you will need a piece 615mm x
350mm (24.5 x 14 inches).

Two Piece Tubular Cap Rivets

These are typically bought in packs of 60 or more and are quite inexpensive, you will need a selection of shaft lengths
and these will depend on the thickness of the leather you buy, but in general allow for the following approximate sizes

• Twice the thickness of your strap material plus 1.5mm

• The thickness of your armour leather plus the thickness of your strap leather plus 1.5mm
• Twice the thickness of your armour material plus 1.5mm
• Three times the thickness of your armour material plus 1.5mm

The last one may be difficult to obtain, in which case there is a work around, buy the longest rivets you can and then
use your mallet to pound the rear of the armour where there are three layers of armour to pass through, this will bruise
the leather making it a little thinner allowing the rivets to pass through, we prefer this to skiving (cutting the leather
thinner) as it seems to give a better result.

Surface Finishing

We use a variety of surface finishes to give a good long lasting waterproof leather, dubbin is a good, inexpensive and
effective wax like finish excellent for more rigid sections of armour, but neatsfoot oil or mink oil can also be used
especially where a slightly softer leather is required.

Disposable gloves

Get plenty of these in plastic or latex, for use when dyeing and fi nishing, your skin is remarkably similar to the leather
you will be working with and just as easy to dye, trying to explain just why your hands are a fetching shade of blue
can be difficult.

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Leather Dye

We use Fiebing’s Leather dyes, though there are other brands available,
either the oil based or the alcohol based versions give very good results,
you will need some applicators or daubers to apply the dye.

Dyes can be mixed to get new colours, but NEVER try to mix oil based
with alcohol based dyes as they are not compatible, to ensure this does
not occur accidently, try to buy only one type of dye.

Fig 3.1 Leather Dye

Edge Finishing

For a really good finish to the cut edges of the armour plates you can
apply Fiebings Edge Kote, this dries to a semi gloss water resistant
finish, but should for best results only be applied to slicked edges. It can
be used to give a contrasting or matching finish to the body of the
armour.

Fig 3.2 Edge Kote

Buckles

There are 15 sets of straps on this armour each will require a buckle
so you will need 15 ¾ inch sized buckles (to take a ¾ inch or 18mm
strap), we have found solid oval buckles are ideal for this

Fig 3.3 3/4 Inch Buckle

9
Brass Domes

In the picture of the Norgir Armour on the front cover you will
see we have placed a considerable number of Brass Domes on the
armour as decoration, these are available in a number of sizes but for
the Norgir we only used 12mm (0.5 inch) diameter domes, these are
pressed from brass sheet and have typically got two legs which are
pushed through small slots in the leather and folded over to secure
in place, on the drawings we have marked the position of these slots
with a pair of parallel purple lines, for the Norgir armour you will
Fig 3.4 3 different sized
eed 58 of the domes.
Brass Domes

Waiting for the dye to dry.

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 Techniques

Edge Beveller

The edge beveller is easy to use but care must

be taken to ensure that only the leather is cut
and not the users fingers, to use hold the tool as
shown in the image below, make sure that the
hand not holding the tool is always behind the
tool, keep the tool sharp, use a strop frequently
to keep the edge sharp, once it’s blunt it is a
difficult tool to properly resharpen.

Fig 4.1 Using the Edge Beveller

Wetting Leather
When wetting Veg Tan leather to transfer a
pattern, you only need to use a little water, just
enough so that the surface darkens is ample, if
the surface starts to dry out just wipe it again
with a wet sponge.

Fig 4.2 Wetting Leather

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 The Drawings
Sheet 1 of 3
All 3 sheets should be printed onto A1 paper to give a pattern to fit a chest from 100 to 110 cm (40 to 44
inches), the sheets can be found at the end of this document.

1 centre back panel

2 shoulder panels (left and right)
8 rib panels ( 4 left and 4 right)
2 side panels (left and right)

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 The Drawings
Sheet 2 of 3

1 centre back panel

2 shoulder panels (left and right)
8 rib panels ( 4 left and 4 right)
2 side panels (left and right)
5 pairs of decorative front straps

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 The Drawings
Sheet 3 of 3

1 Top Panel
2 Pairs of decorative straps for shoulders
2 Side Gusset Panels (left and right)
8 Pairs of fixing straps (3 pairs left and right 2 pairs at back)

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 Assembly Instructions
First cut out all of the parts we suggest that you lay them on top of the paper pattern so you can keep track of
each part.

Building the Back

You will need all the parts on sheet 1 plus both gusset panels and all 8 of the buckle side of the fixing straps
from sheet 3.

Run your edge beveller along all edges of the centre back panel and side panels, also along the exposed edges
of the shoulder panel and the lower edge of each rib panel, only bevel edges that are exposed.

Edge slick all edges to get a smooth finish

Note that we tend not to edge bevel the straps or slick them, though you can if you prefer.

Edge bevelling the gussets is optional.

Now Dye your leather panels and straps.

At this point if you have bought Edge Kote, no is the time to apply it.

Mount the 3 Brass domes in each of the bottom 2 rib plates.

Assemble all the parts so that the front looks like the diagram, start with the shoulder pieces and attach
each rib beneath the previous one in turn from top to bottom using the 3 centre holes only, mount these two
assembled pieces under the centre back panel, then add the two side pieces on top, finally add the gussets
beneath the side panels and buckle ends of the fixing straps on top of everything else.

Assemble each of the buckle straps first it’s much easier to do this before joining to the armour.

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16
 Building the Front

You will need all of the parts from sheet 2 and the remaining parts from sheet 3

Start by cutting out and dying then assembling the panels exactly as you did with the back, save that in this
case all of the rib panels have 3 brass domes, in addition the centre panel has 10 brass domes that must be
added before assembly.

Add the 18 domes to the top panel

Attach the decorative straps to the top and front panels, Note that there is an extra hole on the top panel that
lies halfway between the two mounting holes for the decorative straps, this hole is for the attachment of an
extra strap should you wish to add spaulders or shoulder plates.

Assemble each of the buckle straps first it’s much easier to do this before joining to the armour.
Note again that we tend not to edge bevel the straps or slick them, though you can if you prefer.

The top panel attaches over the shoulder panels with 2 rivets on each side

Now add the remaining fixing straps 3 on each side and 1 on each side of the top panel as shown.

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 Suppliers
Le Prevo Ltd
Le Prevo, Dept W1.
No.1 Charlotte Square
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 4XF.
Telephone: 0191 232 4179
Fax: 0191 261 7648

http://www.leprevo.co.uk/index.htm

Tandy Leather Factory UK Ltd

Unit 2, Crofton Oak
N Portway Close
Round Spinney Industrial Estate
Northampton
NN3 8RD
Telephone: 01604 647910
Fax: 01604 647951
Toll Free: 0800 0856765

https://www.tandyleather.eu/en-gbp/home/home.aspx

Lyon Leathers Ltd.

4 William Street
Northampton
NN1 3EW
Telephone: 01604 639346
Fax: 05601 252563

http://www.lyonleathers.co.uk/

J T Batchelors Ltd
9-10 Culford Mews
Balls Pond Road
Islington
London
N1 4DZ
Telephone: 020 7254 2962, 020 7254 8521

http://jtbatchelor.co.uk/

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