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Techniques of Medieval Armor Reproduction

Reproduction armor generally is made from one of three materials, much like its medieval counterpart. Significant advantages like perfectly flat, pre-smelted steel, fencing wire, pre-tanned leather hide, modern tools for shaping, and large cutters such as Beverly Shears make it so even a relatively new armorer can develop attractive and functional armor. The techniques themselves, however, remain essentially unchanged in creating the armor itself.

Leather Armor
- Leather armor is hardened through boiling, soaking or impregnating, then formed to shape via molds. The hardening process involves either soaking the leather, or sometimes boiling to thicken it while soaking, then lashing it over a form to give it the desired shape and letting it dry. Impregnating the leather means using a wax such as beeswax on heated, dry leather in order to let it soak up the wax, then lashing it to forms in the same fashion as soaked or boiled leather.
Maille Armor
- Maille armor, or chainmail as it is commonly called, is an armor that maintained functionality through most of the medieval period due to its flexibility and inexpensive cost. Maille armor is produced by drawing long lengths of wire, wrapping them around a spindle and cutting to form multiple, tiny rings. These rings are then woven to each other and either butted or riveted together. In butting, the rings hold themselves closed by their own inertia, while in riveting the ring ends are flattened and a very small rivet driven through the flattened portion.
Plate Amor
- Plate armors are considered the peak of the armorer's craft. Metal is taken from sheets, cut to patterns for the various parts of the armor, then shaped and riveted or strapped together. Shaping the armor consists of dishing, or pounding the raw metal into a dish-shaped depression, raising, or pounding the metal around a raised object on a stake, and planishing, or tapping the metal on top of a steel ball on a stake with a mirror-surface hammer to remove forge marks.
Modern Reproduction Advantages
- Modern tools and techniques have greatly enhanced the speed and quality of medieval armor reproduction. For leather armor, ovens used to bake the armor give reliable, consistent heat and carnauba wax added to beeswax makes for hardening that resists high temperatures. Power drills for spindling and modern pliers have made maille a project that can be done inexpensively and relatively quickly. Body shop tools have revolutionized plate armoring, allowing cold-forging, or forging without heat, to become commonplace.

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