Muscled thorax fastenings

[Chris B]

Proof that I have not given up yet. I have about 12 hours into the new armour, and I love it 100X better than the first attempt. It is even starting to look like armour. It meets up. I have cut out the full back plate, shaped it, dished muscles roughly, put 4 of 6 hinges on the back and front plate, cut out most the front plate, shaped the front plate, and am now taking a much needed break. I don't have a blacksmith's biceps you know.

Tomorrow is the make or break day. I will slowly shape the top and make the final cuts to the upper portion of the front. It is the step I am the most afraid of at this point. I will just slowly cut it away until it hopefully meets up perfectly. I am accepting prayers over the next 24 hours! :lol:

True to the original point of this thread, hinges are not very forgiving on a thorax. They have to meet up PERFECTLY, and I have spent a lot of the time tweaking the alignment.

Dimitris,
I used solid brass door/cabinet hinges for attachment and 3/32" solid brass rod for the pins. I counter sunk the hinges into the back plate so there is not as much of a gap in the armour. The problem with this is that the inside diameter of the hinge is cut short by the thickness of the plate. The way I got over this was to bend the barrels 90 degrees backwards so that the open portion of the barrel was facing the inside of the armour. I then opened the barrels just a small bit to give a little more tolerance for fitting. It worked very well and the armour feels VERY solid. By bending the barrels 90 degrees, it pushes them just slightly higher than the connecting plates and pulls them in closer together. See the pics. I will make prettier pins once it is all finished.

Here are four update pics.