My first try in making a Spolas

[Jehan Gelria]

Hello everyone,

Apart from my introduction on RAT this is my first post. Also my first time in making something out of leather.
Since I was a student many years ago I wanted to make a linothorax (the site of Matthew Amt gave me the vibes).

And now for obvious reasons known to most here I opted to make a Spolas instead ;-) As said, my first try at
making something myself out of leather and I must say I'm satisfied with how it turned out

Sadly I'm not into reenacting Greek antiquity (living in the Netherlands) but the Spolas is a welcome addition to my mancave.

[PygmyHippo]

Gorgeous!

[PygmyHippo]

Do you have any process photos of the construction? I haven't mustered the courage to try making a leather spolas, not to mention one so elaborate with beautiful scales! I'd love to see a full write up of how you made this, costs and suggestions. That might give me the confidence to try it. Right now I have a bell cuirass (in brass) that I modified to fit me.

[Jehan Gelria]

Sure thing, will come up with something.

[Jehan Gelria]

Part 1

When looking for pictures I realized that, in the heat of the moment, I forgot to make them during a considerable amount of stages so please forgive me for that
I never intended to make a walkthrough of my project for that matter

Of course I started with making templates from cardboard. I taped the edges with a few layers of 3m-tape to a) prevent damaging the template when cutting the leather and b) make sure the cuts in the leather where as clean as can be.

               

The leather itself is vegetable tanned leather dyed white. At first I started with 2 sheets of cowleather (thickness 2,5/3 mm each) but since I desired the breastplate of the spolas and the yoke composed of 3 layers in total (backside of the spolas only 2 layers) it turned out I didn’t have enough leather. Spend a week searching for another equivalent sheet of leather. In the end decided to travel to Belgium and found a sheet more or less the same.

                   

First batch of cut pieces:

   

Attaching the 2 layers of pteruges (and middlesheet of breastplate) together:

   

---

Part 2

Attaching the second (middle) layer of the breastplate. In this stage attached the second layer only to the leftside and bottom (between the 2 layers of pteruges):

   

Experimenting with pigmentpaint (took me a long time and efforts before I had something that worked btw) and starting with sewing the yoke:

           

Scales made from phosphor bronze (0,4 mm thickness). First cut out the rough shape with a tin scissor and then filed to size and shape by hand.
Afterwards greased them with furniture wax.

           

Then onto painting a border which will be glued (with hide glue) beneath the scale sections and above the sewing edges of the different layers of leather.
As you may  have noticed I forgot to take pictures of sewing together the 3rd layer of the front and the 2nd layer of the backside

   

---

Part 3

I also forgot to take pictures of the remaing part of painting the border...  But here you can see the painted border ready and a first start of positioning the scales. 
Above that you can see my first attempt (on paper) of a pattern (also on goat leather) I wish to sew there:

       

And again I forgot to take pictures, this time of sewing the scales and painting the pattern.... These pictures show me in the proces of 1) sewing the border
with pattern and 2) making a start with sewing the edges of the spolas. For that I used a rather thick sheet of lambskin:

           

During this project I felt something was missing on the rightside so decided to add a scale section there. So again went crazy on the fosforbronze and here you
can see the final phase. I did bend the scales by small pressure to let them each follow the curve of the side when wearing the spolas:

               

[Jehan Gelria]

Part 4

More or less the final stage of the project. Onze again forgot to take pictures of numerous stages.
Here you see I'm nearing the end of stiching the sides:

       

Sadly I don't have pictures of attaching the yoke, nor any pictures of attaching the rings. The rings btw are a mix of some asian drawerknobs and larger rings I ordered.

Endresult:

       

Next (little) project will be a chiton.

[PygmyHippo]

Masterful work! Thank you so much for describing the process!

[Jehan Gelria]

You're very welcome! I hope to see your version soon

[Dan D'Silva]

Looking good.

BTW, sure you mean 4mm and not 0.4mm?

[Jehan Gelria]

My bad, you are right!  I mean 0,4mm, I corrected it.

[Zephyrides]

Stunning work!