Girdle Bands - Adding leathers

Not that long ago, I mentioned a lack of illustrative mistakes.  Today I will bring you at least two.

As you may recall, there are a number of made-up girdle bands waiting to be assembled.  Well, today's first mistake relates to those - I didn't put the rivets holes for leathering into the bands.  Now I'll have to add those (and put holes into the leather itself) with them already shaped, which is much less convenient.






First things first - I had to look at the pathetically mismatched eclectic selection of bands and determine front/back and what order I would hang them in.  Everything got labelled, probably past the point of common sense, but it's better to mark too much than to mark too little (and make a mistake because of it).

This brings me to an important armouring tool which (quite frankly) I had forgotten all about - soapstone.  Yes, those lovely "B"s are made with soapstone - not chalk!  Soapstone marks much better, is less fragile, and hits a nice sweet spot between being difficult to smudge but easy to remove.









Since I made the mistake of leaving this task until the bands were already bent, marking the points for rivets required a measuring string which I could lay across the inside of the lames.  I suppose I could have eyeballed it, but this seemed more foolproof.



As described in previous posts, a center punch is used to mark a nice divot in the metal where the hole should go.  The metal punch has a small tooth which is used to 'find' the divot and make sure you're putting the hole exactly where you want it.

Leathering is then the process of slowly adding each lame to the leather strip.  You can see here I am using nuts and bolts as my temporary "rivets" while testing the fit.  These will be replaced with actual rivets during the final assembly.



Note the black tape.  This is added to provide a visual guide of how much overlap is being added with each piece.








Also note that I'm still using second-hand belts for my leathers rather than buying the real stuff.



Our friend the leather punch makes an appearance again.









Here's another shot - note the how the black tape helps line things up consistently.





Finally, this brings us the to second mistake of this post.  After taking all these pictures and completing the first leather, it finally occurred to me that I need three leathers per girdle half...  I should have done all three at the same time!  Instead I had to take these girdle bands apart and start all over again from the markings to the holes.


Last picture from Saturday is the other half of the girdle bands all laid out and marked.





The more observant among your may have already noted that 5 simply isn't enough girdle bands... and you're right!  I actually have six for each side, but after a test fitting on Saturday evening I confirmed that even that would be a bit short.

Sunday's post covers the reaction to this discovery.