Medieval Visby Gauntlet

Hi!

In this instructable I will show you the process of making a Visby styled gauntlet. The gauntlet I made is ment to be sown to a leather welding glove.

Now you will need some things and materials but not many and they aren't expensive. You will need the following items:

-Leather (any color you want, I got mine for free from a larp community that didnt need it anymore)

-Sheat metal (I used 1,5mm thick steel)

-Nails with wide heads for the rivets

-Shears (hand shears will work but I am using big fixed ones)

-Flat and round files

-Some hammers of your preferable weight ( I used a 300g and 100g ones, and a ball peen)

-Drill press or hole puncher

-Sandpaper 80 and up

-Needle and thread

-Some basic understanding of metal working

PS. I am not an expert armourer, I just like making armour and weapons of the medieval era.

Good luck.

First you should decide on a style and size of the gauntlet you want to make. My patterns are fore the Visby ones and will most likely not work on any other style gauntlet. And I will also admit I kinda made mine bigger than needed so you need to scale them to your own hands.

I started with tracing the back of my hand and determening where the ridges will be. Then I traced the thumb pieces and the fingers. I only made one full finger pattern and traced for the other three.

I will not be providing any patterns but I encourage people to come up with their own unique design.

I decide to split the piece at the back of the hand in to four smaller ones.

So now take your patterns, trace them on the metal and cut them out. I also ground down the sharp edges. Then take your pieces and bend them to the shape of the hand and fingers. For the knuckle part I took a modified hammer (ball peen) and domed out a shape comftrable to the knuckles. All the pieces had to be bent in some way either by hand or a hammer.

Be careful and watch your fingers!

For the rivets I used about 3 mm thick nails with wide flat heads suitable for my needs. I cut them off with some pliers that were sharp enough. Out of my head I can say I needed about 50-70 rivets for one hand.

For the next step I marked the pieces with a black marker where I want my holes to be. Then I used a center punch to mark it for the drill bit. The drilling process can be dangerous, I suggest holding the pieces down with pliers so they don't fly in to your face. After the drilling you may want to remove the burrs with a file. Also watch out because they are going to get really hot.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the leather cutting process, but it is not difficult.

I chose black leather for my gauntlets but any color would do really. After you drilled all the holes, position your pieces and mark them on to your leather straps. You can punch the holes out or just puncture the leather with a wide nail (2-3mm). After your holes are made take a rivet and insert it in the hole of the metal and leather. Then put the rivet head on a flat and strong piece of steel and use it as an anvil. Use light strokes with a light hammer to make a mushroom head out the butt of the rivet. Peen the rivet so it doesn't move and will stay in place if you strike it with a blunt weapon. I used about 12 rivets for one finger.

When you are done with the fingers just continue the work on the other pieces in the same way.

Also note that the metal pieces should be polished before the assembly.

This process is quite simple, just cut strips about 1cm wide and the lenght comfortable to your size.

Also I drilled 3mm holes on the end of the fingers so I can sew them on the glove.

For the back piece I made a pattern out of paper and then traced it on some leather I had to stitch together. Then I cut out metal strips that will be attached to the back side of the leather. I needed five strips but you could need more or less depending on your size. After they were cut I marked out three holes per piece positioned equally on all pieces.

Then mark your holes on the leather and then punch (or cut) them out. Set in your rivets and peen the pieces together.

After riveting everything together I sew the two halves together and now I have a complete gauntlet.

So here you have my process of making a Visby styled gauntlet. I only made the right one and will now proceed to test it out and make the other one with modifications.

It took me about 3-4 days to make it but I was only working on it 3 hours per day. If I had some help and really set my mind to it i could make it in about one day.

I wish you luck on your builds and may you have many triumps on your journeys.

Good luck on the path!