Solo Fine Threading IX

[Willis Efram]

12 Summer 525

Heading to the Mercantile on another day in Syka, Willis waved at a few of the locals he knew as he headed to the common building. It being the main shop in the settlement people were often heading in and out of it. And it being such a small settlement, it did not take time for a newcomer to be known and for said newcomer to know at least in passing quite a few people. Willis himself had been there a fair number of seasons, and so was slowly becoming more well known even if he had not been deeply involved with most of the people yet.

Heading inside of the building Willis waved with a smile at Juli, waiting a few chimes for her to finish an interaction with a customer before he could take up a bit of her time.

"Hello Juli, nice to see you again. Just dropping off a few items I have repaired, and seeing if you have anything specific for me to work on."

Juli took the offered sack and opened it to check on the leather goods inside that had been fixed: a few leather waist pouches, a backpack, and a pair of pants which had all been in need of fixing, before nodding at his request. "Oh, lets see here... Yes, these look fine, your work is slowly getting better you know? When you first started some of it was rough, but I think your really starting to grasp the finer nuances of it all. As for new work... I know, do you work with armor at all? I think everything till now has been more functional leather goods, but if you could work with or make armor out of leather we could pay you more. It takes more skill than just regular leatherworking..."

Willis for his part thought on his response for a few moments, before responding honestly.

"I mean, I have worked on some leather armor pieces once or twice, but I have never made an item myself... Honestly I cannot say my quality working on armor would be as high working on regular leather pieces."

Juli nodded along, used to Willis blunt appraisal of his own skills, and if nothing else knew by know to take him at his word if he said he could do something or only barely do it in a pinch. Then a sudden idea seemed to occur to her, and she lit up. "Ow, I know then! Why don't we do the same as you did with your leatherworking? We will start you off small, just some patch jobs and repair work slipped in with the other leather goods, but that would give you a chance to practice and get more experience with armor right? Since your a novice at it, from what you said, we won't pay you the full amount you'd normally get as an armorer, instead we'll pay you your normal leatherworking rate. With that in mind its okay that your work with armor isn't quite as good as your other leather work, so long as its passable and usable as a fix, and your main work will still be making or repairing leather goods. How does that sound?"

Willis once more thought on the woman's words before responding, thinking it over and giving Efram a chance to chip in with his thoughts. Efram though remained silent and gave the mental equivalent of a shrug, leaving it up to Willis to decide.

"Okay, I'll do it. Just bear in mind its not going to be as high quality work as my other leatherworking, okay? I'm assuming since you asked you had an item in need of repair in mind?"

Juli laughed for a moment before rooting around below her shop's counter and pulling out a pair of damaged bracers. Rather than vambraces, part of arm armor connecting to a pair of gauntlets and other parts of torso armor, the bracer was just a standalone piece covering the forearm or part of it, often used by archers. Willis for his part knew enough to tell that the item was not a vambrace, but that was about it.

WC: 695

[Willis Efram]

Taking the offered items, Willis inspected them closely before continuing. Juli for her part was used to this, having seen Willis examine closely each item she'd passed to him in the past which needed repairs.

Often a pair, since most people had two arms, this armor covered the forearm... Looking at it more closely Willis could see it was a standalone piece, rather than one meant to continue or attach to another piece on either end. While someone wearing it might have other armor on, it was not a cohesive piece built with attaching it to another in mind. But beyond that and the part of the body it covered Willis did not know much about it.

Passing on from how it was used, Willis began to consider what repairs were needed. One pair seemed almost intact, until that is he turned it over and saw the underside. Here, a similar problem to one he had seen on other pieces, the lacing was damaged. Bits of the leather cord meant to keep the armor in place were frayed, and other bits had been cut through. Perhaps someone had been in a rush to get it off? Regardless even without that he could see it was used and in need of repairs. The other piece had more obvious damage, though also had frayed cording meant to lace it in place, but that was not all. It also had a trio of large rends on the top side, with some red staining around it. Clearly it had served its purpose and been used to stop a blow, but had not fully been able to do so.

Examining the leather itself Willis could see an obvious difference from clothing leather and pieces meant for armor. The toughness and thickness of this leather was much greater than the pieces he had worked with before, meaning it would be harder to work... The bottom side where the cord lacing would loop and lace to fasten the piece in place was a bit thinner and more in line with the pieces he had worked with, but the top was a much hardier thing and would be more difficult to work with and cut into shape... This made sense, since it allowed to focus the weight on the part most likely going to see an impact, rather than the other parts of the piece. Finally finishing his review Willis turned back to Juli, giving another shrug.

"I will give it a try. Though I cannot guarantee it will remain as good as the original state it was before the damage. But I will do my best. The underside shouldn't be too far outside my normal work, but the top... I am going to need some sturdier leather than normal to work with."

Juli nodded, moving around the room for a bit and collecting some pieces here and there in a sack which she eventually passed to Willis. "That should get you going, let me know if you have any trouble. I added in a few different pieces of leather which should suit you."

With that Willis nodded and headed out to began his work, considering each part of the piece and what he would need to do to mold the leather into the needed shape while still maintaining the needed durability for armor.

WC: 556

[Willis Efram]

After stopping by his room to grab a few things, Willis headed to the commons to do some work. He had the tools he needed for his crafting in his backpack, and a sack in his arms with the materials he would need to work along with the two damaged items.

Once he arrived at the commons he waved at a few of his work neighbors: some people mending a damaged fishing net, someone whittling a item out of a hunk of wood with a knife, and another person darning some socks. They smiled and waved back, greeting him before most returned to their work while chatting with each other. Willis did likewise, not interrupting unless someone directly spoke to him. Then he began pulling out his materials, once more going through each item one by one. His tools, to check their usage and if any could not be used or where damaged. His materials, thread and leather and waterproofing liquids. Lastly he examined the damaged items, giving them a once over before finally beginning his work.

Starting with the less damaged one, Willis began by taking out the damaged leather twine used to tie the armor closed against the wearer. This took a bit longer than expected, seeing as it had been cut in several spots. Each place it was not worn but cut Willis marked the armor with a bit of chalk and reminded himself to check that area more closely for damage.

Looking it over, Willis knew the easiest part of his task was replacing the damaged leather ties. The real work would be fixing any damage in the surrounding area, which seemed likely to have occurred based on the state of the armor. Sure enough once he had all of the leather tie pieces free Willis began running his fingers over the piece of damaged armor and began checking for things his eyes could not so easily see. Sure enough as he moved his fingers slowly from one end of the piece to the other he noticed several marks in the leather. Cuts, which where not a problem in and of itself and did not stop the item from being used, but if left as it was would end up being a critical vulnerability to the piece and likely lead to it failing.

Marking each of these points on the item in his mind Willis kept moving his checking from one end of the item to the other in order to make sure he did not miss anything. Then, having checked the bottom which was obviously damaged, Willis turned the armor over and did the same with the top of the piece. Slowly moving his fingers over it and checking for anything not visible at a casual glance. The top did not look damaged, but Willis would rather be safe than sorry and so worked his way across the item from one side to the other. At the end of his process the Akontak let out an exhale of breath he had not realized he was holding, finding no further damage on the top and only finding the damage on the bottom. This meant at least for this piece he would not need to replace the thicker leather, rather only the bottom needed fixing. With that done Willis once more turned to the bottom side of the piece, checking more in depth those spots he had found nicks or cuts and deciding which needed repair or replacing and which was okay as it was. That would be the true test of his skills, finding what he did or did not need to fix.

WC: 607

[Willis Efram]

Looking over the first of the two pieces of armor again, Willis checked in detail each of the marks he had found on it one by one. A few of the spots were purely cosmetic, and Willis was certain they just needed a bit of buffing but not an outright repair. They were simply scratches across the surface that felt to the touch as a mark, but had no depth.

Along with those though there was also several deeper marks, actual cuts that went beyond the surface and when Willis pinched the leather just right he could see how deep the cut was. Deep enough that if another blade or attack came its way, it was almost certain to give as a point. If nothing else Willis was certain they lowered the durability of the material and eventually would give in with normal usage and cause damage needing fixing. Damage that if it happened while the piece was in use could be quite dangerous. And so these needed fixing and replacing to address.

Drawing a chalk line next to these cuts, Willis began to check the design of the bottom half of the guard. Checking it more closely rather than being made of one solid piece of leather, the bottom seemed to be made of strips of leather - solid thick ones with length but still strips of a type- which had been sown together side by side and at the topside against the top half of the guard. Turning the piece over though Willis could immediately see the design was different, the entire top part tapering down to where it met the bottom of the piece was all one solid molded piece of hard leather. The bottom part was much more flexible and thin and made of several side by side pieces of leather - and therefore that much more prone to damage- while the top was one solid piece that was somewhat rigid and did not give. Willis had seen this done, boiling the leather piece in oil once formed to harden and stiffen it, but it was not something Willis had done since coming to Syka. After all what he had made was garments for wear, not armored goods, and so this process was not needed for bags and belts.

Considering the tools he had checked earlier Willis knew he had what he needed in his leatherworking kit, but it was not something he could do here in the commons. Which meant anything involving it would need to be done in a different space, one away from people and where he could boil a container of oil large enough to set the armor piece in. Of course, Willis reminded himself, the guard pieces he was working on were small compared to a full breastplate, and so would not need an overly large pot... Still, Willis noted this for later and added it to his plan for repairing the pieces. Now that he had begun taking the pieces apart and worked to understand their makings Willis felt he had a better understanding of both the pieces themselves and the process of making and repairing them. Thing that would be useful since Willis did plan to repair them.

WC: 537

[Willis Efram]

With all of his prep work and exploratory detail recording work done, Willis began the actual task of repairing the guard other than removing the damaged leather cording. Having identified the separate pieces of the bottom half of the guard earlier Willis took out a pair of snips and a small blade for cutting thicker material and began to separate the pieces of the guard which needed to be replaced. Of the two cuts needing replacing their entire portion of the bottom of the guard would need to be replaced. Luckily for Willis though they were not cut through, which would make his job of mapping out the damaged piece and measuring out a replacement that much easier.

A snip here, a cut there, a few more snips up along the side, with the leather cording removed which fed along the bottom of the piece Willis only had to remove the threading attaching the piece on the other three sides. On two sides was the next piece of the banding of leather which formed the bottom half - or one side of it as this one half piece was mirrored on each side and then held together by the earlier removed leather cord- and on the top was where the bottom half of the guard met the harder top half of the leather guard. This top side was also more reinforced than the other sides, and used a thicker leather cord to thread it in place along with a matching larger set of holes punched into it. It was not quite at the point of adding metal parts to reinforce it, but was still quite a well made piece from what Willis could see.

After a few chimes of this Willis was finally able to remove these two damaged pieces. With those removed Willis for a short while had to move back to his earlier note taking stance, taking out his measuring cloth and beginning to mark out the dimensions of each piece. Using his earlier chalk marking piece Willis noted the measures of each side of the piece, finding that rather than a square piece each side was a bit different on each piece, Willis realized part of this was due to the curved of the arm that the piece was going around. For the softer pieces this was less important, but for the upper harder part the exact shape and molding of the leather needed to be just right. As it was now though he could see another aspect to it, other than the piece being longer based on were it attached in the piece to the other surrounding pieces it was also narrowing as it grew closer to the wrist and widening as it neared the elbow.

Going from the marked measurements to the actual piece Willis used the removed pieces as a guide and carefully marked their sizing onto the softer piece of leather he was using for the bottom pieces of the repair. First he marked these out using the cut out pieces flattened, getting a odd four sided shape. Once this was done he compared these marking to the measurements he had gotten earlier on the pieces, and marked again slightly inside these first markings. Then measuring again he checked the original piece, and compared it to the markings to make one final set of adjustments. As close as he felt he could get without cutting Willis set aside his chalk, and prepared himself for the next more invasive step of his work. Cutting things.

WC: 590