Squid Vambrace

With a plasma cutter now in my arsenal and a desire to make an edgy piece of wearable art I decided to attempt to make a piece of armor. After a number of drawings I settled on the idea of a squid wrapped around an arm where the tentacles (squid = 8 legs + 2 tentacles) turned into chains and attached to either a plate that sat on the back of the hand or the tentacles were attached to two rings shaped like suckers around fingers.

I started by practicing the geometry for the pieces using cardboard, and then a test piece in sheet steel. Once I had the hang of it I took the measurement of my (lovely) model’s arm to make the template. On the template I designed and hand drew the squid:

Once cleaned up I printed it, cut it out, and stenciled it onto a sheet of steel:

Then I cut it out with the plasma cutter (the best I could)

I then hammered the steel to shape using a combination of the anvil and a large piece of black iron pipe in a vice as a form. I also chiseled in the tentacle overlaps.

I cut a fine stainless steel tube into short lengths, ran a steel rod down through them and brazed them in an alternating fashion down the seem to create a hinge.

I filed all the sharp cut out areas… a lot… more than you can imagine. I tried every type of file and tool: hand, pneumatic, rotary… it was slow and hard and I think still not as perfect as I would have liked. The most effective way I found to file was actually by cutting a reciprocating saw blade in half and welding the base to a round file and then removing the guards from my reciprocating saw and using that to power it!

I also used a punch and peen to set suckers into all the legs:

Unfortunately I did not get a final picture due to moving my shop and gifting it early. I did coat it in black and then polish it to leave black in all the suckers and overlaps. I also replaced the chain pictured above with finer jeweler’s chain and attached small metal tentacle suckers to the ends. They were not secured to rings (but could be) and instead dangle around the wrist. I also fabricated a latch to keep it closed by welding posts and making a small squid key that locks it. I was on the fence on lining it with leather/cloth to make it more comfortable but I really prefer the look of skin between the tentacles so that it really looks like it is gripped around the arm.

I don’t think it was properly finished, but it was a special gift and an opportunity to experiment with a lot of new techniques!