Since I was rather satisfied with the results and the process of part two of this series. Which was mainly because of the steel spheres I used. I decided to use them again for this project. I started by measuring the width of my elbow while wearing my arming jacket that has a bit of mail sewn to the sleeve. Just to make sure I don’t get a half sphere that is too small. as you can see in the picture below, I still have a lot of polishing to do, but I do believe it turned out a good looking functional piece.
I started with a steel half sphere, and sawed off a bit on both sides picture 1. make sure you measure precisely to see what fits your elbow (I know that normally you would remove more on both sides than I have, But I use my elbows a lot when grappling I needed to put in more padding) I drilled the holes for the rivets. Picture 2. Like in part two of this series I hammered the steel strips on one side to make them bend into the round shape we need. Picture 3.
After connecting the lames to each other and to the dome with rivets, I decided to add some more protection for the inner part of the elbow. You can create your own design out of a piece of steel, However I found some Flowers made out of 2mm steel for less than 2 Dollars a piece.. they look period accurate enough to me. I attached them with a steel strip and some decorative rivets, because I needed the rivets to attach the strap and buckle on the inside of the dome anyway. you can drill holes in the lames to attach them to your arming jacket or gambeson with laces. you can add some padding to the dome if you are not wearing much padding under the armour
I think I paid around 18 to 20 Dollars for the material of one pair of couters, I think that’s not that bad considering the only tools needed were a Hacksaw, a hammer, a round and a flat metal file, a cordless drill and a sledgehammer used as an anvil.