Building a stainless Gorget for HEMA

Need gorget, but no money for gorget, because all money spent on swords.

And such is life when you discover there’s such a thing as Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA). You dive in head first, and before you know it… you’re a sword collector.

So now you have many swords 👏🏽 — but if you want to use them, you’re going to need armour. After all, no one wants to lose a limb. But let me clarify a few things here for those of you who’ve just realised HEMA is actually a thing.

We don’t use live blades — well, at least not when training with opponents. For longsword training, we use specially made, historically accurate training fedders.

The “armour” is also specially crafted, and mostly not metal. Generally: a gambeson, padded pants, a box for floppily-doppilies, shin guards (motocross ones work fine), special plastic gauntlets, and various types of fencing masks depending on what swords are being used.

One of the only full-metal parts commonly allowed in training and competition is the gorget (pronounced gaw-juht).

I am not a fan of getting stabbed in the neck, and due to a lack of remaining funds (plus a collection of appropriate tools), I decided to make a copy of the Winter Tree Craft (WTC) gorget — which is a pretty common choice.

One of the HEMA club members lent me his so I could take measurements and work out how it was built.

I had some scrap stainless steel lying around, just enough for the project. I drew it all up to scale on paper first so I could test the shape and get an idea if it would fit, then roughly cut it out with a grinder. I wish I had a plasma cutter. Oh how I wish.

To keep it authentic, I’d need copper rivets, plus buckles and leather straps from Crispin Leather in Brisbane.

With a bit more careful grinding, I cleaned up the initial rough cuts. Then I finished it off with a belt sander using a steel linishing belt. The cheap Ryobi belt-and-disc sander works fine, but it doesn’t have the custom adjustment angles of higher-quality (and higher-priced) metal linishers.

I have an old cast body of a Singer sewing machine — rescued from the depths of a friend’s garden — that I use for moulding shapes. You can bend parts like this by hand, or use a hammer to bash in the tighter curves.

I probably should have drilled all the holes first, but I’d never done this before, so I inadvertently skipped a few steps. Once all the holes were drilled on the drill press, I did a final clean-up using the best sander.

We don’t need burrs and sharp points here. This thing is designed for my neck.

This is the copy I made, on theeft, and the original WTC gorget I borrowed on the right. Then I cut out the leather lining to suit.

Overall it works well. If i made it again i would reduce the height slightly. I think I made this slightly larger than the original WTC design. I’m keen to attempt a full suit of steel armour someday.
(Update: I did give it a go (below) — I managed to make a single pauldron, but the lack of a proper shed made it difficult. Cold-beating steel is a lot louder than I expected, so I had to pause until I can secure a more suitable space.)

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