Original Armour Strapping System:

Ok lets look at the original armour strapping systems. Something that has been of hot debate for years; but in which the know-how has only been proven recently with the outing of the LFL archive pictures.

Starting at the top of the shoulder bell to shoulder strap connection.

We know that the torso armour was held together front to back by 2 inch white elastic, glued directly into the two armour parts. And to that elastic strap there is a large hand sewn snap on the under side placed on the inner edge closest to the wearers head.

The bell itself is then connected to the white torso elastic by using a long 1 inch wide black elastic strap that goes deep into the bell in the centre under the raised profile section. The connected snap is hand sewn to the upper side of the black elastic. The elastic inside the shoulder bell is simply glued directly to the bell, using a white adhesive that has been applied to both sides of the elastic. The elastic at the base of the bell to stop the bell itself flaring out when the wearer raises his arms is simply glued inside the bell and again uses white adhesive on both sides. This black elastic looks to be 1 inch wide also.

Replica 1.5mm armour
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Original armour
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Next up is the bicep to forearm strapping.

It still seems that the biceps had no real way of being held up apart from being tight enough for a pressure fit. We can see on the Han Solo hero suit he had 2 curved pieces of plastic addded to the inside of the bicep and the elastic from the shoulder bell keeping them up but the other suits still seem to be reliant on the arms simply staying put.

The forearms are held in place by a piece of black 2 inch elastic glued directly in to both armour parts. The elastic is not directly in the centre of the armour pieces in the crease of the inner elbow but is bias towards the front of the arms when the armour is worn.

The forearms are attached in such a way so that they are butted up tight to the bicep when laying flat and when being worn, in some cases they even ride up over the biceps. Again the white adhesive used is on the inside and outside of the elastic.

TM 1.5 replica
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Original armour
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