How long does it take to make armor?

[Flyndaran]

Ballpark figure is ok. Anyone have ideas?

[Bruno]

Rough Answer: It Depends Highly On The Type Of Armor.

And I suppose in what condition you're assuming the raw materials to be in. Making mail takes a lot of grunt labor, even longer if you need to also smelt the ore, forge the ingots, and draw the wire. Scale's another one with a ton of little fidly bits that need to be crafted then assembled. The less parts in the armor, the easier it is to create, and the closer to "finished" your raw materials are, obviously the faster it gets but the more expensive your raw materials are.

Wood armor has the additional problem of needing to season the wood before starting any work, to a lesser extent leather usually involves three weeks or so of patiently waiting for the leather to dry/tan/cure, with only a day or so of actual labor involved.

[mlangsdorf]

What kind of armor, made by whom, at what tech level, with what materials?

At late TL6, with full production line techniques, a factory, and an ample amount of ready parts, you can assemble a tank or heavy bomber in an hour.

At late TL3, with a hammer, a forge, a shovel, a stack of firewood, and access to an iron mine, a single guy might be able to make a suit of mail in a year as he mines and smelts the ore, draws out the wire, and rivets all the links.

[Flyndaran]

Assuming TL3 with appropriate materials and tools.
Let's start with cloth armor from raw fiber.

[Flying Toaster]

From Raw Fibre? Days at the very least.

First you have to weave the fibre into cloth (possibly spinning it into a usable form first). Cloth armour takes a lot of cloth.

After you have the fabric, you then have to fit it and sew it all together. Hand sewing a heavy padded jacket takes time.

[Flyndaran]

So as a ballpark guess, 1 day per pound for the sewing into cloth, and 1 day per pound for tailoring into armor?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

It does you no good right now, but Low Tech Companion 3 will go into this. In fact, it'll give you a system for coming up with ballpark figures for how long it'll take to make pretty much anything.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

It does you no good right now, but Low Tech Companion 3 will go into this. In fact, it'll give you a system for coming up with ballpark figures for how long it'll take to make pretty much anything.

I gathered that. I just cleaned out the house of all the drool waiting for Low Tech. Now I have to wait for each and every delicious companion. :)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flying Toaster

First you have to weave the fibre into cloth (possibly spinning it into a usable form first). Cloth armour takes a lot of cloth.

After you have the fabric, you then have to fit it and sew it all together. Hand sewing a heavy padded jacket takes time.

According to one of my consultants for Low-Tech, with spindle and distaff, you need on the order of six months of full-time work to make a set of clothes for an adult. It takes five times as long to spin as to weave; cutting and sewing is probably comparatively fast. I would guess that heavier cloth of armor grade might double this. Of course, if you can find a place to buy the cloth, or even buy the fiber (and if you have a loom!), you'll save time, but you'll spend more money.

Once the spinning wheel is invented, fiber output takes off; a spinning wheel's about 5x as fast, so a month to spin and a month to weave, or x2 for armor grade cloth.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

...
Once the spinning wheel is invented, fiber output takes off; a spinning wheel's about 5x as fast, so a month to spin and a month to weave, or x2 for armor grade cloth.

Bill Stoddard

So is that for a full suit scaled for one human? Or just torso like the armor section of LT? Shouldn't it scale with armor weight as in light, medium, heavy?