Let's clothe a ranger.

[Druin]

A good place to get garment leather on the cheap is second-hand stores. Get leather jackets in earth tones for $20 or less per jacket, take them home and cut them up. Get two and you should have enough leather to make a two-toned jerkin. Often the basic shape of the body of the jacket can be used for your jerkin without drastic modification. Not always the ideal way, but certainly an inexpensive way.

[Peter Remling]

Another good place for leather is Ebay. There are several tricks to buying leather on Ebay, first don't get too hung up on a shade, pick a color or two and do your search for leather full hide and the color. Next add any auctions where the color, price range and size meet you requirements to your Watch List.


After 10 minutes of searches for each color you should have a decent list of acceptable auctions. Now comes the waiting. Whenever possible snipe. If you are unfamiliar with the term it means you wait till the last possible second to make your final bid. Depending on the speed of your computer you should hit enter between 4 and 25 seconds prior to the end of the auction.


Now if you're really lucky a particular vendor will have gotten a deal on a bunch of hides all the same color and run their auctions one right after the other. Most bidders will shoot for the first auction or the largest piece, don't, you can bid on the first or largest but where you'll probably get the best bang for your buck is the smallest piece or 3rd or fourth auction. The people who bid on the first and second piece will either have won and drop out of the bidding or start to loose that bidding rush and be more cautious.

I have won some great pieces, color, size and price by following this technique.

Good luck and remember you will loose more auctions than you win. Winning at this isn't everything, winning at a good price is.

[Eric C]

Thanks for the input on finding cheaper leather. It DOES get pricey at Tandy. Even if I do like supporting a local store.

Greg, I'd love to see how you measure for the Jerkin and any patterns you may have. I went on a short search last night but couldn't really turn anything up.

[Manveruon]

Peter, THANK YOU! That is awesome information! I'm constantly needing to find better deals on leather, but it's really hard to come by. This is great!

[Ernildir]

On the topic of stalking ebay for good deals...

Every single time I bid on anything at all on ebay, I use this free sniping service called justsnipe: http://www.justsnipe.com/

You get something like 5 free snipes every week (which has always been more than enough for me). You can tell it which auctions you would like it to snipe and the maximum amount you are willing to pay, and it will automatically put the bid in for you a few seconds before the auction ends. It's a big time-saver because you don't need to be sitting at a computer manually sniping every auction you are interested in. I highly recommend it. It's very easy to use, too.

[Liathwyn]

Silk is such a useful fabric, would it be considered "accurate" for Middle Earth ranger garb as under layers and such?

[wulfgar]

Silk is such a useful fabric, would it be considered "accurate" for Middle Earth ranger garb as under layers and such?

In my opinion silk would be a great representation of Elven fabric.

[Liathwyn]

Well then, perhaps an elven ranger is my style : )

[Peter Remling]

Ernildir

I tried your snipe site for a few small auctions over the past month or so, it works great. For the auctions you won't be near a computer for, I highly it. It also will work for those who get too caught up in a bidding frenzy. Put your high bid in the system, it will bid only up to your high, no getting caught up and bidding more than an items worth.

Two thumbs up.

[Chris Russo]

Silk is such a useful fabric, would it be considered "accurate" for Middle Earth ranger garb as under layers and such?

I've never tried it as such, but as I understand it, silk is one of the ideal "base layers" for cold weather. Not only is it good for cold-weather outdoor use, but it's accurate, as Bilbo is mentioned as having an embroidered silk waistcoat, and Gandalf mentions the term once or twice.

(Not to mention, given the presence of giant spiders in Mirkwood, one could produce silk far quicker than with real-world silkworms! Good luck harvesting it, though... )

[wulfgar]

Silk is such a useful fabric, would it be considered "accurate" for Middle Earth ranger garb as under layers and such?

I've never tried it as such, but as I understand it, silk is one of the ideal "base layers" for cold weather. Not only is it good for cold-weather outdoor use, but it's accurate, as Bilbo is mentioned as having an embroidered silk waistcoat, and Gandalf mentions the term once or twice.

(Not to mention, given the presence of giant spiders in Mirkwood, one could produce silk far quicker than with real-world silkworms! Good luck harvesting it, though... )

That spider silk would be the mithril of silks. I saw a Nova Scince Now where a scientist had actually created some spider silk and is was pretty amazing stuff.

[Manveruon]

Haha, I never thought about it but yeah, I wouldn't have been surprised if the Mirkwood Elves made a TON of spider-silk garments in the days when the forest was infested with the things. Lemons into lemonade and all that.

[Liathwyn]

Lemons into lemonade... : ) I used some silk under layers under wool in early June (which is still quite cold up in the mountains around here) and it made a huge difference in terms of warmth and weight of extra clothes. I have some raw silk that i am thinking of making into a light cloak and various other layers. I hadn't thought of the mirkwood spider silk, but I suppose you are right on that score. Thank you all for the input : )

[Mirimaran]

Perhaps those Mirkwood elves have spiders in traps or cells? Mere speculation, of course

Ken

[Manveruon]

Someone should have mentioned this idea to Peter Jackson before he got started on the Hobbit films. He would have had a field day with it, no doubt.