The Kingdom of the Emerald Hills

I was pondering buying a new ninja 750, well technically a used ninja, but new to me, anyways I was looking at my armor / riding suit options, and I can't find very many good ones. Most street gear is thin nylon or leather, both of which offer very little protection, unless you're a nomad or something. A lot of them have amtgard foam over the joints. For less money I can get what I was using before, a kevlar vest, looks like they're around $250 on ebay these days instead of the $400 I paid last time....that being said, I was hoping for some rigid armor, maybe something I can't stab through with a good sharp knife. The best lead I have so far is motocross armor, which looks cool but I have no idea how protective those plates are, a knife might slide right through them or they could bounce a .223 for all I know, so I sent in some queries to ebay vendors in hopes of a response, or if anyone here has handled motocross armor and could describe it, that would be good.

I also noted that the motocross design could be copied pretty easily with metal and cloth in the place of the plastic and foam, probably with the lacing modified to be steel wire, and thus having a pretty nice piece/design to imitate for medieval amtgard metal armor, with the motocross armor foam-rubber backing being replaced with cloth and the rigid plastic plates being replaced with metal, all cut to matching sizes with similar holes and shapes, assuming the original piece fits.

Also does anyone have any practical suggestions for where to get better armor for motorcycling and/or getting stabbed/shot by muggers?

You might try the armor set linked below. It looks to be the plastic type but with less of the slits that you have with standard motocross armor. It "should" stop a knife unless the wielder is very skilled or extremely strong. Most likely won't stop a bullet though.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-tp/105361141/bodyarmor_safety_vests_safety_vest_full.html

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Lord Malran Singollo
Duke of Dreadmoor
Patriarch, House Singollo
Lettusio-Rex, Dreadmoor Fey Jackalope
Member of the House of H.O.P.S.

I was about to head outside to do some digging with a claw hammer and shovel, but I was thinking since I'm new to industrial mining and manufacturing some armor might be helpful. Is there an armor I could buy that would protect my fingers and hopefully other body parts as well from a 12 amp circular saw with any random blade, at least for maybe .1 to .5 seconds in a pinch-scenario? 14 gauge titanium gloves might meet that requirement, although stainless gloves in 18 gauge might work pretty well too, especially if they're thin and articulated. I'm almost to making those personally, although I'm working on the torching/forging pit area now with the hammer and shovel, although if anyone knows where I can get saw (and torch) resistant gloves, head, or body armor, that would be awesome! Bonus points if it's cheap, and I still have to be nimble enough to work the heavy tools, which isn't actually that nimble, and I can remove the armor for more precision work...although I think the combo-blade on the saw might cut through 18 gauge stainless in approximately zero seconds, although that combo-blade has a numerical rating, I think it's 11,000, which may or may not be higher than stainless at 440, although it's not rated to cut anything about 1000 or something, because cutting a 10k harndess material with an 11k hardness blade = no more blade after the job, and it wears when cutting metal a bit, although almost no wear on wood, plastic, or foam. The blade wasn't that expensive, and the replacement angle grinder blades at home depot seem pretty durable, possibly much, much harder than common metals at a similar thickness, although it looks brittle too, like it's a high density stone disc...that could potentially be made into pretty good armor that it will not itself cut through rapidly?

I had some more thoughts on armor rules and making it.

The rule I was thinking of is how armor is counted...I think it should be based on how durable the material & bindings are, and hinderance and coverage should not be a factor. However any hit to an unarmored location should always bypass the armor, and it might even be good to say that if the armor has mixed thickness coverage (maybe thick leather with metal plates attached via nails or rivets) then the leather would be considered non-armor and the metal full value, for simplicity? I also think it might be a good idea to have a single armor counter per person, so that any hit to any durable protected location does damage to a global armor counter, which could be rated from 0-6 or 0-10 or some other arbitrary number, and could be called "Armor Points" or something similar. This would make it easier on the armor wearer to keep track of the points, since every time they take a hit to any armored location they just add the damage to a running total, and when the total exceeds their armor value + 1 they take damage normally, making counting hits with armor way easier. This would also allow for neat partial armor, for example if a person took a metal disc that was about 8 inches in diameter and 16 or 18 gauge thick, and punched some holes in it and tied it to their chest, they could then potentially block hits with it like a chest-shield, and it would absorb up to 6 points worth of damage assuming the metal it was composed of was rated at 6...although it might take a penalty for how it was tied on, for example if leather belts were used to attach it it may take a penalty...although perhaps not, the metal would still be worth 6 and hits to that would detract from the global armor counter for that player, however a hit to the thick leather straps would do normal damage as per an unarmored player and not affect the armor counter.

I was thinking of making some new armor/garb, so I was randomly DAPping some tin foil to an old thick cotton long sleeve shirt, then I figured the foil was pretty pointless except for appearance, so I chopped up some thin galvanized pipe with my big scissor shears, but the pieces were kind of thin and sharp, so for that amount of effort I figured I'd wait for daylight and chop up the thick pipes from the trampoline I got for free, maybe chop them into small squares & rectangles, around 1-4 inches in length/width, each piece is around 12 gauge or 10 or so (need to measure it!), the torching pit looks windproof and tiny, about 1.5 feet deep and 3 feet long and 1.5 feet wide with a 45 degree ramp/floor, and I can bend the pipe into flat pieces there with a torch and a hammer and some cinderblocks. Then I plan on DAPping the pieces either to that shirt or to a different durable shirt, until I get good coverage with the pieces, then I'll either cover the whole thing with a layer or two of fabric (for bumping into me protection for other players from the metal edges, which I plan on buffing and sanding individually to be round, and maybe covering them with a layer or 3 of duct or some other tape for safety. I may also glue some of the thinner pipe across the gaps in the metal, maybe in little strips, then get a bunch of thin short nails and nail all the pieces together, then bend the nail over on the back, sand it down, then cover with tape then fabric DAPed to the tape.

you should go 2 this awesome shop i found my blast suit in! It can survive a nuclear blast and does ok with the radiation for a few min, but i do find i can survive it longer by wrapping my body in camp foam and plastic wrap underneath the suit. of course its equipped with a spy camera so that i can send the footage back to the FBIs secret headquaters. their biggest treat tho is those damned carebears throwing coffee tables and edible rainbows at ppls houses. the only thing that can kill them is maggidos knife...

Maggido's knife is only a legend though. It would take an army of trolls to find this magnificent legend. I shall go with you, do you have another camp foam suit? I would personally douse mine in Napalm first though because it makes no sense to do that.

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In service,
Faelynn Dreth
Master Druid of The Emerald Hills
GM or Druids
PM of Riverstone
Captain of The Shadow Chorus
Member of House Singollo