Hey all
Since the subject of targes has been thrown about the forum a bit recently. I was inspired to put one together, and am pleased to share the fruits of my labor.
Woodsheal in another post was nice enough to give a detailed description of how he made his targes, and this is what I went by.
I'm glad he did, because I know it would have taken me a lot more time to figure the tricky bits out by trial and error.
I found that if you VERY CAREFULLY use a torch to dry out the leather, it will stiffen, shrink the leather a bit and harden the surface which would probably do well to stop arrows and bayonets, but certainly not musket balls!
I used a lot of scrounged materials for this such as scrap 1/2" plywood, old towels and stuffing from a comforter for the padding, leather straps taken off a tossed-out leather jacket and even the backing leather was stripped off an old couch.
I don't like the arm straps very much and will probably replace them as soon as I come up with something better
I have since added a couple of D rings on the back to attach a carrying strap
I still have enough leather to make another and will make it a bit smaller. This one is 21" and is plenty heavy given the thickness of the hide I used for the front.
I was originally going to make it 24" and use 3/4" plywood which thankfully I didn't!!
Hopefully we'll get a few more people making targes!
thanks for looking
Iain
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