I'd highly suggest steel washers, and not leather washers.
I can do articulation rivets with a regular claw hammer in a pinch. The solid ones don't go as well, but some people can do it. I'm not great with rivets, but, I'm passable. A ball peen hammer runs about $5 or so for a cheap one in the states, probably can find one for around 10 euros or less over there. You can find nice gel handles and such for $35 (50 euros) and up, but if it isn't a constant use thing, cheap one works fine.
Hehe - thanks for the info (and conversion to euro's. A hammer from my local DIY store is in the £10 range, or $15/15euro from what I can tell)
Anyhow - sorry, wasn't clear. It's not a leather washer, it's
Steel (armour plate)
Leather strap (holding the plate to another plate)
Leather strap (buckle to attach to shoulder pads)
Washer (currently looks like it's made out of a coke tin! Will replace it with steel)
Thanks again,
will report on progress once I've mauled a few more rivets :p
m.