Well that was due to not really wanting to polish it, instead I gave it a brushed finished, but thats gone now as I polished it this winter. The issue was that I had done etchings in the metal and was afraid polishing would ruin the detail, but it actually made it better.
I make armor the old fashion way, a stump, several hammers, a forge (I use a big gas burner), and lots of time...and noise. Its very good therapy, like fighting, its hard to be frustrated after beating metal with a hammer for a couple of hours. I try and use only traditional rivets, I do make my own floating, keyed, and threaded rivets as well, and try to minimise other hardware. I do take advantage of currently availible materials, as they are more readilly availible (I use nylon webbing internally for plate strappings as they do not rot).
