OK. Finally finished it. I took some liberties with it but I am very pleased with the overall product. I used street sign aluminum in place of iron plates. I replaced the iron rivets with brass screws peened over square nuts, which I think gives it visual weight. I made a set of rigid shoulder straps but they were very uncomfortable to move in. I tried a few things, including chains, but I settled on rawhide straps with attached plates. The worst part was sewing the edging on, which is made of strips I cut from a West African mud clothe I had. The pictures don't show but there are 2 set of 8 grommets on the top of the front plate. Since I was unable to physically measure the person that I made the armor for, I wanted some adjustability when attaching the shoulder straps. That is also the reason I decided to open both sides. I tucked a strip of the mud clothe into the bindings of the shoulder plate to give it some padding.
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