My Samurai Armor (dressing and unboxing armor made by iron mountain armory)

Hi, I am Dequitent, an armored fighter in non-choreographed night fights. And today we have another special video. Because this giant box arrived. And this is my armor from Iron Mountain Army. This is the first full armor set I ever bought, because normally I forge my own armors. So I'm of course really excited to see how this armor fits me, how a traditional Japanese samurai armor works. And yeah, let's start. First of all, I have to say that I'm not an expert on historical Japanese armor. So I will break definitely many traditional ways to put on this armor. And the clothes, of course, too. But I will try my best and see how my expertise in European armor will help me to understand this armor piece without much knowledge about Japanese armor. And I will always try to keep it simple, to use simple knots and put on this armor on my own. I'm here alone in the fog, so no one can help me. And if you also buy armor from Iron Mountain Armory, you can be sure that you can put this armor on yourself as well without help. So first of all, I have to get rid of this European medieval clothes and put on some clothes made also by Iron Mountain Armory to fit on my samurai armor. That will be the first step. It's very cold here, so I will leave some parts of European clothes on my own, so that I don't get frozen to death. Because this armor set is made for summer. And here we are in the middle of the winter in northern Germany. And it's around zero degrees celsius. So first of all, I will put on these historical shoes. These are my historical samurai shoes. And they are normally a little bit shorter than your feet. So the toes will stuck out here, so you have a little bit more grip. Because they don't have much grip here. The muddy terrain is already cold on the toes. But I can imagine in summer this feels quite well. It's also cold for my ears, so I have something historical. Looks a little bit strange, I would call it. To keep me warm, I will take all different kinds of armor underwear on me and make some layers. This is very simple. Put it over and make a knot. Not that hard here. Make a small knot, because you don't want to have a big knot on your neck, where the menpo will push on it into your neck. Simple knot, not too big. So nothing will push in your ribs and yeah hurts you. Fine. Okay, now I'm looking like a wizard. Last part will be of course the trousers. Normally you will put your shoes on later, but here in the mud I can't stand in socks. I have much padding in here, so this looks a little bit silly. So now the clothes on the shins are a little bit more tight, so you can put your armor on much easier. These are free here to warm up my hands. So now it's time to open the box and I'm very hyped because I never ever wear samurai armor and I never bought a full armor set. So it's the first time for me. Real wood. Then open it. Okay, we have to start in the right order and first of all we put out some, I think it's padding, so I will put these aside. I hope this wasn't some important parts of samurai armor. We will see. But first we always need on European armor sets the greaves. So you start from the bottom and let's look for the greaves. Here is the first one and it's looking really really nice and solid. So my full armor is made of hardened steel, they promised, and I can't bend anything. So looks good, looks really really good. I have to show it in a close-up. These are my greaves with some steel plates here inside. So it's movable but it will protect your knee. And I find out something beautiful. Here is some cotton or linen inside. I think it's cotton but it feels solid and you can't put your hands on this steel. So there's air between. So that works perfectly as padding. So if someone strikes here and will dent it, because I think it's one millimeter of hardened steel, so it's possible to dent it. Maybe it's 0.8. I will measure it at home. But if it's got dented or pierced you will not get hurt that easily in here. So let's put on the first. Another thing I have to say is that these are looking beautifully shaped. They sit perfectly with this curve. It's perfectly fitted to a human leg. So beautifully made. The steel looks solid, a little bit thin, not ready for muhurt of course, but for reenactment it looks perfect. Okay the next part should be these protections for the hips I think. Yeah of course maybe it would be much easier to open these and close these but not needed. Maybe you put these higher but I want that there is no gap between my knee plate and here. These plates are all separate and shaped not only curved this way, they are also shaped this way. And this is excellent because the structure and stability of these plates is much higher when they are curved all around. So beautifully made. I think these are only 0.66 or 0.5 millimeter but that's enough when you have multiple plates that can move and the shape will hold them in place. Nothing for muhurt but definitely great for reenacting. So this is the next part and this is an armored belt and there are small plates inside here. So let's take it on. So I sit it here. If I have to raise it or lower it later I will do it but I will turn it this way because if you fight a duel normally you get attacked from the front and the sides but nearly never in the back part. I think these will be next and maybe this will be the hardest part to put on because I have all these padding parts and they are thick. Some extra padding of course but we will have to see if my arm fits inside these because they are normally made for summer. So you have no gauntlets like on European armor. It's all attached to the arms. Okay here are some ornamentations on it. I don't pay extra for them. These plates are separated. I like this a little bit more than here where they are attached because separated they can transfer the force nearly the same. It can only hurt a little bit more but your arms will not break if someone strikes here as heavy as they if they want. In Buhurt it's a little it's another story but not with katanas. And then are here these small plates and they are also curved in all directions so they are much harder to bend. Yeah the the male armor isn't that nice. Could be bigger rings. It's looking beautiful but I think it could be damaged and it will be damaged from strikes to my armor in the future but it's looking very beautiful. Even this small plate here is curved in all directions so yeah this will this will hold up pretty nice even unhardened. I take it here and now I will place it here very very tight because it will get loose when I turn my shoulders. This is the back plate with a very beautiful looking decoration on the back. Here the straps and in a beautiful shape. I like it. Oh it's looking so good. And here are some more hidden steel plates inside as neck protection. So this is the chest plate and there's an interesting connection here. These parts can be connected here and I will do so now. It already sits nicely even when we don't use the belt here. I'm fully protected from this belt so no way to cut here. Next time I will attach these first because there's no reason to make it now. It's hard to reach here very very hard but I made it. Yeah it's much easier when you know the full armor set and don't make it for the first time. Now I already placed the shoulders here on the sides and here so it's easy to take it on. But first we have an armored belt and this is normally placed on top and very tight. And then we need a simple knot, a very small knot and this knot has to be at the back. So I wrap the rest of the belt around and turn this on my back and here inside the armor is this small V and this small V can sit onto this belt knot. So it can sit on the belt and it has no contact with your shoulders but sits. I already used this armor a couple of times. There are scratches from many battles. So the next and final step for the body armor is of course another and longer belt. So there are many ways to wrap this belt around your body. I like it to place this part here and then put the belt at one side around and wrap it tighter with every. I can choose to wrap the tanto knife inside, turn it around the tanto so it's totally stuck and then you have to decide how long you can take the belt around to make a knot. So in my case it's not possible to wrap it again but possible to use this end and make a knot at the side of the tanto knife. This is not a traditional way to fit in the tanto but it works perfectly and don't come loose mid-fight. So the next part I already see it and oh it's looking beautiful so I have to show it is the kabuto and ah beautiful. We have another crest here so I can place it here or detach it for fighting but I will keep it here we don't fight today and yeah this is shaped beautifully. It's not only curved in this direction it's also curved in this direction so this will hold up and I think it's one millimeter hardened steel. Of course a helmet for kuhurt and full contact fighting would be nice in two millimeter but here are some parts with double layers where it's a little bit thicker. We will see in the next month and maybe years if this holds up pretty well or not. So I am absolutely hyped to test this armor and now let's put it let's put it on. So I put on the helmet and now I have these two straps here and then I pull here this part put this through here pull the other part here and put this through here. I hope it looks nice. I can't see it but I can definitely tell it feels nice and here it stays in place pretty nice. This is my kabuto and my manto and at the moment I'm missing my nose but this is actually how most samurai fought in battle and I can imagine that many samurais prefer to have some better vision and better breathing of course but most important it's much easier to speak and call orders in battle but we can attach the nose and make the kabuto much more visual stunning. I didn't change anything at this manto. It's how I ordered it from Iron Mountain Armory and it fits me perfectly. Sits all tight and yeah doesn't restrict me in any way or hurt in any way. So even when I get punches here to my face or my nose the nose didn't hit my actual nose or the chin. Of course it's possible if you don't tight it correctly but in this case I'm pretty safe. So yeah but there is one problem with this style of kabuto and of course it's not safe against thrusts. There are many places where the thrust can actually kill me. So my eyes are completely open, my mouth is exposed and of course even the nose can be in danger from incoming thrusts with bitanto or other medieval daggers and knives. So I have a second manto and I attached some mesh from a fencing mask to the manto. So I will show both of them. At first this manto is absolutely stunning and has the perfect shapes and these shapes make them very resistant and nearly impossible to damage with normal attacks. So these curves are perfectly made and the fittings are also perfectly. But of course for fencing thrusts and steps with daggers I need to armor up my manto. So I worked a lot with mesh from fencing mask and built this manto from one of my iron mountain armory mantos. So this is my manto for thrusts in combat and that keeps my face safe. Of course it don't sit that well anymore like iron mountain armory built this manto but it's now much more safe. And I will show it in a close-up how it looks now. And then I take this one here and put it onto my face. Let's try something stupid and stab myself in the face. That's a full armor and it feels so nice. Yeah it's okay. My fingers are not very well protected. Okay here this bone will stuck out easily. These fingers are not very well protected. Even if I turn my arm it will happen yeah even then it can happen that in worse circumstances these knuckles will stuck out. Okay so let's move a little bit in armor. I'm not used to this one. My european helmet doesn't have these blade catchers. So a blade can be catched here and now you have an opportunity against the opponent and this also protects your different of iron mountain armory. Especially these small plates and how they are bent and these shapes. The biggest problem with armor is often the shape. If you buy european armor from most shops it's crap. Because the shape doesn't fit to your body. But here I have to say the shapes are perfectly. I never thought it that they make it that nicely. But they really really impressed me. We have to see if the different weldings on the armor will resist against heavy strikes. We will test it definitely pretty soon. And we have also to test if the hardened steel has the perfect hardening. Then stay safe. Don't kill your training partners of course. And if you are interested check out iron mountain armory. Because I'm impressed by their armor. And yeah. See you in the next video. Bye-bye.