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The knot that I use is just lots of half hitches.
I recommend starting by making the long rows that cover your stomach. Just keep adding scales in a row until it goes around you comfortably. Do four of those, stitch together. Then the upper back, the bib front and finally the shoulders.
Sizing is all up to you. This rig is 34 scales around. The upper back is eight scales wide, the bib front is 5 scales wide. The shoulder strap is 8 scales long and the shoulder armor is 5 scales front to back and 3 rows attached to the shoulder strap.
Tie a knot occasionally as you go. If your cord breaks, you'll only have a small gap that you can fix at the END of the day rather then in the middle of fighting.
Below is one row of the upper back. You may notice
that I've messed up which way the scales over lap between the above picture and
this one. Don't do that. It will look a bit better if everything laps in the
same direction.
So, do two rows and then stich them together. Start with your favorite knot
(I'm using lots of half hitches.) going through just the two holes in one scale
This is the stitch. Notice how the scales in these two rows overlap differently?
Don't do that.
This is the easiest way that I've found to continue the stitch. The new row can
pivot out of the way as you work.
This is those two rows all stitched together and viewed from the front.
And here's the back.
Here's the shoulder protection. The top row is laced tightly. All the other rows
are laced and stitched quite loosely to allow them to flop down over the curve of
your shoulder.
This is the completed project. Now you can clean up the dangling cords and add
some way to hold it closed.
The cheap way that I've been closing the armor is to tie some sturdy leather thong onto the back and make a loop on the front. You squeeze your left arm and head into place and then tie the right side closed.