So I've killed a decent amount of raiders and looted various armor pieces as well as a few armor sets I like. Whenever I activate an armor modding bench, I can go through and scrap or store various items, but it won't let me mod any of the armor I'm carrying. It just keeps telling me I have no armor available to modify.

Are there only certain types of armors that can be modified. I haven't taken that armor modding perk yet, but I figured I'd be able to do some basic modding, I was able to with weapons.

Can someone help? I know it's not glitched, I'm just not understanding something.

Yah, only some armor can be modded. The Vault III suit can, for example. Just hit the right arrow to switch to the mod list, I thnk, then right again to go "deeper" and select a specific mod to Build. I had some Leather armor and the mods required a TON of leather (obviously) to craft. I ended up with one Girded Torso with extra pockets and I think two Boiled Leather pieces (one leg and one arm maybe).

One thing that I haven't puzzled out yet --- some items come with mods already in them, and yet when I scrap them I seem to only get generic materials, but I'm not sure how to 'extract' mods, if I even CAN do that.

The drifter outfit, that most people find early game, cant be modded. Not sure why. certainly others armors in game cant too...

But the vault suit is easily moddable, if you have the armorer perk and some raiders stuff you can do it as soon as you get in the Sanctuary.

Yeah, I have it figured out now. I completely spaced the whole "layered" thing. I was working with a set of Road Leathers (looks great on a female, btw) and I thought the various arms and legs you can loot would somehow mesh with the base armor. As soon as I equipped it I realized that you wear it on top. Now I'm scouring the wastes looking for oil to craft Shadowed Leather pieces.

I finally figured out how to craft/upgrade the Leather armor,which I'm now wearing on top of some army camo.

http://orig03.deviantart.net/8ab4/f/2015/315/f/d/fo4_daniel_01_by_burhenn63-d9gbob6.jpg

I didn't realize you could upgrade the vault suit. I left the vault with three of them so I'll have to start modding that.

The most cumbersome, learning curve, odd, whatevr you want to call it - part about armor customizing is that so many items you need to break down in order to extract leather for example, arent directly extractable via the armor bench and you end up having to throw each piece or set of pieces on ground and use the not so awesome workbench interface to scrap it

And when viewing the item in the workbench list, some items clearly tell you what raw parts it breaks into, while many - in particular tons of items that give you leather and cloth, dont say in the workbench list view

It is as if some less than smart designer or dev at bethesda said - for every 'rule' re: crafting we implement, lets put in an exception so players will never know which scenario they will get and just love us more in that cute frustrated way.

1. Some items arw shown what it breaks down to, some items dont
2. Some items you can break down directly for raw parts in the bench type it relates to - armor or weapon, but some dont
3. A lot of things that you need to scavenge in order to make upgrades are the ones not listed as what it breaks down into and not able to be directly broken down by the armor and weapon stations

Awesome design bethesda, it is so crazy, it must have been deliberate and not just a horrible mistake