Boiled leather armor

[Mirimaran]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has any experience making boiled leather armor? I know if might not be strictly historical, but I am thinking about a shirt of leather scales. I did try and boil and coat a few with wax a few years ago with mixed results. I cut my scales from leather bundles that come from Tractor Supply so roughly the same thickness but I did have some shrinkage in some but not all scales. Would just waxing be enough?

Ken

[Eärendur]

I've experimented with this a little as well. What you do will depend a lot on what you're looking for.

From my experiments, actually boiling isn't much good - the leather gets a wood-like consistency, and shrinks/curls up a great deal. Immersing it in hot water at lower temperatures can work, but it's a delicate balance, particularly if you don't have a good way to get precise temperature control. Too hot/too long and it shrinks too much; too cold/too short and it's not hard enough.

My goals were a little different then yours though - I was concerned with larger pieces of armor, with the tooling marks preserved through the hardening (boiling will destroy tooling). In the end, my best results came from getting the leather well-soaked and baking it in the oven while it was stretched over a form. I had to play around with the temperatures and times, and I can't remember off hand what I ended up with - but that's going to vary from one piece of leather to another anyway.

Regarding wax - I know some people make leather armor by soaking it in melted wax and then forming it to shape, and while it becomes hard and looks good, I recall reading that it doesn't work particularly well for practical armor (not against edged weapons, anyway), and in any case becomes very heavy.

[Ringulf]

Eric M. put some nice links and gave some good advice in a post a while back that helped me, since then I have done quite a bit of boiled leather including two helms, a set of clamshell gauntlets, a chest plate for my son and some sets of bracer and grieve plates. I also did a 12 0z x12 inch in diameter buckler which I have posted up here before.
As to the historical perspective, I know there is conjecture, just remember that leather boiled with impregnated wax was not very effective against edged weapons (in fact it acts like lubrication and tended to slice even easier) so zombie appocolypse, real life armer, not so good, but as far as SCA and sparring type armor against wood or rattan, the stuff is fantastic! (and scales are very good protection even when boiled or waxed because they are not one solid peice, the fact that there are so many layers and they slide on each other makes them very hard to cut and lets them support a blow by spreading the impact from one to another like heat to molicules with space between them, they loose a bit of energy as the impact radiates outward)

I don't boil it with wax, I do the boiling with Eric's method and it it gives me about an eigth overall (or less) shrinkage to get it to a good hardness (the harder you want it the longer you boil and the smaller it gets but the stuff comes out like almost like wood if you go far enough!) I do however use wax or a good wax shoe polish on the outsides to protect it and it does add some stiffness too. The thing I found was it helped me retain my tooling on the face of the buckler when I did the boil. Had I not waxed the front after the staining and tooling I would have lost the entire thing and all that work would have been for naught!.
If you are presice in your timing doing scales with the 20-30 second boil and strict temperature control (those new induction cook plates look like they might have a future for this because of the temperature control) you should be able to do a very nice scale. That is a biggy on my project list for combat archery as well and I make sure I use a 2"-3" or so PVC tube to lay them on to cool after I take them out. I slice a long section with the table saw in half legnthwise and it makes a great cooling rack and top press. Lay as many as can fit on your tube cut side of the tube down finnished side of the scale upe and pressed by the inside of the top press on it.
I have used a bit of weight on it to kep them from culing as they dry, but it is not always needed after a good even press. That way you get a very even cupping to the scales and it makes them stronger when hardened in this shape. If you want a crease rather than an arch, you can do the same with some angle iron but beware when the metal touches the leather it leaves nasty black marks (Not a proble if you plan on staining it black) so use wax paper on the surfaces. There is a guy in the SCA that has some really nice stuff I will put the link here.

This is a good article:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/ ... proved.htm

This guy rocks!:
http://www.skaldic.com/bodyArmor-scale.htm

(I particularly love picture 21 in the gallerey, the bear armor is very much what I was thinking or doing this in blacks, blues and indigo for Raven themed armor)

Hope this stuff helps, feel free to pm me with any questions as you go, I would love to help.

[Eledhwen]

I have some gear from Torvaldr. Greaves, bazubands, and a scale gorget. Outstanding quality I might say. Heavy and well hardened leather.

I made leather lamellar for my lass when she was fighting SCA. My own scales were metal rather than leather though.

Eledhwen

[Beornmann]

The David Freidman (aka Cariadoc of the Bow) article is THE source for water-hardened leather.

Torvaldr is a great armor vendor. He's a little spotty on deliver times, but it's worth the wait. Great guy BTW. He opens his shop to local fighters for armoring, for the cost of materials used.

Although, the current trend of SCA fighters is more towards lamellar armour.

[Mirimaran]

Thanks for all the great responses! I guess I am worried about the leather eventually wearing out or rotting, but I am also thinking of laquering.

Ken

[Eledhwen]

If you harden it with water, it will rot in time; body oils and salts wreak havoc. You can saddle soap them to reduce the problem, but you cannot get rid of it entirely. If you harden it with wax you make it easier to cut but it won't rot so fast. I have never used the oil or tree resin methods so I cannot speak to those. Regardless, you have to re-harden it now and then in areas where it gets a lot of abuse.

Torvaldrs' stuff is awesome, but as mentioned his delivery times can be a bit lengthy. Still, he's a good dude and his gear is quality. I just prefer using metal scales for my torso..there are delicate bits to protect.

Hardened leather will last a good long time with proper care.

Eledhwen

[wulfgar]

I had Torvaldr's lamellar when I fought heavy. It was awesome stuff. I found his ship time issue to be the fact that he uses DHL. I could have driven about 4 hours to his shop, but it took nearly 10 days to get to me once he shipped it via DHL.

[E.MacKermak]

There is in fact a better way to make hardened leather that does not have the shrinkage. It does require an oven with the ability to hold temp at about 180. Take the piece you want and submerge it in a mixture of 1 part Titebond III wood glue to 10 parts water (thoroughly mixed) until bubbles stop coming up (this could take up to 10 minutes or more). Wipe the excess glue off when you pull it out of the bucket. Place it on a sheet of scrap plywood in an oven set at 180 degrees. Use an oven thermometer to keep an eye on the temp (a lot of ovens are sketchy at this temp). If you have a form, use it. About every 10-15 minute, take the piece out and make sure it is maintaining the shape you want. For the first 20-30 minutes it will still be a little floppy. Keep checking every 10-15 minutes for an hour or so, or until the edges get dry. At that point, pull it out and set it aside for a day or so, checking it every so often if you are making a specific shape. This technique is much easier to control and has the added benefit that the glue provides some waterproofing. I have used this to make half-gauntlets and arm armor for SCA use that works quite well.

[Beornmann]

Any residual odor from the glue in the oven?

Also, what weight leather did you use?

[Ringulf]

Once again Eric you provide great info on this topic!
That sounds like a great idea, I am going to try it for sure!
Now if you were to add a bit of oil of clove to the mix it would also help the rot problem, I am not sure if that would affect the process any, but we do that with paper mache and it works very well. I will have to experiment.

[Kiriana]

Beornmann, I can tell you this.. the glue isn't what smells... it's the leather. Erich has to get permission to use my oven for leather lol Mostly as long as it's not when I need it for cooking. He either has to do it earlier in the day or after dinner if I use it for cooking. He does the glue part out in the garage so not sure if there is a oder from it there.

At some point we hope to find a large toaster oven that will be his, out in the garage, so he can bake his leather out there!! And NOT in my oven!!

As far as leather weight.. I want to say he's done it with as low as 8-9 oz up to 13oz.

He would reply but he is out of the loop for a week. He is at Gulf Wars in Mississippi. He left earlier this afternoon.

[Beornmann]

Thanks for replying for him.

[E.MacKermak]

As for what weight leather, I use 12-14 oz (3/16+" thick) for my SCA armor, which works well. You really don't need the Tandy armor grade unless you plan not to harden it (my kidney belt is made of it). That thick of leather is hard to get shapes more complicated than simple tubes. Also, I use an old piece of birch plywood (left over from making my shield) as a baking sheet. Metal sheets will scorch the leather before it can harden.

As for the leather smelling bad, that only is an issue if I forget and let it burn. If I am actually paying attention (oooh, squirrel), it only smells like hot leather. Of course it is hot leather in an enclosed place. I like the smell of leather so it does not bother me. Kiriana has other opinions.

[Kiriana]

I like the smell of leather.. JUST NOT IN MY OVEN!! LOL