The Perfect Armor Improved: Water Hardened Armor
Note from the Webmaster: I am reproducing this how-to
article with the express permission of its creator,
Cariodoc. He doesn't mind if it gets spread around, as
long as it (the article) is reprinted in its entirety
with nothing omitted, and he gets credit. Absolutely
fine with me, and I have done so, though I also will
post my thoughts on the matter.
Now that we're through
with the legal stuff, I LOVE THIS METHOD!!! Cariodoc,
Medieval resource guru of the internet and creator of
the famous Cariodoc's Miscellany, has come out with a
MUCH easier way of producing leather armor for fighting.
I had found the old way, though effective, was messy
and a general pain in the butt to use. This new method,
using boiling water rather than hot wax, is not only
cheaper, but cleaner, and makes the overall piece lighter,
stronger, and suitable for embossing, painting, or etching
for a more artistic look. This method is found in the
latest Miscellany (8th edition), and is not yet on the
Internet (which, Cariodoc told me, is a few editions behind.)
As best as I can tell, this is the ONLY online text version
of this article. Enough of my blathering, I'll let the man
himself explain his method.
Cariodoc's Introduction
Some years ago, I wrote an article on how to
make hardened leather armor, using beeswax. Since then,
I have concluded that, although the method I described
works reasonably well for SCA purposes (I have fought
in my wax hardened klibanion for a good many years now)
, It is quite unlikely that it is the method used in
period for armor.
I reached this conclusion for three reasons:
1. Beeswax is a lubricant. Furthermore, stiffening the
leather makes it easier to cut, just like it is easier
to slice meat if it is half-frozen. So, although wax
hardened leather provides protection against the sort
of blunt weapons we fight with, it would be of very
limited usefulness against sharp swords, arrows, and
the like.
2. Although I have found no period descriptions of the
process for hardening leather, the period term for
hardened leather is "cuirboulli", which translates as
"boiled (or cooked) leather". That is not the natural
way of describing the wax hardening process.
3. I have found an entirely different way of hardening
leather which does fit the term and which produces
armor that is much better protection against real
weapons. This article describes that process. As it
happens, in addition to being a better guess at what
was done in period, it is also a somewhat better
technology for making SCA armor.
How to Make Water Hardened Leather
Take a piece of vegetable tanned leather. Immerse it
in water long enough to get it soaked--- ten minutes
will do. Heat a pot of water to 180 degrees. Immerse
the leather in the hot water. Watch it carefully.
In about a minute, the leather will begin to
darken, go limp, and curl up. If you pull it out at
that point, it will have shrunk a little, thickened a
little, and be stretchy, like a thick sheet of rubber;
at this point it can be stretched and formed.
In a minute or two the stretchiness will go away, but
the leather will still be flexible. Over the course
of the next few hours, it will become increasingly
stiff. You will end up with a piece a little thicker
and a little harder than what you started with.
The longer you leave the leather in the hot
water after the process has started, the more it
shrinks, the more it darkens, the thicker it gets,
and the harder the final piece will be. A sufficiently
long immersion gives you something that feels like
wood. Unfortunately, when the piece gets harder and
stiffer, it also gets more brittle. If I were making
lamellar armor to defend myself against real weapons,
I would use a long immersion, and plan on replacing a
frew cracked lamellae after each fight. For SCA
purposes, I normally leave the leather in the hot
water for about thirty seconds after the process starts
. This gives me, very roughly, shrinkage to about7/8
of the original dimensions, an increase in thickness of
about 25%, and a piece that is hard, but not totally
inflexible.
The process is very sensitive to the
temperature of the water, so you will want an accurate
thermometer. The timing and result also depend, to
some degree, on the particular piece of leather.
Instead of trying to work entirely by the clock,
experiment with pieces of scrap until you have a
reasonably good idea of how the leather looks at
various stages in the process and how it comes out
when finished. Then judge the progress of your piece
in part by time and in part by appearance.
You can also harden leather in boiling water-
considerably faster. In my experience, about a twenty
second boil gives shrinkage to 7/8ths, abut a forty
second gives you a shrinkage to 2/3 and roughly doubles
the thickness. That has the advantage of not
requiring a thermometer.
It has two disadvantages. First, the faster
process is harder to control precisely. Second, the
hotter water produces a less Uniform hardening-you td
to get pieces where the surface is harder and more brittle than the interior, eventually producing surface cracks. I therefore preger the lower temperature process. I have not done any extensive experimentation on what happens at intermediate temperatures.
Webmaster note: As you can see, this method is
considerably simpler than the previous style submitted
by Cariodoc. The one thing to notice too is that the
hot water will turn a murky brown color after a couple
of uses. This brown water is still alright to use,
but tends to make it harder to see your leather piece
in the water. If it is a concern, just throw it out
and pour more in. There is a special emphasis on
using Vegetable tanned leather. Chrome tanned and
other more exotic variants will not work, and your
money will be wasted. Don't fret, though. Vegetable
tanned is the most common form of tanning anyway.
Also, remember to allow extra space for shrinkage
after boiling, as it will shrink a bit. And don't
forget to allow for space for padding and other
attachments.
