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Post by Ramsay318 on Apr 9, 2012 18:04:37 GMT
Just a quick question for them as make leather armor. I'm looking to try my hand at a leather faced shield, having done a cloth faced one. But, to water harden leather the whole thing has to be immersed. That's fine for lamellar scales and the like, but what about a two foot circle of leather? Do I invest in a jumbo steel washtub and set it on my stove? Any ideas?
--Ramsay
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Taran
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Posts: 2,621
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Post by Taran on Apr 16, 2012 17:57:01 GMT
It does Not, in fact, have to be completely immersed. In fact, among those who water-harden leather, Pouring the hot water over the leather is the preferred method. More control over the result. Look up "cuirboulli." or "Cuir Boulli."
Also, what are you hardening it For? If you are making the shield for, say SCA purposes, wax-hardening is preferred because it is easier, provides more regular results, and provides a leather that protects against bludgeoning impacts better. It also, unfortunately, makes the leather Far easier to cut than it ever was even as an untanned hide.
If you are protecting from the cut, you have only water-hardening and the 19th century technique of rubber-hardening (an expensive, difficult, and rather dangerous task because of the chemicals involved).
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
Posts: 3,292
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Post by jhart06 on Apr 17, 2012 13:54:02 GMT
If he is wanting to harden it, it does come down to the type of impact expected. And honestly, water hardening is not that tough, it just requires more patience really. With wax, even if it's not a 'sharp' and just a thin enough blunt [say the albion size or a bit bigger, but smaller than starfire or bks edge's on their blunts] the leather can and often will cut/split from the impact.
That's why I personally prefer the water hardening. You can't always control what a person has in their hand. Maybe it started as a BKS even, but from removing burrs and nicks [not that i've seen many bks with them in high amounts like this would need] the edge has been shrunk. You hit right, the wax hardened hide has a good chance of splitting, even though it is technically a blunt. Same thing for axes.
Now in the SCA wax hardening is great, because there is a lot more use of rattan, thicker edge blunt steel, and even what I would call 'boffers' and the like. But each has their use, and in the end, to me, water hardening does the trick because it's less likely to fail as soon as wax hardening. And I always cause an ungodly mess with wax. I dont know why, but something always gets mucked up.
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