Hi Tod you say that there isn't a recipe for this so I wonder if you've ever seen this one.

"Take lether that ys half tannyd and drye hym, and schave the flesshe syd; and take glwe wt water, and set yt over the fyere, and melte yt wt water, and then al hote ly yt a pone the leder on the flesshe syde, and strawe ther on the powder of glasce bete yn a brasene morter wt fylyne of yrene y mellyd to geder; and then laye a nother pece of the same lether flesshe seyde to flesshe, and nayle hym to the scylde and lete hyme drye, and ther nother sper nother ege tole enter ther ynne"

It comes from a text kept at the Ashmolean museum and although it is said to be a recipe for a doublet of fense, it sounds similar to what you're talking about.

"I just had to shoot this, I needed to know"   =  Tod speaking from his heart

"It's the pointiest one I sell."

-Tod

What a great thing to be able to say

Hello I spent 20 years making leather armour, yes adding a type of resin to leather is a way of hardening it, but I found that heating the leather in water to approximately 70 degrees until it changes colour, 3-6 minutes.  not to dark of course then it snaps, it becomes like a thermo plastic.  Just as a note the leather I used for armour was a product called veg tan soul bend, the same stuff used on your shoes and would range in thickness from 8-10mm it’s a very dense leather.  I sometimes used leather up to 14mm thick , must have been a very old cow.  I was exploring full thickness raw hide as armour, (dog chew) it has great properties for shaping and excellent stiffness and durability.   Also just as an extra, the thicker leather can be treated differently, adding boiling water to the rear or flesh side makes stiffened areas, also it shrinks the leather in that spot.  So you can make an area more flexible than another area.  I look back on those days making armour with great fondness , love the channel and try and pick up some full thickness soul bend , you will be amazed

I broke out in a sympathetic rash when I saw you handle that fibreglass.

Hi hi!

Hey Tod. I'm a jukendo practitioner, and we use a heavy cuirbolli protector for our left arm and shoulder. It's made from buffalo leather, about 8 mils thick. It is aparently created in the traditioal jaspanese style, which imvolves soaking it in animal glue (fish glue in this case), moulding and then lacquering. I am pretty sure you could contact Tozando or some of the other makers and ask for notes.

I made some cuirbolli long ago by soaking leather in Dubbin and then baking it  in a kiln. It stopped the problem with fragility and came out tough as nails

My best friend at the time also made cuirbolli. He did it by putting leather in a deep frier filled with oil (because - you know - he was an idiot). He came up with brittle armour that smelled DELICIOUS! Like fried beef! Every time he wore it, dogs would follow him about.

Everyone knows the strongest armour sets are:

a. Plot armour
and
b. Female bikini armour

id say theyd almost defnitely have some sort of gambeson underneath that aswell so its really quite feasible

When you are impregnating a porous material with a liquid, and you heat up the liquid to lower its viscosity, the combination looks like it is boiling even when far below the boiling temperature of the liquid. As the liquid replaces the air in the material the bubbles come to the surface. So its not technically boiling, it just looks like it's boiling. It could be the same with the "boiled leather."

Joerg , your English has improved dramatically good work mate.

Where else can I get material science, mechanical engineering, historical research in multiple languages, economic analysis of Middle Age warfare, and experimental genius in one package? Thanks for all your comments.

Watching him manhandle glass fibers without gloves gave me chills. Getting those little fibers in your skin is a recipe for days on days of itching and anger.

The moral of the story, avoid the chap with the crossbow

I actually experimented with boiled leather quite some time and the trick is not actually boiling it on 100°C. Instead heat it in water between 75 an 80°C for 10 to 25 minutes till it gets a certain shade of dark brown. The pieces in the beginning are already to dark. It's possible to get a good compromise between hard and flexible if you take it out of the water at the right time. After taking it out of the water you got a very short time to form it, for instance by nailing it on piece of wood carved like a human chest (or the body part you want to make armour for) That said, I just love your videos.

I always thougt "What do I need a rondal dagger for?" but now you made a great agrument for it

I enjoy your humour, and I find your acceptance of not having all the facts very refreshing.

I'd actually be interested in a video of you actually making the hard leather, step by step and what your process is and materials used.  

Keep up the great videos!

Rehydrate the leather with warm steam. As the leather rehydrates, the lipid layer becomes more permeable and supple. Leather is basically skin. Skin is mostly lipids (fatty acids). Lipids are insoluble in water but soluble in organic solvents. Hide glue (animal glue) is mostly made of collagen (a type of fibrous protein ie. cartilage, various connective tissues etc.). When proteins are heated, the arrangement of the molecular structure denatures from a tangled mess, to a more organized looking structure (more fiberglass like) and becomes more viscous. This is an important step for the collagen to penetrate into the leather efficiently. The combination between the lipid layer being molecularly reinforced by the collagen, when cooled, becomes stable and more structurally “strong”. The “nature” of the properties of both macromolecules have changed and therefore become structurally changed at the molecular level. The result is a more structurally “strong” thing as opposed to a “soft and malleable” thing.

...I hope that makes sense.

I’ll try to keep this succinct. I made leather armor years ago. I used natural, vegetable tanned, full weight cow hide. It was a minimum of 1/4 of an inch thick in all places. (It was impossible to cut out the pieces. It dulled every blade in a matter of linear feet. I ended up using aviator shears—which where dull by themselves.) First, to form each piece I completely immersed it in water. I let it soak until air bubbles quit rising from it, indicating the water had penetrated clear through. The leather was then floppy, soft, and, most important, moldable and stretchable. I molded it around my body and let as much water drain out as I could, then let it dry in that shape. Once it was thoroughly dry, it became very hard, though not brittle like the boiled leather he showed. Ideally at this point I would have immersed it liquid beeswax just like I did the water, but I was/am poor. I schemed hard, but keeping a vat of wax liquid was being my means. So I melted a block of paraffin on it with a heat gun and let the wax penetrate until it dripped through the other side. When the wax cooled it was done.
This is the toughest stuff I have ever seen. It is still flexible, but very hard. I’ve heard LARPers follow this or a similar method. I’ve read, in the heat of the sun and during gameplay the wax gets beaten out and the leather softens. When that happens they simply melt more wax into the armor and it’s like new again.

Now I'd love to see you trying different mixtures etc. To find the most effective one :D