[Dan Howard]

[Brawn Barber]

[Boyd C-F]

Hi Brawn

Just wondering what volume of Beeswax you are using for your hardened leather armours?

I'm not trying to decipher your families secret recipe but rather attempt to work out the possible cost of doing this in a mediaeval context.
I believe there are prices scattered around for Ecclesiastic beeswax candles (usually highly refined) so we should be able to generalise a cost.
I have also read and heard that mediaeval hives (skeps?) were smaller so a lot of hives would need to be destroyed to make the beeswax.


I was impressed with your testing, may I ask why in the test of VT with riveted maille you put the VT under the mail rather than over the top as with the VT/butted maille?

Cheers

Boyd

BTW - I have heard all sorts of stories of those who have used Beewax for armour ending up being a magnet for bees when it gets warm; Is this a re-enactmyth?

[Brawn Barber]

Try not to use too much beeswax. It will attract bees. We recommend if you use beeswax that it be no more than around 50%.
We did tests with the riveted maille both over and under the leather and with 7/8 oz and 13/15 oz. The results were the same, however we did not post all of them for reasons of time and space on the page.

[Dan Howard]

If you don't use 100% beeswax, what other medieval alternative is available? Tallow?

[Dan Howard]

[Brawn Barber]

[Dan Howard]

If you are claiming that your technique was used to harden medieval leather armour then the recipe needs to only include ingredients that were available at the time. Beeswax is one. If 100% beeswax isn't suitable and 50% is better, what other "in period" ingredients were used? How can your ideas be independently tested if you don't give any details? How do we know that all the ingredents used in your test pieces were available during the time in question? Further, if wax only makes up a small proportion of the recipe, can it still be called "wax hardened leather"?

In order to demonstrate that wax was used in period to harden leather armour, the following needs to be done:

Ideally an existing museum sample needs to be examined
Primary sources need to be produced
Some reconstructions need to be made using various ingredients and techniques based on the above evidence
Those reconstructions need to be tested under simulated battle conditions.
The results need to demonstrate that the test pieces are at least as effective as other "in-period" types of hardened leather.

However, there are other problems that first need to be addressed:
Need to show how to apply paint and gesso to the suggested reconstruction
Need to demonstrate no loss of performance when the armour warms up after being worn for a while.

Until the above is demonstrated all we have is an unsubstantiated theory.

If the above conditions are met I'll happily start proclaiming that wax is likely to have been used to harden medieval leather armour and heap praise upon whoever puts together such a comprehenssive argument.

[M. Eversberg II]

I spent the last little while crawling through this thread, and did my own test.

A few years back I made some wax lamellar scales, but never finished the whole project. They were soaked in modern parafin wax, so it is moot in terms of historical accuracy. I made a hypothesis that the wax coated scale would be easier to cut because it is lubricated. I used two knives, one was a large worn Camillus ka-bar rip off. The other was a folding knife by Appalachian Trail. The test was performed against a wooden table under ideal conditions.

The wax scale showed resistance in the slice, but appeared slightly easier to puncture (both were punctured through). A cut with the larger knife showed the wax scale to be slightly easier to cut. Neither were cut through, but it was only a knife. I will test with a machette when there's light enough.

M.[/i]

[Boyd C-F]

Hi M

Do you have any of the pre-waxed leather that you can run similar tests on as a control? Can you also give the scales a taste of cleaver?


If the wax is just packing the gaps won't it be like cutting into a block of wax - with all the goodness of leather. So it should provide resistance to cutting but is it comparable to water hardening?

From an armour concern Would water hardened leather be lighter compared to wax hardened leather?

Cheers

Boyd

[Brawn Barber]

Sorry, but my son is going in for surgery today. I'll get back to you on this when time permits.

[Dan Howard]

Don't be sorry Brawn. These kinds of disagreements mean nothing compared to a loved one in hospital. I hope all works out well.

[Bruno Giordan]

I have heard from a friend from Bergamo that his grandmother used vinegar to harden leather in old times.

Since many habits have kept with time I would not discount this, as I have made several researches in the brescian method for producing swords and I have found that many medieval uses were still extant in traditional forges (eg the use of river sand, rena, as flux, which yields a fayalite compound between forge-welded layers).

Another thing I have noted it is that some smiths are said to have done during wartime was making blades out of a piled construction of the same steel, exactly as was one historically with the traditional brescian method of foglia.

The above friend has made some bracers with his granny's recipe for hardened leather and they are quite sturdy.

Even if there is no conclusive evidence for me of this technique being ancient I would not discount it, having seen how our material culture change little under a lot of aspects from the middle age to the fifties/sixties of the last century.

Don't ask me for the exact vinegar recipe as he is not going to give it away.

[Jared Smith]

I wish to side with those who claim the historically correct method used was probably hot water. (Boiling is too hot, but around 160 to 180 F / 71 to 82 C for a period of roughly a minute does a lot to harden and toughen vegetable tanned leather.) The method was probably more commonly used in ornate book bindings, warm water based methods still extant. Water proofing could be done with water based fish glue solutions. The tricky part of all of this is allowing for shrinkage, which can be predicted at around 7/8 of untreated leather dimensions. I don't know about cut resistance, but 12th century mentions of cuir bouilli I have read in historical context applied to tournament use, and stated that it was worn over mail. I assumed it was meant to reduce blunt trauma injury which the mail probably did not do as well.

One person's recipe for producing hardened leather with warm water is given below. I have not strictly tried this exact one, but have hardened sheaths for folding knives in warm water, following light oil coatings. (The water works fast, and does not seem to have to completely erase preservative effects of oils and lotions in order to stiffen the piece.) I have a sheath done like that over 30 years ago. It is still stiff, and is still reasonably weather resistant.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Articl...proved.htm

[George P.]

leather armour was tooled. You cannot tool leather that is boiled in water because the leather shrinks unevenly in the process

[Jared Smith]

The leather takes a while to harden. I am not sure how the shrinkage behaves over time, during the hardening process. As I said, boiling is too hot. It needs to be warm-hot water, not boiling.

Some discussion of the original material conditions and apparent treatments are commented on by the curators of the museum of London (Conservation of Leather and other Materials.)

[M. Eversberg II]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Probably a difference between wax saturated deep into the leather and a surface or shallow penetration of wax for waterproofing.

If the wax make leather easier to cut it probably has little of this effect as just a surface coating.

Linseed oil or other materials might harden things more or differently when fully dried, but this might take a lot of time with oils ?

[Kel Rekuta]

[Boyd C-F]

Hi Brawn

This thread has lay fallow for a good year and a half I'm sure it and we will be waiting for you when you and your son return! Good Luck!

Cheers

Boyd