Talk:Armour/Making Period Leather Armour

This how to was written by Pengryphon on Wikipedia. I simply moved it from there to here via cut and paste. Siroxo 09:29, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

what "period"? "period" is only meaningful in a context where you know what "period" you are talking about. century? culture? continent? 80.218.88.6 22:49, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What's {in|out of} Period to Whom?
In general, when reading/talking about items that are being discussed in terms of 'period', the item(s) should give you a rough guess about the time-frame of the 'period'. As to the culture and geographic are that are the further context of the object, once the century is filled in, you may well have a fairly good frame of reference of the rest of the item's details.

For those of us in the Current Middle Ages, our period in/of history is defined as a 'pre-17th century Western European-based' educational organization. The practical statement on 'period' is that the majority of folk are in the time span from 600 CE to 1600 CE, with a slight shove to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 for the rapier/light fighters. The Society does have a lot of visitors from the rest of the Known World. We try to have a 'have fun, be safe' attitude in general, politics notwithstanding and mostly deplored.

Preparing Leather for Armour
In this specific, cuir bouilli (leather from cattle, swine, goats, sheep and horses that has been boiled in beeswax and then sawn, filed, punched/drilled to spec for that piece of armour) is used through-out most of the date-range of the SCA. The only exception that I have noticed in my time in the Society would be the middle-to-late human jousting/war armours for the rider.

In the harnesses that I have built for myself, my ever-lovely Lady-Wife and for customers, the major portion of the equipment is boiled/lacquered leather of various weights. Obviously, the legal requirements of the Society and kingdoms' Earls Marshal were followed in the matter of having steel helms, hand protection, etc. My own body armour is now of legal drinking age {grin} and has required only simple maintenance of the lacquer/dye and occasional rivet replacement.

For Mistress Laurel Seamchecker (the authenticity mavens/police), certainly using wax or paraffin is The Right Way To Do It. I completely agree, but I also will point out that boiling wax is very flammable, and in the exactly wrong conditions, explosive. I'll enlarge on this in the article. Using modern lacquer produces nearly the same result, but is easier to do, and safer.

I hope that I've cleared things a bit. There is lots more to come on the subject(s), and I hope that folks will have a better understanding of how to make armour when we're done.

Yours in Service of the Society,

Laird Andrew MacIan of Blackthorne

House ShadowDragon in the Barony of Altavia, Kingdom of Caid

Drieux 06:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)