boiling leather

[Osip]

I want to make a fencing buckler out of leather. I was told I could wax or boil leather and put it on a frame. The leather will get rather rigid and tough.

would soaking leather for a day or two have the same effect as boiling it? any other ways to get this leather rigid and tough?

Thanks in advance,
Osip

[kniz]

What have you got against boiling it?

[sup]Since I’m from Mississippi, I hope you aren’t offended when I ask "When did they start fencing in Bama?[/sup]

[tygerbryght]

@Osip

I want to make a fencing buckler out of leather. I was told I could wax or boil leather and put it on a frame. The leather will get rather rigid and tough.

would soaking leather for a day or two have the same effect as boiling it? any other ways to get this leather rigid and tough?

Soaking leather won’t toughen it; it will have exactly the opposite effect - until you dry it, at which point it will be stiff, but certainly not harder than before.

Boiling it denatures the protein, which makes it denser. Same as boiling wool, except leather doesn’t shrink as much as wool does. I thought that boiled leather armor was first used by the barbarian invaders which came against the Roman Empire, but I noticed some mention of Roman gladiators, which probably means I was wrong. :eek: Boiled leather armor components are mentioned on a page of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Arms and Armor in Medieval Europe page. They have a links page, but none the links looked particularly relevant to your concerns.

AFAIK, there is no other treatment which will have a comparable effect on the leather. Why? Because the denaturing causes both shrinking and toughening.

I Googled for you (Google is your friend!), and several sites had the following text, with no attribution:

Boiled leather, sometimes called cuir bouilli, was historically a popular construction material for armour. It consists of thick leather boiled in water (some sources hold that oil and wax were used as well). The boiling causes the leather to become hard and brittle, gaining some resemblance to the properties of wood. Since the leather remains flexible and stretchable a short time after the boiling, forming it to the needs of the armourer is quite easy, making it a cheap, light and convenient alternative to bronze, steel, and other historical materials.

I looked at 8-10 different sites, and am not of the opinion that the sources are equally knowledgeable, nor that all of the processes described are safe! One site (not this one) says the following about boiling in wax (pretty good advice, actually):

you probably will want gloves and a fire extinguisher handy

Here is the site I judged to be the most helpful, and also relatively safe:
Water hardened leather The author of this recipe is an academic and a SCAdian, and gives directions which make sense to me.

Waxing (as opposed to heating in melted wax), is recommended on some sites, but some of those who make such recommendations tacitly admit that a wax coating doesn’t provide much in the way of protection. Did your informant tell you what kind of wax to use, and how to apply it? If it has to penetrate, it’s gotta be hot (of course, waxes melt - and boil - at lower temperatures than water. This doesn’t mean they can’t give you extremely serious burns.). In the case of boiling (or merely hot) wax, the wax would be filling the interstices between the cells and layers of the animal skin, thus making it denser in a different way than boiling in water. Of course, the heat would still have a denaturing effect on the skin proteins. But you have far more potential for injury in using hot wax. Using water, you don’t have to expose your one and only skin and associated body parts to hot wax (which sticks, and therefore produces even more serious burns than hot oil).

Good luck. And be sure you don’t cut it to size before you boil it (read Friedman’s instructions carefully)! Stretching it after boiling only defeats your purpose. I suspect that (assuming the buckler is to be round) if you add ~25% to the diameter, you can cut it to the right shape. The after-boiling shape may be slightly distorted. From that perspective, wax may seem more desirable. However, I keep having visions of hot wax burns. <shudder>

[Osip]

wow, thanks a great deal.

fantastic answer.
Osip

[Ethilrist]

You’ve hit on one of the classic YMMV arguments on armor in the SCA. People who are on opposite sides of the boiled/waxed leather argument are adamant that their method is the only one that’s correct. I have tried both types and both worked for me.

Boiling is better if (a) you don’t have wax, (b) you don’t want to risk a waxy mess and/or fire, © you expect you’re going to be leaving this someplace very hot (say, the trunk of a car).

Waxing is better if (a) you need to waterproof the leather and (b) weight doesn’t matter.

Another option to consider is to make the buckler out of very light plywood (1/4") and cover it with very light leather.

[gotpasswords]

Another “YMMV” issue - There are several kinds of leather tanning processes. “Natural” tanned hides going by the names of oak or brain (and others) will behave differently than “Chrome” tanned leather. At a real generic level, natural tans will readily absorb water on their surface like a sponge, and tend to be “natural” brown-ish in color. Chrome tans are usually somewhat water-resistant.

My experience has been that the natural tans are more receptive to holding a shape after being soaked and molded. (I used to work with someone who made molded leather masks.) Never tried boiling, though. Sounds wonderfully medieval - boiled in oil.