Making a hardened leather lamellar Steven Baker

This article will cover the basics in hardening leather using water. This form of hardening is sometimes referred to as cuir bouille or boiled leather. The interesting fact is the leather isn't actually boiled at least not the way most people think of boiling but I'll cover that in more detail in a moment. I've divided this article into several sections. They will cover what you need to do this work and then how to proceed through each phase.

EQUIPMENT
Large Saucepan This saucepan will be used exclusively for hardening leather. Do not use it for cooking once you've used it for this work. The reason is the tannin's that leach out of the leather are not good for ones health particularly when cooked up with your favourite veggies. These pieces of wood will be used to flatten the plates once they've been dipped in the water. The size you will need will depend on the size of the lamellar plates you are making. I usually aim for no more than ten pieces in the press at a time The weight will be placed on top of the pieces of wood to hold it all down. Used to protect your workbench while the plates dry. The amount of leather you are going to need depends on the size of plates and how large a lamellar you are going to need. A rough guide is you'll need a side of leather (half a cow) to protect your upper body. If you want to add arm protection and leg protection then you'll need two sides (a whole cow). This will be used to make holes in the lamellar plates so you can lace them together. A strap cutter is used to cut belts out of a piece of leather. We use it to cut belts and then to cut each belt into individual plates. This knife is used to cut the belts into plates and to add decorative edges if you want them. Used to make sure the cuts on the hide are straight so the strap cutter cuts clean belts. Used to lace the plates and rows together. I have used up to 30 1.8 metre (6ft) laces to lace a corselet together. So get plenty as you can never have too many.

Tongs You will be using the tongs to add and remove the plates for hardening. Two large pieces of wood

A Heavy weight Newspaper Vegetable tanned leather

Drill or hole punch Strap cutter Craft knife Steel edged ruler Boot laces

CREATING THE PLATES

The first thing you need to decide is the style of the plates. A general rule of thumb is the more sedentary the people the broader and shorter the plates. Lamellar plates found that are linked to nomadic tribesman tend to be around 3 to 4cm (1.2 - 1.7 inches) wide and up to 10cm (4 inches) long. Those used by the Chinese and Byzantines tended to be around 5 to 7.5cm (2 - 3 inches) wide and about the same length. I'm not sure of the reason for this - the only conjecture I could make is the type and quality of leather available or differences in the ways the armour was used with more flexibility need for a mounted archer compared to a lancer. The other thing to consider is whether you will be using a hanging lamellar or a solid lamellar. A hanging lamellar is achieved by making each row of plates independent of the other by loosely lacing them together. Solid lamellar is where each row is firmly laced to the one above. Personally I prefer the hanging lamellar as it gives you more freedom of movement. I now decide what style of lamellar armour I'm going to make. In this case it will be a simple corselet that will protect me from my hips to just under my arms. It will also be a front opening hanging lamellar using long narrow plates. To decide what size to make the plates and how many to cut out I have to measure my chest after taking a deep breath and then measure from just below my armpit to my hip. My chest measurement is 116cm (45.5 inches) and my hip to armpit measurement is 28cm (11 inches). Now given that I will have a front opening on this lamellar I need to add additional plates to cover that opening so the actual chest measurement will be around 124cm (49 inches). Since 4 easily divides into this measurement I'll use that as my plate width. So each row will need 31 plates and each plate will 4cm wide. Whether or not you are making hanging or solid lamellar you need to have the lower row overlap the upper row and in my case I'll make that overlap 2cm (.75 inches). So I now need to divide the 28cm by the number of rows I want to make. Since I want 3 rows each plate will be 9cm + 2cm overlap or 11cm(4.5 inches) in all and 3 rows of 31 plates will mean I need 93 plates.

CUTTING OUT THE LAMELLAR PLATES

To cut out the plates you first cut a straight edge along one side of your hide. You then set your strap cutter to a 4cm width. Next following the strap cutter instructions you cut a long belt out of the hide. The next step is to cut across the belt at one end so you have a straight line across that is square to the belt's long edge. Next measure down 11cm's and mark your first cutting line. Repeat this until you run out of belt. Finally go back and cut out each plate. Based on the number of plates you cut out you can determine roughly how many belts you'll need to cut out to complete the armour. In this case say we got 12 plates out that means to complete our armour we'll need 7 more belts this will give us what we need plus 5 spare plates. Once you have all your plates cut out you will need to put holes in them. These are used to lace plates and rows together. Below are two fairly standard patterns. Both have holes on the side to lace them to the next plate in the row. They also have two holes at the bottom, which are used to secure the plates. For the first one they are used to ensure that the bottom of the plates don't wiggle and are used that way in hanging lamellar. The second one has holes that match the top row and are used to secure the top row to the next row. The first plate also has holes down the centre these are used to lace the rows together for hanging lamellar. The large hole in the centre is to pass the lace to the next row that is then laced through the top holes back to the large hole in the top row.

Okay we've chosen a layout for the holes. To punch these holes we have several methods available to us. The first is to use a hand punch to punch the holes. This is really only viable when you have a lot of time or very few plates. For the armour under discussion here we have to punch almost 1200 holes - not something you want to do by hand. The other possibility is to use a metal template that contains the hole patterns and a drill. You can either stack two or three plates together, clamp them and then either drill them by hand or better yet use a drill press. It depends on what you have. The ultimate is for people who intend to make many lamellar armours. To do this you will need to get a metal box into which will fit tightly up to ten lamellar plates. You then slide in the metal template. The box is next clamped under a drill press where you have secured an extra long drill bit that can go through the ten plates plus the template. Once the holes are drilled you are ready to harden the plates.

HARDENING THE LAMELLAR PLATE

As I said in the beginning most people when they start doing this seem to think you need to boil the leather like you do an egg. In actual fact if you do that all you'll end up with is a lot strange leather Rice Bubbles (Rice Krispies). The truth is you need very hot water and very little time per plate. To determine how much time to allocate per plate look at it's thickness. For each 1mm of thickness dip the plates for one second. For those who are non-metric it is approximately 3 seconds per eighth of an inch. So now we fill our saucepan with water and start it boiling. Once it is boiling reduce the heat so the water is only simmering. Next grab a plate and put it in the water with the tongs and count '1 and 2 and' until it's time to take the plate out. Now sandwich it between the two wooden boards and place the heavy weight on it. If you don't do this then the plate will curl towards the skin side. Get the next plate and keep going. Once you've filled up your press you can either stop or better yet when the next plate is ready pull the first one out and put it on your newspaper flesh side up and keeping going. One thing I would recommend is keep a jug of boiled water handy. As you proceed the water level will drop. So rather than wait for cold water to re-heat you can just pour in more from the jug. Anyway once you have all

plates completely done and drying on the newspaper you'll need to leave them for at least a day so they can completely dry out. One thing I do is once I've done two or three presses worth of plates I turn the first sets over so that the other side gets a chance to dry. Now I've made this sound fairly easy up till now. There are however some caveats you need to keep in mind. All leather is not the same not even when it's the same hide. Around a cow's neck, legs and rear end can be areas that are weak. These are the areas that moved when a cow walked and ate grass. When we come to harden it this leather has a strong tendency to shrivel and be useless. Other areas to keep in mind are those that seem to be "hairy" on the flesh side that is it has little bits of leather sticking up. The strongest part of the hide is along the spine and then it thins out towards the belly of the hide. So cut carefully and don't be surprised if you lose some plates when you harden them.

LACING THE PLATES TOGETHER

Well now we're on to the part that is always the hardest to explain on paper. I will be showing the lacing as a solid line when it is in front of the plates and a dotted line when behind the plates.

So this shows you how a row is built. One thing you can do to neaten it up is to make the plates at the end of each row with only one set of holes. This will give a finished look to the ends of your rows. One thing to note is that for the bottom most row of your lamellar do not do the bottom lacing. Instead cut another belt four times the distance between the bottom holes and the bottom of the plates. For instance if the bottom holes are 5mm (0.2 inches) from the bottom of the plates then cut a belt 2cm (0.75 inches) wide. Along the top of edge of the belt punch holes that match up with the lamellar holes. And then lace it to the lamellar. This will hold the plates steady and give it a decorative edge. You can of course emboss and decorate this belt, as you want.

Once you have each row laced you then need to join the rows together. For hanging lamellar you need to keep the lace loose. You feed it out the centre hole of the top plate down to the top hole of the next row and then back through the next hole and up to the centre hole again. Along the back of the row move the lace to the next centre hole and keep going.

Remember the overlap should be what you calculated when you decided on the length of the plate. One unique feature of this method of lacing is that the lamellar can pack down very tightly. Because the lace allows the top of one row to align with the previous you can make your armour only one row high when you pack it away.

Okay once the rows are laced together we're nearly there. All we need to do is finish the lamellar off including adding shoulder straps and buckles to close the front opening. To finish off the top row you can cut a piece of softer leather that will fold over the top edge and be laced on by the top holes. You can see this in the drawing above.

To hold your corselet in place you will need shoulder straps. From the period I am interested in most of them show up as starting from the centre of the top row at the person's back and then going over each shoulder to separate positions on the chest. You can see this in my rather blocking drawing. The straps are laced in at the top row usually at the same time you are doing the edging strip.

Alternatively if the edging strip is strong enough you can insert a metal rings - one at the back and two at the front. You then feed straps through the back ring and then through each front ring by attaching a buckle half way down the front and punching holes in the end of each strap you can make an adjustable set of shoulder straps. For closing the front opening you can punch some holes and attach a set of buckles and straps on every alternate row. The other thing you can do is just feed laces through the centre holes of some of the plates and tie the opening closed.

CONCLUSION
If you wish to extend the lamellar to cover your legs then the best bet is to divide the bottom of your lamellar into three sections. One section would cover your bottom and the other two would cover your legs. The section that covers your bottom would need to only be two or three rows long. For the legs you'll have to make measurements and work out how many rows you need. One thing to keep in mind is that you need the leg coverings also most touching each other. If you don't then you can step out of the legs and get hit on an unprotected leg. For upper arm protection the easiest to make is several rows of lamellar laced together to form a long rectangle hanging lamellar style. The corners of each arm are laced to rings positioned at the centre front and back of your armour. To keep it on your arm you can lace a tie to the inside of the lamellar stopping a couple of plates short of the edge. If you go all the way to the edge then you end up bending the lamellar to sharply and it will lock thereby limiting your arm movement.