Hello everyone!
Let me introduce myself first... i am a 23-year-old dude from Finland, but currently living in Japan. I have been making all sorts of things with my hands for past couple of years, mostly clothing though (19th century uniforms etc.) for my own fun. I've done some very basic leather items, but getting stuff and knowledge in Finland is ridiculously hard, even from leather shops (the owners seem to be crumpy old men usually). Now after 2 years being immersed in this culture of Japan, I've thought of starting more serious project and as I am ambitious guy, I decided to try to make - nothing more, nothing less - than a samurai helmet. I have basic understanding of tooling etc. and I basicly know what to do in order to do the helmet... HOW EVER....
As some of you maybe know, not all of Samurai's armor was made of still. Especially lower class samurais had lacquered leather and bamboo as parts of their armor. This is what I am interested in - making a laquered leather helmet. There are however few things I don't know and I can't find any information about them in Finland. This is mostly because leatherworking books in finnish tend to talk about one topic only - making knife sheats out leather.
Basicly what I am after is Edo-periods most common helmet - Zunari kabuto (I made rough sketch of the style and shape I am gonna have. Shape is based on the former I use... http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c168/Rosak/Artissimo/helmet.png). Anyways. I don't know how to properly harden leather. I have a full hide of roughly 2mm thick leather in my house in Finland, which is rather hard as it is. But it's not hard enough as it is, so I would need to harden it. Now, I've read quite a bit about this from internet and heard all sorts of tricks. Some say I should use lindseed oil, some talk about wax, others say wet the leather and to put it in the oven.
So what would you recommend? I am hoping I could get the helmets basic shape by using just one piece of leather, maybe with few cuts to make it settle nicely on the former, but should I try it with water? Would it make it hard enough to withstand falling on the floor or just knocking it without messing anything up?
How about lacquering? I tried to find info on this, but apparently nobody does this to leather - or atleast talks about it in the internet - and I could find absolutely nothing about this in Finnish... actually, I don't even know what to call this process in Finnish, so if you do know some products and techniques, please try to make it simple so I can actually ask store keepers there about the products etc.
I know that lacquering is basicly covering the leather item with liquid that will harden when it dries, but I want the helmet to have a nice shine to it and I wan't the black color to come through, so how is all this done?
Anyways, I would apreciate any comments and tips and such on this matter! Even if you have good ideas on how to get the proper shape, then please do share them with me!
