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Cuiboli Vambrace

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Cuirboli_Vambrace_1_by_RuehlLeatherWorks.jpg

Cuirboli_Vambrace_II_by_RuehlLeatherWorks.jpg

Cuirboli_Vambrace_III_by_RuehlLeatherWorks.jpg

10 oz. Veg tanned leather, water hardened. I found out that it's a BAD idea to attempt to water harden stuff that's been pre-dyed with alcohol based dyes since the alcohol affects the temperature at which you need to harden stuff.

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Those look really great, very nice pattern you got there!

I really like that winered colour and the black borders and clean from tooling makes actually a very beautyful leather art piece.

I have one question. Title says cuiboili and I think you mean cuir boili wich is a method of using hot wax but seems like you did only waterhardening?

Anway they are nice and wax hardening is not really necessary if you don't like to fight with swords;-)

I definetly prefer to harden before dyeing but sometimes I have done dyeing before this process because fine brushing is so much easier when the piece lays flat to the table and one can easily find good support for the arms.

Either way I don't get very much difference in hardness betwen the two methods. I allways dry them stringed to my arm.

Tom

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Wax hardening for Cuir Bolli is as much a guess as anything else. I've read many pieces on this concept (Especially Cariadoc's Miscellany) and I've got these conclusions:

1) As Cariadoc mentions, wax is a lubricant. To fully harden the piece with wax would really only prevent damage from bludgeoning force. Blades and Points slide right through (I've also test this bit....it's quite right)

2) Cuir Bolli is a technique that is very old. To wax harden pieces into armor in, say, the Bronze age, you would have to harvest a LOT of naturally occuring hives. Wax is far more plentiful today. Everyone had access to water, though not everyone could get a sufficient quantity of wax.

3) I've found that the water-hardened leather is actually more durable than the wax hardened. I've water hardened small pieces to test and whacked away at them with axes. They suffer a bit of a dent, but remain pretty much intact. That said, the impact would certainly have broken some bones, but would have prevented massive injury none the less. The only thing I've run into is that I have to coat the outside of formed surfaces with mink oil to prevent cracking. That said, it makes for a very nice shine as well! :D

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Wax hardening for Cuir Bolli is as much a guess as anything else. I've read many pieces on this concept (Especially Cariadoc's Miscellany) and I've got these conclusions:

1) As Cariadoc mentions, wax is a lubricant. To fully harden the piece with wax would really only prevent damage from bludgeoning force. Blades and Points slide right through (I've also test this bit....it's quite right)

2) Cuir Bolli is a technique that is very old. To wax harden pieces into armor in, say, the Bronze age, you would have to harvest a LOT of naturally occuring hives. Wax is far more plentiful today. Everyone had access to water, though not everyone could get a sufficient quantity of wax.

3) I've found that the water-hardened leather is actually more durable than the wax hardened. I've water hardened small pieces to test and whacked away at them with axes. They suffer a bit of a dent, but remain pretty much intact. That said, the impact would certainly have broken some bones, but would have prevented massive injury none the less. The only thing I've run into is that I have to coat the outside of formed surfaces with mink oil to prevent cracking. That said, it makes for a very nice shine as well! :D

Thanks for info! The only info I've seen that I remember is that cuir boili is de facto cooked wax into leather. Boili does suggest that something is cooked in the process but maybe it could be descriptive to hot water or drying in warm temperature.

Good pointers and thanks for the info, allways thought I'd have to test this out myself one day. Maybe I can gladly skip that now and focus on other stuff. I'm sliding away from historic leather art more and more.

Tom

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I agree that heating the leather in water is better than wax. Cuir boili means literally "boiled leather", with no mention of wax.

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In the sense of "boiled leather", this isn't talking about actually placing leather in boiling water. Doing so destroys the leather ( go ahead and get some scraps and a pot of water, 'cause I know you're gonna try it). There was a discussion about that here, maybe pre-crash, wherein it was determined that the term Cuir Bouilli probably describes the effects of soaking leather- like you would for wet forming. Total submersion, and as the water penetrates, air escapes as little bubbles. Hence the term "boiled" leather. Bouilli in French literally means "cooked", and may have developed from soaking in hot water to further strip the tannins back out of the leather- making it mostly tanned rawhide, and rawhide can be very hard. Impregating with waxes is perhaps the best way to waterproof leather while keeping its shape, unlike oil which softens the leather.

Edited by TwinOaks

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Ruehl, once dried, there's no alchohol left in the leather. What you may be seeing is that spirit dyes tend to dry out the leather, making it somewhat stiffer than undyed samples from the same hide. That would change the 'hardening point' in the water, because a significant % of the tannins are already missing.

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The only thing I've run into is that I have to coat the outside of formed surfaces with mink oil to prevent cracking. That said, it makes for a very nice shine as well! :D

Why mink oil? Surely any properly applied oil finish would work just as well? In fact, I would probably use a proprietory finish as IMHO all that is needed is to 'feed' the leather. I'm happy to be corrected...

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Here's what Ragnar at Ragweedforge.com has to say about using melted wax on leather: http://ragweedforge.com/sheath.html

Of course the link leads to his section on making a sheath, but the cuir bouilli is mentioned.

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One of the very first pages I discovered on the internet in the early nineties (before there were graphics on the web), was a definitive page about Cuir Bouilli by Marc I Carlson - You can still read it at:

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/leather/hl.html

Marc's other page about leather is at

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carls...ther/leath.html

These are pages to bookmark!

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TwinOaks, that's one of the best descriptions I've seen. I've done a lot of experimentation on this score (though, sadly, my skills as a craftsman are poor: too many publications, too little actual work!), and the toughest bar-none leather we've seen treated this way was a half-tanned leather (meaning, it was not allowed to sit long enough for the tannings to penetrate all the way into the leather, resulting in a pure-rawhide core -- I prefer salt-soaking when I do this to discourage the buggies), which was then hot-stuffed with hide glue and baked wet at 170.

There are LOTS of variations, and I've seen descriptions of hot pitch being used as well, both in experimentation and in a couple historical records (steppe sorts essentially making leather jawshan)

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Cuirbolli_Leather_Vambrace_2pc_by_RuehlLeatherWorks.jpg

A modified 2-piece pattern from www.armorarchive.org. After making this one I had to tweak the pattern a bit since leather works a bit differently than steel.

Anyway, 10 Oz hardened leather with a 6 oz 'joint'. Aluminum double cap rivets and grommets. Laced with Deerhide.

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I've had lots of experience with Cuir Bouilli, since every helmet I make is treated to harden the leather. I just use the hot water, and the leather is 10 to 13 oz saddle skirting.

The procedure is very time and temperature critical. I aim for a water temp of 175 to 180 degrees, and the immersion time varies from 2 to 3 minutes. A difference of just 5 degrees can cut your time in half, or double it, so you need to watch closely. I pull it out for inspection every 30 seconds or so. As you treat more pieces, the water turns dark red, and you can't see the leather.

I presoak the peices in room temp water, because if they go in dry, the thermal shock will just shrivel them. Do not allow the peices to touch the pot, it'll make hot spots, and shrivel it there. I use a folding round vegetable steamer in the pot to isolate the leather.

Water at 170 will have some hardening effect, but you'll need to leave it in there for maybe 4 minutes, and it'll never get really, really hard. It'll dry more like heavy cardboard than armour. If you start with stiff leather, it hardens very well, and if you start with floppy leather, it'll also never get really hard. When the leather starts to turn dark...get it out asap, because that's the point when it starts to shrivel. Leather brought to that point gets super hard. The flesh side dries like sandpaper, and the edges have just begun to curl.

I've hardened 8 oz leather, but it's tricky. You can't fudge on the temp...hit it with the full monty...175 degrees, but watch it like a hawk. Itll start to shrink earlier than heavier leather, and so you might need to do some tugging to reshape it. You have about 30 seconds to get the leather into a mold after you pull it. It's gonna be rubbery, so be careful or you can distort it with careless handling. It'll start to set up in about 15 minutes, and then you can moderately shape it for about an hour.

I've taken pieces that never got hard enough, and resoaked them, them dried them in the oven at 200 degrees. They kinda flatten out and sag, but you can reshape them. I leave them in for 30 or 40 minutes. They scorch where they touch the pan, or the screen.

So, there it is...way more than you asked for. I read lotsa stuff on the internet when learning this technique, and I took the parts that made the most sense to me. I'm also a little lazy, so I always try to K.I.S.S. a job as much as possible. I hate the Fuss Factor, and try to cut it out of all my processes. And lastly, the temps are what I see on my candy thermometer, so there might be variations with your thermometer.

Hope this summary can help someone.

Daggrim

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Servus!

I've had very good experience in soaking the leather and then putting it in the oven at a low temp. The advantage of this is that the temp is far easier to control than water on the stove and you can easily take things our and reshape as time goes on. The effect - driving out the tannins - is the same

A really great tutorial could be found at the House of the Wolf website but he's gone out of business and no longer maintains the site. :(

I have a copy of this on my drive - I'll ask Dan if I can reprint it here.

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That would be great.

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Servus!

I've had very good experience in soaking the leather and then putting it in the oven at a low temp. The advantage of this is that the temp is far easier to control than water on the stove and you can easily take things our and reshape as time goes on. The effect - driving out the tannins - is the same

A really great tutorial could be found at the House of the Wolf website but he's gone out of business and no longer maintains the site. :(

I have a copy of this on my drive - I'll ask Dan if I can reprint it here.

I agree that Dan gave an excellent tutorial on a very consistent and reliable method of producing hardened leather. Marc Carlson's webpages (mentioned earlier in this thread) give a good introduction to the chemistry involved and the temperatures required.

I'll second the observation made earlier regarding halftanned leather and hardening. I did an elbow cop from halftanned (about 12 oz or so) and was amazed at its toughness and resiliency. I could actually turn it inside out and pop it back into shape without cracking, yet it was hard...

The historical records regarding use of wax and pitch appear to be related to making leather waterproof. There are records describing in great detail a French process for "jacking" boots, involving wax.

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I made a breast plate in the past and I used a 50/50 mix of bees wax and carnuba wax. This made it rock hard. you do not boil it. you heat the materials up close to the flashing point. Not sure how long I left in, too many years ago. Then I took it out and placed it on my chest. ( I was wearing gloves and had a couple of heavy sweatshirts on) Then I had someone ice it down... This kept the form..

Enjoy...

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