cuir bouilli how-to

[CitizenKate]

I just had to share this with the group... I came across this very detailed compilation of modern experience on how to create cuir bouilli, or literally "boiled leather" armour, which was commonly used from the 14th-16th centuries. I probably won't get to try this anytime soon - it's just something I'm casually curious about, but since I found an article with so much practical information, I thought I should pass it along.

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

I'd be curious to know if any of you have tried any of this. It's quite fascinating. I'll post anything else I find on this topic here.

Edited October 21, 2006 by CitizenKate

[Johanna]

Well, you can tell I'm cleaning up, huh? Here is a workshop handout we used to do for SCA folks on hardened leather.

Johanna

Hardened Leather

Hardened leather was used for armor from classical antiquity through the end of the Elizabethan era. Its popu1arity can be trace to its strength, weight, and relative ease of manufacture.

For this method of hardening you will need a good sized double boiler, a large supply of wax (paraffin works very well), candle wax hardener, candle wax dye (both are available at a good hobby shop), and, of course, a supply of leather.

The minimum thickness of leather you should use is about 8 oz. (1/8") to 11 oz. (3/16"). Sole leather, which is about 10-14 oz. (1/4") thick, is very efficient and has great stopping power. Very heavy leather (such as bulls throat) is superlative.

For small plates, the simple immersion method is best; I will deal with hardening larger plates later on in the article.

Always use a double boiler to melt wax. The boiler I use is a large kettle that I no longer love, which rests on three legs inside a larger kettle which is filled halfway with water.

Put in your wax: after it melts, add about half again as much hardener as the manufacturer recommends. Since you are going to be inside this leather, you want it very rigid.

If you want to dye the leather, add the dye at this point. Make certain that you have enough wax to complete the job at one sitting. If you run out halfway through you will have a wretched time mixing a new batch that matches the original. Always use a test piece of leather, and let it dry completely before you decide you like it. If you don't use dye, the leather will usually turn a very rich, dark brown, which I personally prefer to dyed leather.

Now, the actual mechanics of the hardening. Take about five or ten plates and drop them into the wax.

About fifteen seconds after you immerse the plates, you will see a stream of air bubbles rising from the leather. Wait until these bubbles have completely stopped rising, and remove the leather. This will take anywhere from two to ten minutes, depending on your leather. Place the plates smooth (grain) side up, on waxed paper or foil. Don't use newspaper, the plates willl stick to it. Once you have the process down, you can produce an unbelievable number of plates in an evening.

For any plate too large to fit into your boiler you will have to take a few risks and do the hardening in your oven. I can hear your castle's cook screaming already.

Melt a good quantity of wax in your double boiler, as you would for small plates. Use a brush to coat the plates completely with wax. The wax should be about 1/4 of an inch thick. Put the plates onto an old cookie sheet, and then pour on more liquid wax.

Set your oven to bake at about 150 degrees. Don't use broil; you'll ruin an expensive piece of Ieather and create a stench that must be smelled to be believed.

Place your leather into the oven and watch it carefully. "Baste" the leather with liquid wax at least once a minute. If necessary be sloppy, just never let the leather dry.

When your leather is quite saturated with wax, remove it and start shaping. The sane way is to put on work gloves, hold the leather in your hands. and shape it. This method only produces and approximate fit. A second method (practiced by our local shire's Armorsmiths and Masochists Guild) calls for putting on a heavy garment, finding someone who doesn't like you very much. and having him strap the plate onto you, molding it to an exact fit. This method is only moderately painful. (Make sure that you really don't like the clothing very much. No matter what you do, you will always have a ghost image of your harness.)

Addendum

I. Do all of your cutting, and punch any rivet holes before hardening the leather. This is armor: it was intended to be hard to cut.

2. If the harness becomes deformed by being crammed into a car trunk for several hours, you can usually repair it by laying it on a dark cloth in the sun for about half an hour. It will become just barely pliable enough and from there can be fitted back onto your person.

3. Don't attach straps to your harness until after you have hardened it. Wax will get into the thin leather and make it just stiff enough to be maddeningly uncomfortable.

4. Couir Boulli is an ideal medium for other craftsmen. The Metropolitan Museum has many cups, cases, and chests made from hardened leather.

S. Couir Boulli is ideal for articulated armor. This style uses square or rectangular plates riveted or sewn to a leather or canvas tunic, in a brickwork pattern. This armor is most effective if you use very thick plates and cut the edges to a good right angle. The plates will lock, and become very rigid when struck.

John L. Henry, Jr. 1997 Macon Georgia for the SCA of Warner-Robbins

[B.J. Mantell]

I appreciate you posting the site. I make armor for for SCA fighters and use these methods often. I am always looking for other peoples info on the process in hopes of seeing something new that can help me improve my work.

[MatthewD]

Thought I would post this link I found the other day.. looks interesting

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Art...or_Improved.htm

[Hoyden]

Oohhhh, more good info.

We've been having armor workshops at my house for months now. My 5 year old daughter is even sporting leather armor now.

Any one have good links to dog armor??

[Johanna]

I have a workshop for dog armor somewhere...we used to make the gear that the dogs wore when hunting wild boars in Georgia. Judging by the nicks in the leather when we did repairs, I would not want to tangle with a wild pig! Are you looking for decorative or functional armor, Hoyden? I need to rummage around (and find a scanner big enough for the patterns!) This is kind of like a stroll down Memory Lane looking at all these old classes and workshops. One thing about doing custom leather is that you never know which project is going to be next, huh?

Cheers from snowy Ohio!

Johanna

[Hoyden]

I have a workshop for dog armor somewhere...we used to make the gear that the dogs wore when hunting wild boars in Georgia. Judging by the nicks in the leather when we did repairs, I would not want to tangle with a wild pig! Are you looking for decorative or functional armor, Hoyden? I need to rummage around (and find a scanner big enough for the patterns!) This is kind of like a stroll down Memory Lane looking at all these old classes and workshops. One thing about doing custom leather is that you never know which project is going to be next, huh?

Cheers from snowy Ohio!

Johanna

Decorative armor, but won't say no to functional as I have quite a few collar clients down south that have expressed interest in dog armor. I make cut collars for a couple of them now.

I am pretty good at drafting patterns, so a decent snapshot of them would work!

Somebody sent me this pictures of plastic barrel armor, so I've been looking for something similar in leather

We go to Ren Faires and I take my dog Birdie with me as she is a service dog, so I've been dying to make her some dog armor for the Faire and SCA. Birdie was sporting a chain maille collar and my daughter in her play armor we made from leather scraps

[Johanna]

Here is one of the canteens John Henry made during one of the hardened leather workshops. The sinew that holds the cork on is damaged, and I would imagine that had something to do with one of my kids. This hangs in the dining room.

It holds water, but it tastes terrible.

Johanna

[Patrice]

I'd really like to make myself a leather canteen. The shape look like it was molded over a glass cooking plate!

The sad thing here in Québec, is that we don't have any workshop about leather crafting! So, i must learn everyting all by myself. One of my friend who's making medieval metal armour since 1986 once told me: I learn to do it by scraping lots of metal and swearing

I'll try do to a canteen lke the one you showed us, but, il would like to know how to shape the bottle cap?

Once again, thank you for all the advices i can get from everyone of you!

[Johanna]

Metal pie pans. I had a fit when I saw him about to melt the paraffin in my favorite dutch oven, so he got a cheap one from a store. It is in the shop full of wax, still, ready for the next project. Meanwhile, my cooking pot has probably made another thousand meals. Never ever take kitchen items without checking with the chief cook of the household, or you risk the wrath of the person who tries to scrape the wax out of the pot, cussing you the whole time.

The cork is a piece of a wooden broom handle, served to the canteen with twisted artificial sinew. That's another thing on my "needs fixed" list. I think one of the kids was playing with the cap and cut the sinew somehow. That would have taken scissors, but we had a bad time with scissors a few years ago, when they were much younger.

Here's a war shield he made. Yes, that is real human hair. A lady gave him hers when she cut it in mourning. The middle tail used to be considerably longer...but one of the kids...well, I said bad words that day. You can't see it in the picture too well, but there are tokens or charms sewn into where the hair comes off the circle. The red dot symbolizes our daughter's birth, the black one was for our son. It would have been my responsibility to carry his shield to the next camp (except during times of menstruation) and to place it on a tripod in front of our lodge, if we were Plains Natives. It would have been the equivalent of saying "The Smith's" on the door. Wow, I got a little off topic, huh?

Johanna

[Patrice]

Metal pie pans. I had a fit when I saw him about to melt the paraffin in my favorite dutch oven, so he got a cheap one from a store. It is in the shop full of wax, still, ready for the next project. Meanwhile, my cooking pot has probably made another thousand meals. Never ever take kitchen items without checking with the chief cook of the household, or you risk the wrath of the person who tries to scrape the wax out of the pot, cussing you the whole time.

The cork is a piece of a wooden broom handle, served to the canteen with twisted artificial sinew. That's another thing on my "needs fixed" list. I think one of the kids was playing with the cap and cut the sinew somehow. That would have taken scissors, but we had a bad time with scissors a few years ago, when they were much younger.

Here's a war shield he made. Yes, that is real human hair. A lady gave him hers when she cut it in mourning. The middle tail used to be considerably longer...but one of the kids...well, I said bad words that day. You can't see it in the picture too well, but there are tokens or charms sewn into where the hair comes off the circle. The red dot symbolizes our daughter's birth, the black one was for our son. It would have been my responsibility to carry his shield to the next camp (except during times of menstruation) and to place it on a tripod in front of our lodge, if we were Plains Natives. It would have been the equivalent of saying "The Smith's" on the door. Wow, I got a little off topic, huh?

Johanna

Have you try to line the canteen with brewer's pitch? It is sell form Jas-Townsend? : Here's the link for the pitch:

http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?c...products_id=373

You could also use natural bee's wax melted and swirl inside the canteen!

Anway, i'm very exited and think i will try myself at making a leather canteen! :beer:

Edited February 13, 2007 by Patrice

[Peter Ellis]

Hi folks.

Cuir Boulle happens to be my particular area of focus, as I make armour out of leather for SCA, LARP, Ren Faire, WMA - anybody that's interested :biggrin:

There's an excellent paper by a fellow named Chris Dobson that was produced perhaps three years ago and should be available from him through his website http://www.masterarmourer.com/

It's pretty certain that wax played no part in the construction of hardened leather armour, because there is solid evidence that they coated the leather with gesso and painted (and gilded) it. The gesso will not stick to wax.

Dobson has done extensive experimentation with a method that involves taking wet leather, stretching it over a wooden form (last), tacking it in place and then heating it while painting on hide glue. The glue is absorbed into the leather - and when it stops being absorbed you stop applying glue - the heat is somewhere in the range of 170 to 180 degrees F at which point (as mentioned in the piece Kate linked to to start this thread) certain compounds in the leather become fluid. It's very important to get the leather to this temperature, because the flow of those compounds is a large part of the hardening of the leather. The glue helps the process, but is not the basis - you can get quite hard leather without using glue at all.

The piece is kept at temperature for some time - if you're using a last, you can probably keep it warm until the leather appears fully dry. I don't use lasts (yet - it's a matter of making them) and I've found that if I let my pieces dry fully I get shrinking and warping and those are not either of them good. I pull mine out at about the point where any portion of the piece looks like it is dry. At this stage one can mold the leather still, it's quite cooperative about making final adjustments to form. Then I set it aside for a couple of days to finish drying out completely. At that point if you rap it it sounds like wood, and it is definitely hard. It retains a bit of springiness but it can be broken by trying too hard to bend it.

The hide glue Dobson uses, and which was probably used 800 years ago, is a water soluble glue. Even after it cures completely, it remains water soluble. For my purposes that is a problem, so I use Titebond III in place of hide glue. When it cures it is waterproof. It's a practical advantage for gear that may be heavily sweated in and will almost certainly spend time out in the rain at some point.

I bake mine in my kitchen oven. Dobson uses a heat gun (I tried that and scorched my leather).

I've tried the boiling water approach with wholly unsatisfactory results. The piece of leather shrank by about 30% and the hard shriveled thing that it became was brittle and easier to punch holes in than the leather had been to start with. Some people have good results with boiling water - I think it's possible, but an art form with too many chances to go wrong. Baking is easier and more consistently reliable.

With my baked pieces, I've found that if I need a hole that was not punched before hardening, I should drill it. Punching after hardening runs a high risk of cracking the leather. Dyes go on very differently after hardening than before - penetration of the leather is very much less and it's pretty likely to produce a streaky finish. The streaky finish isn't necessarily a bad thing - I've got some rather nice woodgrain effects.

I use a very simple but highly effective method for sealing these pieces. I dip them in acrylic floor polish and hang them up to dry. Not exactly a "leather finish", but these pieces are intended to be worn as armour for recreation combat and they take quite a beating - the floor finish cleans fairly easily and can be refreshed by the client with a damp rag and some Future.

[TeriYool]

I was reading about the dog armour but the pictures aren’t avaialble so I went looking and this is what came up. I am still laughing!! 

TY

Edited May 30, 2018 by TeriYool
Grammar