The Armour Archive

What if ya took some 3mm 150lb hemp twine like here Hemp Twine.

Then used a blend of bee's and carnuba wax liken unto what Torvaldr uses...

THEN ran the twine through a wax block to slightly impregnate it...

THEN used it to lace lamellar.

Think it'd hold up to the high deserts (read: me) and the low valleys and coastal areas (read: them) that are found in the West Kingdom?

I think it might. The kit I'm using now has 450 paracord as its lacing and it's holding up well.

I'm including a pic of me in my gear, and yep I'm wearing Stonekeep's 10 ga. stainless splint legs which now have a distinct curve in several lames on both sides.

-Ivan

The hemp twine will get destroyed in short order if you lace lamellar together with it, regardless of what you coat it with.

that said, waxing cord is a good thing, and greatly enhances its durability and wear resistance.

The hemp twine will get destroyed in short order if you lace lamellar together with it, regardless of what you coat it with.

Good to know. Thanks!

What think y'all of the best color to hide the fact that your using paracord? Black, white, brown, maroon, or something else?
The blue I'm using is pretty but has begun to get on my nerve's.

I would love to use rawhide lace but I know how that'll hold after desert air, valley humidity, & human sweat take their toll, and the answer is not well.

-Ivan

black or brown, probably. When in doubt, i choose unobtrusive colors.

in my case, lamellar is not appropriate for my persona, but i wear it anyway. Therefore i don't really care about what the lacing is - in fact, i think i have about 4 different kinds of lace holding the shirt together right now, just because each kind happened to be available when i needed to do a field repair.

early-period (ie, late roman) lamellar was apparently stapled together, but that seems to be a point of contention, especially in progression to later periods/different places. Later period byzantine and asian lamellar, if we accept the assertion that it was laced together, would've been done with silk cord, and that's easily dyed.

By far the easiest thing I've come up with(specifically for something like arming points) is to take three spools of thread and make twine out of it. Depending on what I'm using it for, I can braid cottons with flax with synthetic or whatever combinations I need. Then I run that through beeswax, cap it off with a brass tip, and its done.

I know almost nothing about lacing.
That said, that's a really pretty suit of lamellar there

For tightly-laced stuff like that, I recommend leather lacing. NOT the thin stuff people use for buckstitching, etcetera, but the full-thickness lacing that rawhide guys used to make horse tack out of. Have never had even the beginning of a problem.

No experience with hemp. Silk is pretty traditional here and there, too, but again, no experience -- my area is leather-heavy, so I run with what I know.

Peter Baker wrote:I know almost nothing about lacing.
That said, that's a really pretty suit of lamellar there

Thanks! It took me about 2 yrs to make.

Though most of that was because I had yet to discover the joys of the drill press. Actual construction time was about 4 mo whilst still working and having a life. I think I put in a solid 25+ hours into it, a bit here & there. Oh.. I used untempered aluminum by accident, it holds up but needs banging out on a regular basis.

My next suit will be from Polar Bear Forge, I HATED the cutting and drilling and countersinking.

I originally toyed with the hemp+wax idea as it was easy to get and might look cool but I think that I'll just stay with the paracord, stripped of its core it'll look fine and in a dark color it'll blend fine.

Mebbe maroon, brown, or dark red? The Rus liked red.

-Ivan