The Armour Archive

Greetings I am interested in cronstructing a suit of Lamellar aremour. i was just wondering if therre was a way fo calculating home much leather i will need befroe i start construction.

That depends a lot on the following:

• What will the dimensions of your individual lamellae be?
  
• Are you making a suit to cover just your torso, or are you going to add skirts and sleeves?
  
• How big around your torso (at the widest point) are you with padding?
  
• Where do you want the skirts to end (if you have them)? Mid-thigh? At the knee? Lower?

I wrote an article on the Construction and Use of Lamellar Armour for Use in the SCA that is located on the Archive. That should give you a pretty good idea of how many lamellae you will need (and, consequentally, how much leather you'll need to buy). Since you are making them of leather, might I suggest investing the fifteen dollars in a good strap-cutter? It will make cutting individual lamellae a breeze.

Also, invest in a good leather dye, a large block of beeswax and a couple packs of parrafin wax--a 50/50 mixture will allow you to use lighter leather, thus cutting down on weight.

Another option is to purchase pre-made leather lamellae from Thorvaldr's Leatherworks, thus cutting the effort down to simple assembly.

Good luck,

I agree with eveything T-Bob says, except the wax. Remember that since leather is much thicker than metal it would be wise to use wider lamellae with less total overlap than is typical for metal lamellae. My current project uses roughly 2.5x3.5 inch pieces. I advise you to select a lamellae design, cut and punch holes in your lamellae, and then harden them with the following process:

1. Make a batch of rabbit glue using roughly 1 tsp. rabbit glue powder in 1 cup of water, let it sit overnight to dissolve into a gel, and then place your bowl in a larger bowl of hot tap water to warm and liquify it. If you are doing the entire suit at once you may want a double batch of glue.

2. Thoroughly wet the leather and give each piece a slight vertical curve.

3. Bake the pieces in an oven at 180-200 degrees until hot but still wet. Use an oven thermometer because many ovens are innacurate at low temperatures.

4. Remove leather from oven, adjust leather shape by hand if needed, then paint liberally with rabbit glue until it runs off. Return to oven for 10-15 minutes. Repeat 2 or 3 more times until the leather retains a very glossy appearance after baking. If the glue begins to gel in your bowl then replace the hot water.

5.Bake an additional 30 minutes or until completely dry. Allow the pieces to cool completely before lacing them together as the glue will be slightly tacky.

The resulting pieces will be quite hard yet resilient rather than brittle, water repellant, and weigh about the same as the original leather. The technique is based on 13th century techniques documented here.

You can get rabbit glue at a large art supply store or order online here.