
A comparative study of leather hardening techniques (2018) - zdw
https://onicrafts.com/a-comparative-study-of-leather-hardening-techniques-16-methods-tested-and-novel-approaches-developed/
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hprotagonist
weird to find this here.

Cuir Boulli (literally 'boiled leather') is probably a misnomer. David
Friedman's method is probably ahistorical. It works (he fought in leather
armor of his own making for years, including the cup!), but you run serious
risks of warping and deformation and brittle fracture under load (including
the cup!)

I've had much better luck with Gavin Kilkenny's method, which is very
reliable. A gentler heat and a hide glue binder produces reliable, field-
tested results.

Ctrl-F for this: _Very first piece of advice:

Look up His Grace Cariadoc's article on "The Perfect Armour" and take
everything he says as an instruction on how NOT to do it ;) While he was a
pioneer in the area and his work was valuable, we have passed to a much better
understanding. And before anyone gets all worked up, I was around helping out
His Grace back in the day. I'm not disrespectful of his efforts, it's simply
that they are outdated. That article is an incredibly persistent internet
zombie ;)_

here:
[http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=94793](http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=94793)

and god help me for crossing the AA and HN streams.

~~~
klyrs
> and god help me for crossing the AA and HN streams.

Oh god I'm not the only one. Haven't been there in a decade, but still

~~~
hprotagonist
I tuned out about 18 months ago. One Mod In Particular got all uppity and
started swinging a big stick about, so i logged off and haven't been back. The
archived posts are still valuable, though.

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zbrozek
Weird to find it here, but great too. This is the kind of content I would
_never_ find on my own and reading it brought back the kind of joy I felt
perusing the internet in the 90s and 00s.

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tstrimple
Knowing nothing about hardening leather apart from what I've just read here,
if reaching a certain temp without going too high or too low is the way to
harden leather armor sous vide might be a good experiment. No chance of
overheating like in an oven. I guess it would depend on how much of the
hardening process is the drying action and how much is the heat itself. You
can vacuum seal around a mold of the shape you want, and then sous vide the
sealed leather. Perfect temp control, and no risk of scorching.

