Cuir Boille (or however you spell it)

[Joel of Old]

Am looking at creating some cuir boille armour pieces for NAAMA 07, both for look and function. Would appreciate anybody's input with this as I've little experience and little funds to experiment with.

I understand that tooling it is difficult, but am interested in the end result, so again any info appreciated.

Cheers
Joel of Old

[pmel018]

Hi Joel
try cuir bouilli or coirboille as a search term for Google. I had a really good reference for the technique but can't find it . Points to remember
you need veg tanned leather
it is a technique of contolled saturation and drying with water, NOT wax
it was done over moulds and formers of various sorts, some with the patterns already in them
tooling is done with the leather just damp

Hope this helps
http://www.xiangtan.co.uk/craft/molding-leather-armor.html[img][/img]

[amuckart]

Have a look at this. It's old, but a good guide on making water hardened leather armour.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Articles/Perfect_Armor_Improved.htm

Tooling isn't difficult, just time consuming. Look at some medieval tooling first though, it's very different to modern western work.

You need veg tanned leather to do this. You cannot water harden chrome tanned leather. You can wax harden it, which works well but isn't period (but neither is chrome tanned leather ) but not water harden it.

Ignore the stuff you read about hardening leather by "boiling it in oil". Try it if you want, but use cheap scrap

I have never seen a single reliable source that says this is possible, and I have read a number of things by people who work with leather professionally that it does not work and will wreck your leather. The whole thing about boiling leather in oil is nothing more than confusion and misinformation based on misunderstood medieval french and people getting confused with the oil treatments on later period leather like buff coats, which are completely and utterly different.

[pmel018]

Yep that's what I said (more or less) While the actual patterns impressed into medieval leather are very different from the hideous stuff now produced as "Western"(the old west) the techniques are not very far reomoved. moulding, stamping, punching and carving can all be observed in recovered leather finds.
Personally I have never heard of the "boiling in oil' technique, only in wax, but as you quite rightly point out, that is incorrect too. I have seen armour made this way, but the owner was under constant siege from bees, he had used pure beeswax
Phil

[wuzzle]

the basics of hardening require heat and heavy vegetable tannins
the theory requires heat and preasure to force the vegetans into the
hide and by force and the use of heat `bulk up`the hide which upon
drying under constant pressure `hardens into a compressed state
in the modern tanning industry this technique is used still for gaskets etc
it (as all things ancient) takes time and mould making skills
but for armor points ie a shoulder down arm set up,3 sizes of mold and
your in business


soak vege tanned hide (keep out of belly/pit areas) strips are best,
when hide is soaked remove excess water until touch damp. lay out on flat board streach out and nail down each end.mix up 1part memmosa tannin to 1parts water blend into a slurry keep adding memmosa until porrige like this mix is then evenly
spread out onto hide until smeared all over (no this is not porn) cover this
area with a couple of plastic rubbish bags and then hot hot hot damp towels place really fast a new board and attatch clamps around to compress,each day for the next week or two repete the hot compress
stage wolla after this step open the topboard stop the hot towel stage
and air during day recompress at night (keep in gloom no sun light
you want a slow dry with plenty of compression.


As a note this is my best basic adaptation of an existing process
to make paldrons etc make a mated compressable mould,bottles,
soles,cups and buckets can be made with this technique

[stephan]

on youtube there is a real good couple of vids of a norse guy sick of people saying leather armour is good his basis is that cows are not armoured so e does a couple of tests with sharps and lo he is proven correct

he mentions that wax hardend leather like frozen meet cuts better wicth is true

his next vid is done with water harded leather and it proves most execllent at stoping cuts and turns a arrow {i think]

check it out it is good

stephan

[Jesster]

hi all,

Sue of the Wellington Medieval Guild has been experimenting and creating her own Cuir Bouilli armour.

here is the link to her website with her research and results!

http://www.leader.gen.nz/medieval/cuir-bouilli/

Jess