BEST WAY to Harden Leather?

We have made leather armor but, so far, haven't taken that extra step into hardening leather. How DO you harden leather? What is the best method to use to harden leather? Does harden leather really work? We find all that out and MORE on today's episode. Stay Tuned!

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[Ironlantern]

4:42 The only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down. -Adam Savage

[michaelyoung]

The tests at the end is actually a good example for why Rogues would want the leather armor, for that bludgeoning protection. Most city night guards carried staves and clubs instead of swords, and being able to have the bludgeoning protection would be really handy at turning a potential broken bone into a bruise. Still, it’s easier to dodge and run than to tank a hit

[blckspdr]

Hello! There is one metho you didn't test, which Tod's Workshop tested succesfully:
Cooking (not boiling!) the leather in boneglue. Or the modern alternative: a Water-Gelatine mixture. This way the leather turns into a compund material, the fibrous leather, filled with hardened boneglue. In his test, Tod managed to chop into a wooden beam with that piece of leather

[dontaecamacho]

One of the best things I’ve seen from another channel called Dark Horse Workshop, the thing Magnus uses is a high temperature mixture of beeswax and paraffin wax inside of a turkey crock pot, I have yet to find a used turkey crock pot at a goodwill or thrift store around me but I’m still on the hunt for that. But given that it’s in a large pot you’re able to get coverage a lot easier. I’ve learned a lot from this channel and that channel combined into a beautiful fusion dance of YouTube leatherworking

[normanberg]

Boiling in water dries the leather out. Boiling it in oil allows it to retain more of the natural moisture, allowing for a little more flexibility. Also it doesnt take long to boil it. You can avoid it shrinking by doing it for a shorter time. The fibers shrink under a lot of heat

[blasterblake]

Man I swear everytime I think about doing a project you drop a video related to it

[renedemers]

Gambesons are such an impressive piece of armor kit. The way that layers of fabric scraps work to frustrate blades whether piercing or stabbing and distribute the forces of blows? really just sells why it was one of the most universal parts of a kit and the base layer for every upgrade.

[kahn]

Working with arms and armour in a museum I’ve seen leather shields with little to no structural reinforcement, but they’re damn near half an inch thick, as for worn armour what little evidence there is from the medieval period appears to be a surface to rivet metal bands and/or plates to in order to stretch out one’s supply of metal

[qoolbru]

Level up ideas - hardened leather belt pouch or some form of post-hardened stitched item. With larger pieces where you only need modest tempering, baked seemed like an easier option. On armor, to me it is like car crumple zones. It's there to disperse the impact energy and let you live to impart the final blow to your opponent (or bravely run away).

[oldwaysrisingfarm]

Stearic acid in a 3:1 ratio ratio with glycerin is simple bar soap! When the stearic acid is combined with the glycerin into a single molecule you have lard (or other heavy fat), adding lye to the lard separates them into their individual units making soap! You don't need to worry about getting it on your hands...its just soap (well, 3/4 of soap)...and you can for sure re-use it! Stearic acid, palmitic acid, and other related fatty acids are also often mixed with glycerin and liquid oils to make a base for skin creams and other cosmetics. These same fatty acids combined with long-chain alcohols instead of the glycerin makes them into waxes, palmitic acid in particular is common in bees' wax. This is why there is so much overlap in the physical properties of these substances! Bonus fun fact--soap can be used like a wax to finish furniture. It rubs off and has to be repeated from time to time, but it works. Second bonus fun fact--when reading labels, you often see the acid name changed to include the (__ate) suffix which means it lost one hydrogen atom and took on a negative charge in the process, so free stearic or palmatic acid has it, but when these loose the acidic hydrogen they will be called stearate or palmitate. Sometimes they will also deliberately remove the hydrogen to neutralize it and add a different counter ion, which would then read sodium stearate or sodium palmitate, assuming sodium hydroxide was the neutralizing agent (if you use sodium hydroxide lye to make soap, you have done some of this!) Its all basically the same stuff, the name is just telling you what it is up to in the material being discussed!

[DerekWorth]

Started watching your videos about DIY armor, transitioned into watching a few more youtubers about leather working, now I'm hooked on making things with leather... Started with your vidoes, SOOOO thank you very much for being a Gate Way influencer for me!

[oneill_]

When you did the boiled leather armor(cuir bouillon), you left it in there like 2-3 seconds too long. That's why it shrunk so much. It doesn't take much when it's properly soaked through with water beforehand. Take it out next time right as it begins to lose its form and make sure you have your mold/clamps right there when you take it out. It won't be as stretchy, but it'll still have some of that elasticity so you can work it for a few minutes. add a little extra to any patterns you make to account for shrinkage. You can always hit the boiling water again if it's not quite as hard as you'd like, too.

I wanna note one problem people might see with the wax process. Running around in the heat will re-soften the piece and if you haven't properly buffed it then you might get some wax dripping on you. It might also lose some of its form over time.

For pt2 of this:

Glue hardening- Make a diluted solution water/carpenter's glue which is similar to the traditionally used hide glue. Bake, then soak from dry in this solution until it stops bubbling.

Resin- Get ahold of some fiberglass epoxy. Shape, bake, then soak until it stops bubbling. This has the best results from my understanding, but I have only done the glue method

Both of these should give you a similar result to the acid dipped example in the vid

[tvheadd]

The channel "Tod's workshop" has an incredible video about boiling leather in hide glue called "making leather shield armor", look it up my guy, turns the leather into an entirely different material, it's amazing! seriously consider it in your next steps of leveling up! There's considerably more difficulty in this method but I believe in your ability to figure it out, be safe! ❤

[dustinthesmoke]

Fun fact: despite the name cuir bouilli *the boiled leather* it was never boiled in water. It was dipped in hot wax or oil to give it that hardiness and resistance. And if it was thick enough, it would be as hard as metal but with less than half the weight of metal

Editing as the video go.
For the oven the normal treatment is 200 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes to 70 minute beyond that and it does burn and shrink.

One more edit:
I didn't see you use a product Fiebings made. It's called leather firmer. People using it are saying it makes the leather just as hard as baking the leather but you just have to brush it on and let it dry. Although dipping it like when you dye leather works way better.

Last edit: you're mostly right about leather not being completely protective. If you want real leather armor you need high ounces, you got 9-10oz for costumes, like 11-12oz is used for larp foam contact. Around 15 oz is for SCA for Hema contact which still isn't completely real combat but close. You gotta really harden 15 oz leather if you wanna stop slashes. And even then, Leather is really to slow the attack down so the under armor can stop it. Like leather on top of chainmail, leather slows it down and the chainmail stops the cutting, after that you won't really feel anything.

[debvoz]

many moons ago some SCA friends were making waxed leather bracers by soaking flat leather pieces in melted wax, wrapping their arms in wet newspaper then wrapping the wax soaked leather around the arm. Unfortunately, one of the guys got a bit out of order and slapped the wax soaked leather on the other guy's bare arm. Cue the screaming. Fortunately, it was winter and they were working in a garage with quick access outdoors to the nearest snowbank which cooled the leather nicely. Interesting fact about waxed leather - when you cool it down quickly the wax hardens, as you would expect, and forms tightly around every hair on your arm. Thus, removing the piece of leather was just like doing a wax hair removal treatment, an adventure that he would like very much to never, ever repeat due to the extreme pain of having every hair on his forearm torn out by the roots.

[NaClGod]

Something that might be interesting to try is using a stabilizing resin! The process is used mostly on wood. Basically you put it in a vacuum chamber submerged in resin and the the vacuum pulls the air out and the resin replaces the air inside the piece. You then have to bake the resin piece to harden it.

[jamesOldLeatherSmith]

OLD Leather Smith here, interesting, I found how 2 harden leather by mistake. U soak it in water with about 3 drops of liquid dish soap & let dry, do it 3 or more times depending on how hard you want it 2 B. I have a piece on my shop door 2 show clients when I am in residence or not. One client asked how I did it & I told her it took a while I dipped it 7 times outside each time 2 dry, works like a charm.
GOD'S BLESSINGS ✝️🥎🙃

[LaineyBug]

New video idea: Quest food based on real historical rations. Hard Tack, Portable Soup and Pemican (you can find them all on Townsend's). Then when you have all of them made, you can finally build that hand cart that doubles as a camp cot and take all of your Wanderer items on a real (but in character) camping trip! You could even forage as one of your skills to add freshness to the rations!

[AzraelThanatos]

Best description, in a book, for how they did boiled leather was for quick/cheap armor additions. The person who would be wearing it would wear something heavy, and the entire leather pieces would be boiled and then forced into shape on the person who would need to wear it. Then the leatherworker would do some quick cuts to remove it after it cools/hardens to be made into the armor pieces. That was in the Asimov/Wu Robots in Time series with the last book which was set in either dark ages or medieval england.

[TheMegaAsh]

To touch on your stab even modern day stab resistant body armor is stab proof, all it does is severely reduce the depth of the stab and/or cut wound just as the leather did. Most ballistic rated soft body armors are the same with only a few brands of ballistic rated soft armor actually stopping blades completely. Ballistic rated hard body armor can stop blades in their tracks though. The fact that the blades barley penetrated an inch is a good result.