Glued Linen Armour- a simple test

[Matt Lukes]

Yup, that was it- the capillary action of the exposed edges draws water in rather efficiently- today's test showed the same, albeing a little less markedly, full-thickness absorption and subsequent delamination with just minimal force application. It would seem all but certain that anyone designing armour like this would have realized this problem and addressed it.

Overall all these results do suggest glued armour isn't fundamentally impossible- however, I wouldn't consider it support in the absence of any real reason to believe glue was ever used in this way. That it's not impossible is not sufficient.

Scott, just to try to understand the remaining difference in our results- that you didn't find samples delaminating after being thoroughly saturated- did you have the edges finished or otherwise didn't apply any force to them? I didn't find delamination centrally- that is flexing didn't separate the sample in the middle, only at the edges, and layers thence came apart easily when pulled. Clearly the glue was no longer effective when wet, but the shear force between the layers insufficient to comprimise it away from the edge.