Glued Linen Armour- a simple test

[Matt Lukes]

Cool that you've participated in some testing too Scott I'm curious though- did you not encounter the same problem I did with the natural glues? Whether they work or not in ideal form I wouldn't have thought to be terribly significant if there is such seemingly fundamental flaw of protein glues as water solubility. Further to that, was the example you found wearing wasn't uncomfortable, etc., the PVA version or one of the natural glue pieces? And if it was one of the latter, was sweat not a problem afterall?

The glues themselves may be water soluble, and we were worried about this when our initial arrow tests, but when we tested separate patches for their ability to hold together during a simulated rain we were quite surprised with the results. It seems that when a patch of laminated linen, whether glued with rabbit glue, flaxseed glue, or PVA glue (and yes, I realize PVA isn't relevant and there is nothing about it that compares to the ancient world--it was only used in any of the testing for curiosity alone), was completely drenched in an artificial rain and allowed to dry it would retain its bond between the layers. We even experimented around with natural waterproofing agents, although none of the sources name any (again we did this out of curiosity). We used beeswax rubbed on and melted on, lanolin spread on, pitch melted on, a mix of vinegar and salt, and olive oil spread on. They all compared very well and safeguarded the laminated linen patches against degradation from water.

That's surprising considering what happened in my test with real rain. As the very first post states, I got delamination pretty quickly. And my trial with linseed oil provided nearly no protection- not enough to save the sample and only a bit more with beeswax. But then I did leave my test pieces in the rain for I think it was 15 or 20 minutes (I have to re-read that first post), so it was continually exposed to water and humidity the whole time. My patches weren't large- only about 50 cm2, so I now wonder if there's reason to expect water entering the edges would penetrate more- I hadn't considered controlling for that. Still, having worked a good deal with hide glue now, and of course understanding its molecular nature, I certainly know it absorbs water quite quickly, so I'm still surprised that your protein glues didn't. Rabbit glue I thought was actually a somewhat weaker than good bovine, which is what I have, but it's still largely the same collagen-type proteinaceous fiber adhesive so shouldn't behave much differently with respect to solubility- admittedly I've never heard of flax seed glue before, so have no idea about its behavior.

Not to belabor the issue, but since it's central to what I thought was a fatal flaw, just what do you mean by 'thoroughly soaked and allowed to dry'? How long was your sample exposed to the 'rain'? I would expect you checked it before it dried to see if it had absorbed any water since certainly if the glue dries again, it'll be rigid once more- right?

The armor that we wore was made from PVA glue. Sweat was not a problem, including the time under the hot sun (which I experienced firsthand). I was running, bending down repeatedly, and jumping at times and found the armor to be completely comfortable and maneuverable.

Oh of course, PVA changes as it dries so wouldn't be affected by sweat- I only wondered if it happened to be the protein glue type that I'd suspected might be rather nasty when sweated in.