Scale Armor & Accuracy

[markusaurelius]

This is very interesting Markus.
Does the thong goes through the scales when you do the edging?

Yes it does. If you don't go through the scale, I find the armor looses the supporting properties of the edging.

The whole process is quite time consuming. One has to line up the edging, making sure that it there is a scale underneath. Punch a hole through everything, skip a hole (I usually put a piece of brass bar in the hole to hold everything in place, then make the second hole. The top thong goes into the second hole and is pulled taught. I took a flat knife like wood chisel tool to make a horizontal slit in the top leather thong in line with the hole underneath. Once that is done you feed the bottom thong through to the top. You repeat this process, constantly making two holes and feeding the top thong into the second one. At the corners you have to time it right with the holes so that the first hole lands right at the corner, and the second hole is after the 90 degree turn. That way you the stitch holds the corner in place.

You can see this strip of Dura-Europos original (likely the last row) where each scale has clearly been punched, and part of the thong is still visible with the horizontal slit/ stitch pattern showing.


[attachment=5384]Duras-Europos-Leatheredging-6.jpg[/attachment]