A History of the Idea of Glued Linen Armour

[Feinman]

I would ask if your leather is actually generally the same as what the ancients had available. If not, that does not diminish your excellent work that we are all aware of.

I doubt that anyone is producing oil-tanned leather in exactly the same way as was done in the ancient Mediterranean.  What we can get is of the same family, so to speak.  Most "oil-tanned" leather on the market, if I understand correctly, is not in fact tanned with oil but instead veg- or chrome-tan treated with oil after tanning, so it has a smooth surface with the grain intact and is oily-feeling.  True oil- or fat-tanning is described in the Iliad:  You start with a wet hide, apply fat, and knead it until it's dry and the fat is absorbed.  Usually the grain is scraped off to make it easier for the fat to penetrate, unless you want a hair-on hide.  This is pretty much the same method as braintanning and (when semi-mechanized) used to produce chamois (at least as we define it in the States -- the kind here is actually sheepskin, not chamois goat) and old-fashioned German buckskin.

I've only worked with the latter two (plus buff, which is similar but also involves sulphur somehow).  I'm aware of one major difference:  Most braintan made for day-to-day use would be smoked in order to, as I understand it, infuse the hide with aldehydes from the wood and bind the fat to the collagen fibers, so that if the hide became wet, it would be easy to re-soften when dry, instead of reverting to a rawhide-like texture.  Chamois and German buckskin are made with fish oil which supposedly generates its own aldehydes as it oxidizes, obviating the need for smoking.  This is where I'm reading most of this:  https://www.taxidermy.net/threads/80733/

As far as dyeing goes, the upshot is that fish oil-tanned leathers would be lighter in color.  Smoked oil-tan varies from sort of a goldenrod color to medium brown.  So, in theory, a smoked oil-tanned hide should be to some degree darker and more yellow-brownish and this would be visible unless it were either dyed so darkly that the hide's intrinsic color difference is hard to see, or painted with an opaque pigment.

This is my chamois dyed with madder.


I haven't saved any of the test swatches with oil-wax paint. But I've used both red ochre and ultramarine. The result looks pretty much like you'd expect -- ochre gives you barn red, ultramarine gives royal blue. It's matte (maybe with just a hint of shine) and opaque, flexible, and waterproof when dry; the only drawback I've found is it has to be rubbed in and is no good for producing intricate designs.

I really enjoy your blog and work Dan! Great stuff.