Leather belt construction

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

You make them!

[jvrjenivs]

still got no clue what you're meaning. Drawing?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Jurjen, you will have to be patient, there is a thread where brian talks about them, can't recall which one at the moment.
If I get a minute I will make a sketch and scan and post it. either that or brian will possibly.
I was sure you were in on the conversation about them before Jurjen.

[jvrjenivs]

Okay, can't remember, but will try to find it.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Some questions comes to my mind.

What are the evidences to think that kind of belt construction was used, instead of a single layer of thicker cow leather? Is there any leather cingulum remaining?

Really are always needed the washers? I have made some rivetting without washers and it works fine. Probably not so strong, but for decorative things like studs or plates it's no need for a special strong.

If you see some belt plates, the lower part of the rivet is expanded as it were peened, but lacks the washer. And the distance between the plate and the expansion is wider than if two layers of thin goat leather was used.

Please, opinions?

[jvrjenivs]

Actually I don't know anymore than Jef's first post

We know the Romans often used several layers of leather to make the belt for a balteus.

They often used thin leather and joined pieces so both the front and the back of the belt would be smooth. Often a piece of linen fabric was put between the leather to make the construction stronger and make the belt more resistant to stretching.

And I must admit I'm also interested in the references for this statement. I only now realize there weren't any in his first post.

[M. Demetrius]

Obvious statement 1:
Leather comes from the skins of animals. Usually, leather comes from the skins of animals used as food.
Obvious statement 2:
The Romans evidently ate lots of pig, goat, and sheep meat, but not so much beef. Not much venison, either, although further in the North, red deer (elk) skins are often as large as a small cow, but much stretchier leather. Great for garments, not so good for belts.
Obvious statement 3:
Cow skins are bigger and thicker than goat, pig, or sheep, and not nearly as stretchy. Ergo, there would have been more pig, sheep and goat skins than cow. Perhaps (and this is only a logical perhaps) the longer, thicker, less elastic straps of leather from the cow hides were reserved for those times when long leather was needed, such as for horse reins, saddles, harness straps, etc., and the smaller leather skins were used for other purposes.

Having said that, the process described here would be many times more complicated and labor-intensive. Labor was cheap. Goatskin was more plentiful. Either one would be quite strong enough for a belt. In the end, the product would serve the same purpose. Either could have been used. From what I've read, and I can't give references here, there appears to be much more goat skin product than cow skin in the artifacts found.

But I'll bet Jurgen would freely agree, the labor part of making a sewn, lined belt is significantly more expensive for us today, than simply using a regular belt blank. And once the strap begins to taper, or have "knobby" terminals, like some did, the sewing process becomes more tricky and time consuming. To fold and sew the often seen trilobate leather belt terminal will be a real nightmare of cutting, sewing and hair pulling.

Obvious statement 4:
The majority of us will probably greatly admire the work that goes into making belts in this perceived Roman method, but will continue to use solid straps anyway. I was astonished at Jurgen's comment about his stitching not looking good. It's near perfect in spacing, angle and stitch length! Most excellent work, and another laud for your diligence.

The belt I made from a cowhide belt strap with 15 plates, 64 rivets, two handmade frogs and a purchased buckle took about 20 hours of labor, part of which was learning proper riveting technique. To have sewn the strips together would easily have added at least another 20, I'd guess (estimated from having sewn quite a few leather garments in the past). At say, ten dollars an hour, that is 400 dollars for a belt. Is it worth it? I don't know. Maybe...but maybe 200 is still too much? Hard to say.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

M. Demetrius said "Obvious statement 2: The Romans evidently ate lots of pig, goat, and sheep meat, but not so much beef"

I'm not very convinced about that. You don't have use a comparation between the proportion of pig, ovicaprids and bovid bones of any archeological site (better if it was a roman military site).

If i have to use the proportions between the bones of the finds in the excavations where i have workedRoman eats a lot of ovicaprid (goats and sheeps), a lot of bóvids and probably less pig.

[jvrjenivs]

But I'll bet Jurjen would freely agree, the labor part of making a sewn, lined belt is significantly more expensive for us today, than simply using a regular belt blank.

Indeed I agree, but I don't think we must think about labour in Roman times as we count for it now-a-days.

The majority of us will probably greatly admire the work that goes into making belts in this perceived Roman method, but will continue to use solid straps. I couldn't believe Jurjen's comment about the stitching not looking good. It's near perfect in spacing, angle and stitch length. Most excellent work.

Yeah, but you want to have a special belt, don't you? At least I'm trying to make both 'special' pieces which you don't see on every event and stay/be as authentic as possible (within modern restrictions). I'm glad I'm able to make such pieces, as I surely can't afford them made by someone else. But, yeah, maybe I'm to hard for myself, stating that a row of stitching wich is near-perfect, but has a schift of about .5mm is badly done. It mostly because if I had put more effort in it to make it perfect it had been. You know I made all the holes by eye, so without drawing a line, using a rolling wheel for the distance of the holes, etc. So, if I had taken the effort to do so, it was just a bit nearer to perfect.
(Yeah, I know I'm crazy)

The belt I made from a cowhide belt strap with 15 plates, two handmade frogs and a purchased buckle has taken about 20 hours of labor, part of which was learning proper riveting technique. To have sewn the strips together would easily have added at least another 20, I'd guess (estimated from having sewn quite a few leather garments in the past). At say, ten dollars and hour, that is 400 dollars for a belt. Is it worth it? I don't know. Maybe...but maybe 200 is still too much? Hard to say.

It is what you want. I spend over 150 hours on my hamata, which is stopped with when I had done about 20% because of problems with my hands (I'm still having problems with them and have to take care about them, which is sometimes very hard, when you want to finish a piece)
Was it worth the effort? Surely it was. Same goes for this kind of projects. You've made something yourself, with your own hands, which is different from most of the pieces you see. (Although you see less Deepeeka every event )

[M. Demetrius]

All true. And I know how the wrists feel after a few hours of bending those hamata rings. Ow.

I guess my point was to let the beginner understand it's possible to do things exactly as a Roman did, with all the labor, exactly the same materials and tools, and still not really have the same goods as the ancients did. There are some folks who simply don't have the skills to make things like others of us can. They ought not be discouraged, but rather welcomed into the ranks.

So if you can't sew, folks, that's ok. Make friends with someone who can.

If you can't bend metal like you want, join the club of the rest of us who can't either. It bends, but it doesn't always go where I want it to, and sometimes can't be "backed up" and fixed. You know the same things happened to the Roman craftsmen. Every now and then, a shield boss or a plate, or a whatever just went wrong, and they'd just discard it and frown, and start over. Same as we do. They probably griped about it less, knowing it was just how things were with the craft. All their work wasn't perfect, either. And that's not a bad thing, really.

I greatly admire your work, Jurjen, you are a genuine craftsman, with among the highest standards I've seen. Keep up the good work.

[PhilusEstilius]

I noticed that Byron mentioned bellcaps for securing rivets in leatherwork, I have only recently come up with a system for posting links and pics'. I have an original bellcap on a Roman horse bronze which I shall photograph and push out soon. There is much evidence for the use of these things in Roman times, and indeed they can be considered as an engineering innovation. They can only have been invented by a craftsman who understood the art of riveting, for they greatly reduce the amount of riveting poundage to about 10% of that required for a flat washer. They are semicircular domes with a hole punched in the top of them, it is the punching of this hole that creates a countersink for the rivets being used. These things are around only 4 to 6mm diameter across their base, and when the rivet is tapped down into the countersink it gives a nice 2mm high curved appearance that slides over armour and does not snag.

[jvrjenivs]

Interesting, and I found your previous post on this
[url:1rm484u1]http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?p=191677#191677[/url]

But still I don't see how it exactly looks like. Really looking forward to the pics. Seems to be a good thing to see if I also can add this feature to my new belt

And David, thanks for calling me a genuine craftsman. I still don't believe I am, but I'm very glad you like my work as much as I do making those pieces.

[PhilusEstilius]

Jurjen. Like I mention in that link I have been making Roman armour now for 30 years, and from what I have seen from some of your work you will be a much sort after man long before you reach that far. I keep saying to people that come next April when I reach 3/4 of a Century I intend to retire, however I also like yourself enjoy very much what I do so who knows.

[PhilusEstilius]

Here is a buckle you may like to make one day it's a one that I found and put into the British Museum some years ago, when at the time I spoke to Mike Bishop we both concluded that it was the first of it's type to be found in Britain. It is similar to one in Mikes' book that was found at Oberstimm and I'd put it at 1st to 2nd century, I have made it many times in the past where I've used 4mm thick brass plate to cut it out from.

http://www.northumberland-computers.com ... plt037.jpg

[Marcus Mummius]

Salvete,

The doubled leather construction can be seen on several original baltei, mostly finds from bogs. To my knowledge none of these come from the 1st century AD but from the 2nd and 3rd century AD. We have however no information about the construction of 1st century belts. I think it's quite likely that the construction method of belts in the 1st century AD would have been comparable to that of the later belts.

There have been threads in the past in which Christian supplied a lot of usefull information.

The belts found in the bogs were mostly made out of sheep or goat leather, with a layered construction. I described the different methods in my first post.

Some references that mention belt construction:

Stjernquist, B. 1954: 'Runde Beschlagplatten mit Befestigungsöse', Saalburg-Jahrbuch 13, 59-68

C. Engelhardt (1869) Vimose Fundet

Ilkaer, Jorgen. Illerup Adal. 3-4. Die Gürtel: Bestandteile und Zubehör. (Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter, 25) 1993. 2 Bände

Valete,