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Linothorax again
#61
The samples I made with brine immersion are not stiff at all and do not match the representations mentioned by Mat Amt and Paul Allen. This is why I thought quilting was suitable for a light defense that is flexable. For you late Peltast out there...

I did give a second coat of Elmer's glue to the sample that was two linen layers with a cotton wadding layer sanwiched between. The second coat took out the fabric texture the the first coat left, and made it all smooth and shiney. You will recall in the last exciting episode of "Brine Immersion" this sample was damaged by a slashing cut. The second coat, although making the surface smooth and filling in the damaged areas, still did not prevent damage from a moderate slash. The lower layers were not cut, however. The sample remained flexable. The blade that had the most abilty to cut was one similar to one pictured on Connolly's "Greece and Rome At war" pg. 97. This is a inward curved blade like the modern Gurka knife, the sicarii. Or however it is spelled. Both figures involved in the sculpture are Etruscan and wearing full panoply including the linothorax.

Tomorrow I will make a new sample using pitch on the outer layers and about six brine treated inner layers. (I bought all the pitch the jewler's supply had today.)

If the pitch coated sample works, I am tempted to try to reconstruct a quilted cuirass like the one attributed to Iphicrates" reforms, like on pg 67 of warry's "Warefare in the Classical World". Unless this is too outdated, and someone has a better model to work from. The chest defense will be of pitch coated heavy canvas and the inner layers of thin brine soaked linen, stiched about 15cm apart. This should not take a lot of time or effort. The two layers of petruges, some 20 each, looks like will be at least three to four times the stitching work, which is a horror and makes me think twice. Stay tuned for the results in the next exciting episode of Desperate Hoplites.

BTW... I got a Thracian style helmet from Valentine Armouries last week on half price sale, ($145, US). The plume tube on the right side is the only one there is... none on the left side to match... and the cheek pieces doesn't close as well as I think they should. But it is re-workable, and there is not too much out there from this time period. And its just going to sit in my office anyway..

Gaius Decius Aquilius
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#62
There is another way of making linen stiff, that dosent require glue and may explain Herodotus' description of Amasis' armour. When the thread is made by twisting the stands together the amount of twists gives it its strength, so if you 'overtwist' alot of Linen fibers together you create a thread that has quite stiff properties. Herodotus' 360 'threads' may have been individual linen fibres, which can be several feet long, and when overtwisted together mayhave made a very stong, stiff thread.

I am growing flax to to test all this its up to three feet tall, if i can get three feet fibres we can then understand how 360 'threads' can make a 'thread' of fine texture!

Jason
"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." Maya Angelou
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#63
PS I did a little checking on Elmers glue, it isnt milk glue, its a PVA glue. check out elmers frequently asked questions page.

http://www.elmers.com/faq/index.asp
"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." Maya Angelou
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#64
Fantastic stuff, chaps! I don't think I'd fancy a pitch-glued armour when people start chucking Greek Fire around ( although that may be out of period). The busines of "overtwisting " flax is something I came across at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens; the Society of Spinners and Weavers were there, spinning all sorts of natural fibres. The length of the individual fibres is called the "staple" and, of course, longer-staple fibres make stronger thread. However, short-staple fibres can be made into strong thread by careful spinning. Apparently cotton, such a popular material, has a very short staple. I got the impression that flax doesn't produce long fibres - they simply aren'tthe length of the stem of the plant.

Tow is an old English word for flax - there are references to people who are "tow-headed" or "flaxen-haired" throughout English literature, flaxen-haired being considered the more poetic, which would support the idea that tow is considered a coarser form. Rope is made from tow (hence, to "tow" a boat or car). It may be that, in later years, people in the weaving trade have assigned one word to one kind of flax, and the other to a different one, but the cloth produced is always linen. I suspect that Dan's cheap linen is just stuff that has been neither spun nor woven as tightly as the better-quality stuff. If you spin carefully, you can produce a workable thread with much fewer fibres - this is how the Egyptians made see-through linen.

I hope this helps.
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#65
I just finished the test using pitch, and can claim utter disaster. I smeared hot pitch on two samples of canvas. I let one sit in the refrgirator to simulate cold climates and kept one in the back yard at what is now 88 degree heat. The cold one cracked easiliy on bending. So did the one left to dry outside, except that it was also sticky to the touch.

The instructions advised heating the can in a pan of boiling water. The stuff is nasty to handle while hot. The process also left pitch smears on my bar-b-que tongs, and some on the kitchen stove top when I tried to handle the melted pitch. There is some in my cat's tail, some burned into the surface of the designer stove, and spots on the floor. My wife is livid.

Back to square one on a waterproof outer shell. Is there any evidence of using paint as a waterproofing? Elmers glue does work, but since there were no Home Depots is ancient Greece, (except maybe Athens), I dont know what might work.

Gaius Decius Aquilius
(Ralph Izard)

P.S. -- Just noticed a new rule that we use our real names... sure, but this rule make the assumption that we are all real people. (Here, in New Mexico, you do not have to actually exist to vote, obtain a Driver's Licence, or file a state Income Tax Return. You may also do these things if you are dead.)
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#66
Small note on waterproofing.
Camvas with pine raisin treatment is waterproof.
I know; I spent a whole rainy night guard-duty with a govenment issue camvas (hessian) poncho that had the irritating smell of pine raisin.
The parts of my body that were coverd by the poncho were kept dry!
The sad part is that I do not know how they perform the raisin treatment on camvas. I hope that I offered a starting point for waterproofing daredevils.
Kind regards
Stefanos
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#67
Pliny the Elder gives a good description on the production of pine pitch/resin which was used as a water proofing agent on painted shipping. Their is a study avaliable online somewhere about Roman ships being recovered in Pisa. I have a copy somewhere but cant find it at the moment.
"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." Maya Angelou
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#68
Quote:I just finished the test using pitch, and can claim utter disaster.

Congratulations!

I smeared hot pitch on two samples of canvas. I let one sit in the refrgirator to simulate cold climates and kept one in the back yard at what is now 88 degree heat. The cold one cracked easiliy on bending. So did the one left to dry outside, except that it was also sticky to the touch.

The instructions advised heating the can in a pan of boiling water. The stuff is nasty to handle while hot. The process also left pitch smears on my bar-b-que tongs, and some on the kitchen stove top when I tried to handle the melted pitch. There is some in my cat's tail, some burned into the surface of the designer stove, and spots on the floor. My wife is livid.

You're the bravest of the brave!

Back to square one on a waterproof outer shell. Is there any evidence of using paint as a waterproofing? Elmers glue does work, but since there were no Home Depots is ancient Greece, (except maybe Athens), I dont know what might work.

Gaius Decius Aquilius

I used bituminous paint on my coracle, instead of pitch. It seems to stiffen the material so much as to make it brittle.

Paul
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#69
Pine resin and bitumen are different materials - though both are called "pitch". I would have thought that both would have rendered the material too brittle. How come the poncho isn't brittle?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#70
Quote:Pine resin and bitumen are different materials - though both are called "pitch". I would have thought that both would have rendered the material too brittle. How come the poncho isn't brittle?

Nobody has said, or even suggested, otherwise, Dan. Pine can give us both a resin and pine pitch, as I'm sure you must know. I was talking about bitumen as an alternative to pitch - which is quite clear from my message. Again, I'm more concerned with practicality than doing things exactly as our ancestors did; my aim being to get an authentic-looking re-construction, that can be used, in as short a space of time as possible. I was able to choose a tree and convert it, first to planks and then to lath, but, if necessary, I would have bought lath from a garden centre, because we already KNOW our ancestors could do this stuff, I'm not conducting an experiment in archaeology.

As to the poncho not being brittle, I don't know. Why not conduct some tests for yourself?
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#71
Ooops! :oops: Sorry, Dan, I take it back! Someone DID mention resin and pitch as if they were the same thing. Humble apologies.

Paul
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#72
If you mean brittle as "easily broken", No, the material was not easy to break or destroy.
If you mean brittle as "rough shaped-rough surfaced" or uncomfortable it was B@#!y uncomfortable. It was not easily folding and its touch was unpleasant even above my field jacket but it kept the water out.
I do not know how the apply the raisin on it. Some form of chemical solvent I guess. The feeling was not a raisin coating but something like "soacked" in it. I recognised it as pine raisin from the smell.
It was not like the standard square easy folding plastic water-poncho.
It was more like a round cape with a hole in the center making the wearer like a silly looking cone with legs!!!! Yoy can wear it over the webbing and pack but if you fold it, it unfolds with difficulty and takes time to adjust to shape. My guess is that if the ancients used something like that it must only the outer layer. Pine raisin has some degree of elasticity but I do not know its limits and I do not know what chemical solvents are good for it.
Hope I helped
Kind regards
Stefanos
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#73
Would terpentine or terebrinth be useful as a pine pitch solvent?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#74
Guys,

I think I might have a compromise solution to the waterproofing outer layer. Holite14gr's issue poncho sounds suspiciously like the shelter half that almost all armies seem to issue but never seem to be used in real field situations. I never saw one after basic training. They are canvas, water repellent for the most part, and cheap in war surplus stores. Some commercial tents are still made of this stuff. When I started doing archaeology in the 1970's we used tents that were made for the US Cavalry in the 1860s, stored in Arizona from the 1920s and sold as surplus in the 1960s. They obviously did not use any modern coating and were still water repellent even when over 100 years old. The Civil War re-enactor supply folks like C.D. Jarnigan sell modern repro poncho and tents made the same way, without using modern materials.

Take one of these things, cut it up into as many layers as you want. If you find a shelter half thats olive drab, paint it over. I think water repellent, not water proof might work here. We all know that no army in history ever had enough sense to come in out of the rain, but would cover up equipment. Especially if you had to buy it yourself.

This would work for the outer shell of the type of quilted defense I have been playing with. I soaked six layers in brine a few days ago with a heavy salt concentration and foud that excess salt dried on the surface and crumbled off to the touch. This six layer sample was not stiff at all. It rained that day and I left the sample out in it. All the brine was washed out quickly.

Gaius Decius Aquilius
(Ralph Izard)
Who has been left out in the rain on occasion while the brigade HQ staff took cover. Of Course.
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#75
Pine resin, also known as Brewer's Pitch may be obtained at:

http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.ph ... cts_id=373

I am soaking a six ply sample in turpentine to see if anything happens. I will scrounge the art supply store for anything that might be workable.

Gaius Decius Aquilius
(Ralph Izard)
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