Linothorax vs Quilted linen vs spolas

[John Conyard]

Workwise I'm currently firmly rooted in the 4th century AD at present, but am sneaking off to this thread for relaxation.

I'm looking forward to going through Kineas's reading list. I did spent an hour trying to find a supplier of alum tanned leather and failed. But I didn't try too hard, and must try again.

I think there are many ways of making leather armour, from flaking it to laminating it, boiling it etc etc. However some ways seem easier than others.

Laminating leather, using it's natural properties to "glue" layers together, seems an easy option. A new armour in my equipment room makes use of solid leather scales, and in some areas laminated leather scales made up of thinner pieces of leather. They work very well. And boiled leather panels applied to a leather backing also seems easy to achieve. But in the back of my mind I consider if I would be happy wearing these solutions while somebody stabbed me with my 1.5 kg spear.........