Linothorax vs Quilted linen vs spolas

[Dan Howard]

Secondly, my tests against various samples indicate that quilted layers actually provide better protection than the same number of glued layers.

This intrigues me as it seems quite counterintuitive- that a soft 'version' of the same material would be superior to a solid one- I would love to see an elaboration in a separate thread on performance of the different options for this kind of armour, for example. Last night I decided to try out the glued version since I have a lot of hide glue and scraps of nice linen left over from a Roman scutum project, and I'll have to try out a quilted version too now.

It isn't soft. If layered textiles is quilted correctly the result can be extremely rigid. The stiffness of the product can be altered by the number of layers and the closeness of the rows of stitches. Take a look at modern kendo armour. The armour can be made even more resistant by rotating each layer so that the weft and warp of each layer run in different directions. Conversely, as soon as you add cross stitching to the vertical rows of quilting, the level of protection actually reduces. No idea why.