3 ms·

Last time I've read a discussion about this, the whole "glue" thing was still very much up for debate. No actual historical evidence and pretty much all other f

by mhd 10y ago

Last time I've read a discussion about this, the whole "glue" thing was still very much up for debate. No actual historical evidence and pretty much all other fabric armor done by sewing instead, glue having some serious disadvantages in the Mediterranean. Just because you can construct it in modern "experimental archeology" doesn't necessarily entail that it actually existed. I mean, it would've made sense that the Romans or Vikings wore some decent padding beneath their chainman (like the crusaders did), but IIRC, nothing was actually found or implied in writing.

Animats 10y ago
Glue and cloth make a strong composite material. Strong enough for gears.[1] Some of the gears in Teletype machines were cloth, for quieter running. Plastics have obsoleted cloth gears, but they worked fine. For armor, that level of rigidity may not be what you want. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=RulMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA96 https://books.google.com/books?id=RulMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA96
- tomcam 10y ago
  I had no idea this was a thing. You've just blown my mind open in a flash.
  - Animats 10y ago
    Today we have good materials available for almost every purpose. This is quite new. Historically, the available materials were either not very good or were rare and expensive. Through the whole age of armor before guns, only a few people had the good stuff. Until about 1885, steel was about as rare as titanium is now. Cast iron and wrought iron were used for all sorts of things for which they were unsuited, such as boilers. Reliably good steel was hard to get in quantity until the 1920s. It's amazing how far the Industrial Revolution got with iron. Making stuff extra-heavy was the usual workaround. Good rubber was developed during WWII. Pre-WWII rubber couldn't tolerate oil. Today you can get tires with a 65,000 mile warranty. Good plastics came in in the 1950s. The early stuff like Bakelite was brittle and became more brittle with age. Tough plastics like ABS and polycarbonate, and cheap flexible plastics like polyethylene, were game-changers. One of the huge headaches of the early electrical industry was that the available insulating materials (paper, wood, slate, glass, varnish, cloth, asbestos, tar) all had major problems. When looking at the past, realize how materials-constrained people were.

by mhd 10y ago

Animats 10y ago

Glue and cloth make a strong composite material. Strong enough for gears.[1] Some of the gears in Teletype machines were cloth, for quieter running. Plastics have obsoleted cloth gears, but they worked fine. For armor, that level of rigidity may not be what you want. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=RulMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA96 https://books.google.com/books?id=RulMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA96

tomcam 10y ago
I had no idea this was a thing. You've just blown my mind open in a flash.
- Animats 10y ago
  Today we have good materials available for almost every purpose. This is quite new. Historically, the available materials were either not very good or were rare and expensive. Through the whole age of armor before guns, only a few people had the good stuff. Until about 1885, steel was about as rare as titanium is now. Cast iron and wrought iron were used for all sorts of things for which they were unsuited, such as boilers. Reliably good steel was hard to get in quantity until the 1920s. It's amazing how far the Industrial Revolution got with iron. Making stuff extra-heavy was the usual workaround. Good rubber was developed during WWII. Pre-WWII rubber couldn't tolerate oil. Today you can get tires with a 65,000 mile warranty. Good plastics came in in the 1950s. The early stuff like Bakelite was brittle and became more brittle with age. Tough plastics like ABS and polycarbonate, and cheap flexible plastics like polyethylene, were game-changers. One of the huge headaches of the early electrical industry was that the available insulating materials (paper, wood, slate, glass, varnish, cloth, asbestos, tar) all had major problems. When looking at the past, realize how materials-constrained people were.