AKICOLJ - thread!

[desperance]

Okay, folks: someone out there knows this. You're in feudal imperial China: what is the toughest thread available to you, for sewing scales onto a leather armour? Is it silk, or linen, or gut? Or something else?

Comments

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

I have a few spools of handmade linen thread (picked, beaten, retted, scutched and heckled by my dad, spun by my grandmother) and would agree. Except that when plied together, the somewhat 'hairy' nature of the linen makes the resulting thread very strong, since there's no slippage between the plies.

Still, it's not as strong as silk, which has less tensile strength than gut (although that depends on the animal). However, gut has a tendency to soften when wet, and since there'd always be some movement among the scales, waxing would soon wear off. On the other hand, silk tends to stretch somewhat when wet, so you'd have the same problem there.

FWIW, the Samurai armour had the plates held with silk thread.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

With scale armor, one can sew the scales such that a little stretch in the thread would not be a problem. Working with a known amount of stretch means you can overlap the scales to compensate.