The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

Also, I think you'll find that protection for the body is usually the first piece of armor in any culture, before a helm. That's definitely not true. Since the dawn of warfare the head was the first part of the body to be protected. In many cases nothing but a shield and helmet was used. Body armou...

Dan Howard

As for finding the reference, I think you may have gotten it from me, years ago, on Arador Armoury. You originally cited the incorrect reference, and I gave you the up to date one, IIRC. That's certainly possible. It was either you or Martijn. Many thanks in any case. Agreed that Rusu is the primar...

Dan Howard

As you said, every report is contradictory. I wasn't confident enough to translate Rusu so I relied on Williams, The Knight and the Blast Furnace , p. 29. "Rusu shows what appears to be both riveted and welded links of a circular cross-section. Most of the links were of wire between 0.8 and 1.8mm th...

Dan Howard

The initial Ciumeşti report said that it was butted but it isn't. It is made of alternating rows of riveted and solid links. It has a small patch of butted links that probably was a repair. IIRC the mail found at Horny Jatov in Slovakia is the earliest example of mail we have and that is also rivete...

Dan Howard

Regarding the kainnes , I'm fairly certain both it and the billet are a measure of silver adorning the armor. Kannes is an old unit of volume = about 1 liter or 1 qt.. http://books.google.com/books?id=gx7ZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=Kanne+weight&source=bl&ots=VLMXMTOzzy&sig=Em_rw6V7-LzwkV7vFqey2...

Dan Howard

Were jousting hauberks still around in the 14th century? What is the latest document in which they are mentioned?

Dan Howard

It is also possible that the weight is wrong. It is amazing how many times the listed weight in various catalogues has turned out to be way off.

Dan Howard

You won't believe anyone else (some here have had decades of armouring experience) so make a reconstruction and see for yourself. Ashdown's suggestions might look nice as a small patch but you'll discover that a complete hauberk can't work. Depending on which method you use, it will either be too he...

Dan Howard

It's also more likely to be historically accurate. There is no evidence at all to suggest that leather armour was ever hardened with wax and some evidence that specifically rules out wax as a hardening technique for armour.

Dan Howard

Len Parker wrote:Dan, could you gives us an example of wrong-way mail on sleeves.

I can't find anything in my pics folder. If I come across an example, I'll post it here.

Agreed with Russ. A reconstruction can't just look a bit like the illustrations; it has to work as functional armour as well.

Dan Howard

Not really. After learning that mail sleeves were done in all manner of ways I lost interest in the subject. It only seems important to me if one wants to make an exact copy of an extant museum example.

Dan Howard

What I find amazing is that we have illustrations where everyone in the picture is allegedly wearing this banded mail. It is apparently even more popular than regular mail judging by the frequency with which it shows up in these images. So where is it? We have tons and tons of regular mail clutterin...

Dan Howard

Wow. I feel as though I've just looked at a 19th century costume book: It isn't mail because it doesn't consist of interlinked rings. Armour "made of metal rings on leather belts" never existed in any time period. Proper ring armour (rings sewn to a backing) never existed during that time either. Th...

Dan Howard

Russ Mitchell wrote:....and that's why it got used for pot-scrubbers?

Roman mail was. The economy and armour industry was completely different to the medieval period.

Dan Howard

It was reused by armourers to make more mail. Even scrap was too expensive to give to peasants.

Dan Howard

Making links was the expensive part. If you couldn't afford mail then you couldn't aford ring armour either. In the medieval period it would be like choosing between a $200,000 sportscar and a $150,000 sportscar. Only the wealthy could afford either.

Dan Howard

Here is the lastest photo I've seen that shows the banding effect. I think you have to be registered on RAT to see pics. http://www.romanarmytalk.com/67-for-sale/321560-8mm-riveted-hamata-for-sale.html It is a pretty good buy too if anyone is interested. The links are too large for Roman mail but th...

Dan Howard

How much would ring armour have cost though? IMO any kind of metal armour would have been out of reach for the vast majority of the population. Going to the modern hardware shop and buying a bag of washers is a lot different to paying a medieval blacksmith to stop everything for weeks while he made ...

Dan Howard

Hide shields were shaped by pressing damp hide into a mould and allowing it to dry. Shield moulds with Hittite motifs have been found in Egyptian workshops dating to the reign of Rameses II. It seems that the Egyptians made shields for the Hittites for a while - probably during the alliance that was...

Dan Howard

It seems to have been used everywhere. How else can you mould rigid leather and rawhide except by holding the piece in the desired shape while it is damp enough to be pliable and then waiting for it to dry?

Dan Howard

The process was used in the bronze age

Dan Howard

There is no "right way" to do mail sleeves. You can make them in any way you can imagine and be likely to find an extant example that was done the same way.

Dan Howard

The Romans punched out coins by the thousands. Why not washers?

Dan Howard

I've had a bag of links that were bright orange from surface rust that I was weaving into a mail shirt. By the time I had completed 2 or 3 rows, the movement of the shirt in my lap had abraded those links shiny clean (my hands and jeans were orange instead).

Dan Howard

The best book on armour by a fair margin is Claude Blair's "European Armour" If you are interested in castles then I've recently published an ebook with 15 smaller castles including their history and a complete set of floorplans for each one. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/114817/Compact-Cast...

Dan Howard

chef de chambre wrote:5. Without nails means the rivets have fallen out, because it is old, course, and rusted.

As we look at possibilities, I think Occam's razor would favour #5

I'm leaning in favour of this option as well.

Dan Howard

If the barrel in question was being rocked/rolled by mechanical means then what were the four men doing?

Dan Howard

186 mail shirts, 29 with pisane collars, 112 with collars of new manufacture, 4 highly riveted (de alta clavatura), 3 for the tournament, worn out, 1 of jazerant mail, 1 of latten , 18 of steel and 18 ordinary (communes) This implies that entire mail shirts were made from latten, not just decorated...

Dan Howard

To me it's the word coarse ( rough; crude; not refined ) that that makes me believe it's butted, and of course that it says without rivets. Did the word mean the same back then as it does today? FWIW I think that it is plausible for butted mail to be used in a tournament where the armour was specif...

Dan Howard

It makes sense that butted maille could be used where no thrusting with points was involved. It makes sense today but it doesn't make sense when you realise how the product was made at the time. The majority of the cost of mail armour was in making the links. Paying someone to weave the mail was a ...

Dan Howard

Cap'n Atli wrote:OMG! What am I gonna do w/ all that Tightbond III for my peltast impression!

When the armour is finished get a felt pen and draw some quilting lines on it

Dan Howard

Derian le Breton wrote:Until the rolling mill shows up in the late 16th century, a hammer, an anvil, a forge, and a lot of time.

Dr Sim has presented a decent argument that the Romans had rolling mills.

Dan Howard

A few people have tried forge-welding links on an anvil. It is difficult because the anvil sucks out the heat too quickly. I think it was Steve who proposed a better way that involved using a pair of tongs to apply pressure while the link is kept in the furnace.

Dan Howard

I'm seen enough evidence to be convinced that punched links started to be used in the Roman period. In addition, David Simm extrapolated from Roman coin dies to make a set of punches for Roman mail using period tools.

Dan Howard

The tools and techniques needed for making mail are more similar to jewellery than armoury. It is even posssible that it was invented by a jeweller. There are some Etruscan decorations that have a lot in common with mail and we know that jewellers were the first to draw wire.

Re: I wanna be a VIKING

Re: Mail and what is time and region appropriate

Re: Mail and what is time and region appropriate

Re: Mail and what is time and region appropriate

Re: Musekins

Re: Ashland Maille Shirt

Re: Ashland Maille Shirt

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

Re: Bazubands without wax hardening?

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

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Re: When did water forming leather begin?

Re: When did water forming leather begin?

Re: When did water forming leather begin?

Re: How plausible is banded mail?

Re: Disappearance of half-solid mail?

Re: Was maille cleaned using sand and vinegar?

Re: Books

Re: Butted Mail Historical for Tournament?

Re: Was maille cleaned using sand and vinegar?

Re: Butted Mail Historical for Tournament?

Re: Butted Mail Historical for Tournament?

Re: Butted Mail Historical for Tournament?

Re: Disappearance of half-solid mail?

Re: Disappearance of half-solid mail?

Re: Disappearance of half-solid mail?

Re: Disappearance of half-solid mail?

Re: High quality maile