The Armour Archive

Hi,

I have some excess stainless steel mail from an earlier experiment. It's "butchers mail" and I'd like to attach it to my green turnshoes for (a) looks and (b) traction.

Any suggestions?

-Aaron

You could either sew it on with some tough thread, like artificial sinew, or rivet it on, though that might be uncomfortable depending on how it might rub. Wither way might hurt water resistance, especially on the bottom since you want to use it for traction.

Are you trying to cover the uppers or the soles? I'm a bit confused.

The moment you get onto a hard surface with mail on your soles your traction goes to roughly that of an ice skate.

OK. I'll just cover the tops then, if I can.

Aaron,
I would make a rough pattern of the top of your turn shoe by using a sock and duct tape, mark where the bottom is and make a leather sole and sew them onto a new leather sole. They you would have a "maille bootee" you can wear over the shoes for fighting and you can remove them for other times. IMHO that would be the easiest way to get them to fit and not move around much...

Johann,

That rocks! Great idea!

So it would be a leather sock covered with mail that would basically that would cover my turnshoes?

I like it!

double post picture too large

I was thinking more of a maille sock with a leather sole. It seemed the easiest. Similar to the mittens here:
http://livinghistory.ie/~valen/reenactm ... t-1230.jpg

If you're wanting increased traction on turnshoes, then you can glue leather chord to the bottom to make something similar to a modern trainer grip. It works on stone as well, which will stop you falling over quite so much.

I purchased a pair of Goodyear soles of eBay for around $10.00 and glued them to the bottom of my fighting turnshoes. Provided some great traction in grass. And on asphalt and concrete

You could inspire yourself from Sir D Sebastian's essay.

http://mattyds.com/essays7.php

Sew around the edges, then sew "lines" of thread spaced a couple inches apart to keep the mail from shifting too much. If you have a sewing machine you don't care about (think: Goodwill, Salvation Army) you can do it this way or even turn the wheel by hand to sew manually. I've attached pieces of the 5/32" welded mail to a leather jacket for a friend this way. If you use the machine as intended you will break sewing needles, but mostly they pierce inbetween the links. Safety glasses would be another good idea.

If you want to sew this stuff onto leather manually, get some white dental floss and a leather needle and go that route. You can melt the edges of the floss with a lighter to keep it from pulling through the holes. This is also good if you need to repair luggage or something similar.

Welcome and well come, Theo.

Here's how I did mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcrogue/52 ... 428201215/
I made a leather sole to stitch the mail onto. Then I secured it around the shoe.

Johann Lederer wrote:double post picture too large

try that.

Those look a lot like gaiters to me. perhaps stiching to a light leather and straping them on would work.