The Armour Archive

So I am looking in to buying an aventail but I am unsure as to which kind of chainmail to buy. So I was wondering what the pros and cons of welded and riveted mail are. Many thanks in advance.

Welded is more expensive, but doesn't suffer from Maille-moths nearly as much.
Riveted is usually cheaper, but begats holes more frequently (which isn't that often in the first place)
Welded also usually comes only in stainless, whereas riveted comes in demon steel and mild.

Welded mail is stronger than riveted mail, but no claims can be made for its authenticity.

Riveted mail would be nearly as strong if the Indian manufacturers would do do something about quality control.

Mac

Mac -

Yes, please. The stuff I have played out of India with just isn't as good as it could be. Some is better than others, but none of it really has the feel I wish we could get. If it were made with decent thickness and a good overlap it should be pretty rock solid.

A Knuut welded aventail is pretty much permanent. But he never claimed it was authentic.
http://www.weldedchainmail.com/products.htm
His welded flat stuff actually looks pretty good at a distance.

So it depends on what you want - authenticity or permanence. Either is way more permanent than butted.

Wade

Wade,

It's not quite as simple as that. Yes, with welded mail you get permanence. But, no, with the riveted mail from India, you don't really get authenticity.

You get degree of authenticity...an of impression of authenticity...a false or pretend authenticity.

To have real authenticity, all of the "riveted" rings would have to have actually been riveted...there would be no split piercings...there would be no rings that fell out in shipping. (just sayin')

Mac

When properly riveted mail is tested the rivets rarely fail. The wire fails elsewhere on the link. So there is effectively no difference in strength between a riveted and a welded link.

This is an attempt to explain why the Indian riveted mail is not representative of historical mail.
http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=19189

Mac wrote:Wade,

It's not quite as simple as that. Yes, with welded mail you get permanence. But, no, with the riveted mail from India, you don't really get authenticity.

You get degree of authenticity...an of impression of authenticity...a false or pretend authenticity.

To have real authenticity, all of the "riveted" rings would have to have actually been riveted...there would be no split piercings...there would be no rings that fell out in shipping. (just sayin')

Mac

All of the rings riveted? What a goofy thing to ask for.



Agreed, those are problems. Most of the mail I have from India actually came as separate rings so I could toss out the ones that were pierced too close to the edge, or off the edge or the really, really, really thin ones.

I would like to aim even higher and have the rings also actually resemble authentic rings. Not so flat, not so incredibly flat in the overlap. Real ones (not all, but most) have the "pent roof" look to the overlap which would stiffen it up a lot. Real ones (again, most) are thicker than the modern flat ones and often more oval/flat than the round rings. In every way they are superior to most of the modern mail available.

The little bits that Toby has on his harness aren't bad, but they aren't Indian and they aren't cheap.

So I guess we are agreeing, just saying parts of the story.

Knuut welded mail is aggressively inauthentic. It is rock solid.
Most modern riveted mail is also pretty inauthentic. It is "better" in that it has rivets like the old stuff, but not really "better" in any way that implies that the mail is actually made correctly. In fact, the actual geometry of the welded stuff is probably as good (if not better) than most of the modern riveted stuff.

Wade

So Mac, Wade which would you rather see on the opponent right there in front of you? Imagine a pretty decent 14th C kit, good not perfect, but respectable. Which aventail would lend the better impression, or be least offensive?

I would love to know 'cause I could go either way and like woodj3 will be shopping for an aventail myself. Thanks!

Buy something with smaller links - say 6mm rather than 8-10 mm. It is harder to see all the problems with it.

Tostig wrote:So Mac, Wade which would you rather see on the opponent right there in front of you? Imagine a pretty decent 14th C kit, good not perfect, but respectable. Which aventail would lend the better impression, or be least offensive?

I would love to know 'cause I could go either way and like woodj3 will be shopping for an aventail myself. Thanks!

Hmm. I am actually torn. For me personally I have a slightly odd bent to this.

Very little mail out there actually looks all that much like the mail I see in museums and on the dummys or shelves in my house. It just has a different feel to it.

Smaller links are better, but not all 14th/15th/16th c. European mail is actually all that small. Some of it has relatively large rings that are pretty well simulated by 5/16" mail.

I don't like the 8-9 MM round stuff because it looks too open and the swells for the rivets are completely wrong for almost all authentic mail.
I don't like the 8-9 MM flat stuff because it is too flat and looks like old fashioned soda pop-top rings.
I don't like butted because it weights too much and falls apart.
I don't like the welded stuff because (probably) they never did it, and if they did (no proof of this, punched appears more likely) it would have been for every other row. Knuut's flat stuff actually has a very good look from a distance. The overall feel is at least as good at 20 feet as any of the riveted that is easily purchased.

I played with some of the 6mm "flat" mail from India recently. It wasn't bad, but the solid and riveted rings were more different than I wanted them to be which gave it a funny look.

So, I don't really love any of the modern mail except for some of the stuff I have seen from Eric Schmidt. But we can't afford that stuff.

Now that I have ranted, I will give a different perspective.

A 14th c. knight should be wearing a good deal of mail as part of their armour. A 14th c. rig doesn't look right without it. I know, My late 14th c. approximation doesn't have any except the aventail - and it is wrong. My mid 14th c. (well, I use the same bascinet and breastplate because I haven't built a coat of plates) doesn't look at all right for the same reason. My aventail is mostly welded (and round ring) but that was pretty state-of-the-art in the 80's when it was made.

So, in order of preference:

Best - I would like to see the person facing me wearing Eric Schmidt mail covered by Mac/Jeff Wasson/etc. armour.
Second best - I would like to see the person facing me wearing any mail (Knuut welded, flat or round riveted) with decent armor. - even the ring mesh stuff would greatly improve the look.
Baseline - I would like to see decent armour with decent clothing under it.
Needs improvement - the hodgepodge of armour and non-armour that is so common in the SCA.

It is just a personal feeling, but something that looks reasonable from a distance and acts reasonably is a great improvement over nothing, even if it isn't quite right. But I was sleezy and used some stainless in my "cheap practice" mid 14th c. armour I put together too. It wasn't supposed to be great art. I was basically trying to see what I could do as an "acceptable" armour that looked OK. Wander down and we can stare at my cheap combat armour or maybe I will actually take a picture someday. It really doesn't come up to what I think should be deemed acceptable due to the mixing of periods (I wander a pretty good 30-50 years across the mid-late 14th c.), but as these things go in the SCA it isn't bad. Even with it I have wanted to add more mail to make it look more reasonable.

So for me, get/make what you want, but have mail with your 14th c. armour. And 15th c. armour needs mail too (smaller bits are fine).

Does that help NOT answer the question?

Wade

This guy does some nice work: http://vk.com/albums14544660#/album14544660_112821031 His rings have only a slight flattening to them.

Tostig wrote:So Mac, Wade which would you rather see on the opponent right there in front of you? Imagine a pretty decent 14th C kit, good not perfect, but respectable. Which aventail would lend the better impression, or be least offensive?

I would love to know 'cause I could go either way and like woodj3 will be shopping for an aventail myself. Thanks!

Tostig,

The truth is, the first thing I notice is how it is tailored. You can see that from across the field. Frankly, I would rather see a well tailored piece of butted galvanized mail than a badly tailored piece of riveted mail. The most authentically shaped and nicely riveted rings are a waste of time if they are assembled into an armor who's overall shape is wrong.

What I would do (and have done) is buy the wedge-riveted stuff and about a thousand loose rings and rivets. I would then spend a few days tearing it apart and putting it back together correctly. While I am doing that I have the opportunity replace the worst of the bad rings that characterize the modern Indian product. I recognize that this procedure is not for the feint of heart or the weak of resolution.

Mac

Most of the deficiencies with modern riveted maille can be laid at my feet, since it was I who developed the process to make it and sent the tools and instructions over to India to the first supplier that made it. Basically all maille produced today with the ends flattened together is a descendant of my maille.

Remember my goal from the outset was to create a process to create wedge-riveted maille using modern tools and techniques such that it could be mass produced by anyone. I used some shortcuts that show in the final product, and I have documented them in the past.

The first shortcut was using modern spring winding equipment to create the rings and cut them with the overlap built-in. This results in rings that are too round when compared to historical maille, which tend to be more "D" shaped, with the flat of the D happening in the overlap region.

The rings are a bit largish in ID compared to the thickness of the wire. While not out of the realm of historically accurate, it was done to minimize the ring count and thus the weight and cost the garments, which both were a negative to my target market. Smaller rings do look better but make the garment heavier and cost more. Towards the end of my run in the business I was having some garments made using smaller ID rings.

The rings do tend to be over-flattened. I tried to avoid this making my own maille, but I know exactly why it was done - flatter rings are easier to punch as they require less effort and there is more surface area in the overlap zone for "targeting". This is a quality issue that an importer might be able to address with their supplier.

I was never able to come up with a die that satisfactorily made the "pent roof" shape of the ring in the overlap region, and ultimately I decided there was enough for the manufacturer to worry about without adding that cosmetic detail.

The bulk of the quality issues with modern maille stem from lack of attention during the punching process which results in an off-center rivet hole which usually scraps the ring during the rivet setting process. Unfortunately while knitting they don't pay attention to the tiny "snap" you hear when the ring breaks during rivet setting and they just call it good and keep knitting. With our garments my wife and I used to hang each garment in the basement and go over them with a flashlight looking for bad rings, which we'd mark with paper clips, and I'd replace them. I doubt anyone does this today.

That said, I'm fairly proud of the end result. I will always look back knowing that it revolutionized the state-of-the-art for reproduction maille. It may end up being one of my greatest contributions to the SCA and medieval living history in general. It has its shortcomings, but it is far more accurate than the old "pop-top" style of riveted maille that preceded it. If you want the "real deal", there is no substitute for maille made just as it was - completely by hand with the attention of a craftsman. There are very few people in the world today who can do that, and you are going to pay far more than a few hundred dollars for a maille shirt from one of them.

Steve

Len Parker wrote:This guy does some nice work: http://vk.com/albums14544660#/album14544660_112821031 His rings have only a slight flattening to them.

Thank you for that link, Len.

His fabric looks nice, and the tailoring on his ventails is not bad. The habergeon, on the other hand, lacks the extra material over the shoulder blades, and the skirt has no flair.

Mac

Steve,

Your contribution to reenactment is inestimable! We all owe you a great debt of gratitude. I do not mean to offend you when I attack the current state of imported mail.

The problem is that the Indians have cut costs and cheated quality until the product is only a thin shadow of the stuff you had them making years ago. I remember how excited I was when I first saw the mail you were importing. I thought (in my optimistic innocence) that soon we would be seeing even greater things. It never occurred to me that product would degrade like it has.

Mac

Oh no, I am not offended by the quality comments at all! I just wanted to point out why it is ahistorical as it is.

I saw this myself as I was getting out of the business. One of the reasons I got out is the product became a commodity because other vendors started copying the maille, and thus the profit margin went away. Because they did not have anyone to guide them into doing it right, they didn't. I personally inspected every garment that ever came in and I sold, and gave feedback on quality and improvements to my manufacturer. We had several iterations of rivet length, for example. Of course in addition we degreased and polished them, too.

I suspect the product has moved from being a "directed" product now to a "distributed" product. I bet many of the folks selling it simply ship it out exactly as it comes from the factory. Unless you have a distributor who is doing the labor to inspect and correct problems (and thus complain back to the supplier on how much work it takes to get the product shippable) the problem won't improve.

Steve

One of the things I should have done, and considered but never did, was insist on the flattening die being constructed with a positive mechanical stop that enforced a consistent, uniform, and correct finished flattened dimension of the rings.

My own tool was just a piston in a bore, and it was only the feel of my hammer blow that determined the ring thickness.

This is how I taught it to my supplier so I suspect that is how it is being done still. It really ought to be done with hydraulics with a mechanical hard-stop limiter.

Steve

Mac wrote:Steve,

Your contribution to reenactment is inestimable! We all owe you a great debt of gratitude. I do not mean to offend you when I attack the current state of imported mail.

The problem is that the Indians have cut costs and cheated quality until the product is only a thin shadow of the stuff you had them making years ago. I remember how excited I was when I first saw the mail you were importing. I thought (in my optimistic innocence) that soon we would be seeing even greater things. It never occurred to me that product would degrade like it has.

Mac

I agree completely. Steve you changed the whole game.

Before your work, there just wasn't a choice for us to be picking on at all.

Thank you.

Ring shape - for me I am always annoyed at the lack of "pent roof". I bet that is a royal pain, but it changes the whole look of the piece. I expect that it changes the strength of the rivet area and (with a nicely done wedge rivet that forms a cute point sticking out) changes the way the mail lies.

As to tailoring - I have tailored all of the mail I have made too. A shirt just works better that way. For me the most visually obvious thing is usually the sleeves, but each of us sees different details.

My kid's riveted shirts were both really assembled by me.
They were tailored.
The back is wider, the waist narrower and the skirt flairs.
The one with long sleeves has "bent" elbows and the forearm tapers. The upper arm may taper too, I think I had to to keep it from looking stupid.
The one with long sleeves also has a built-in coif with ventail.
The other one opens up the front so that you can put it on reasonably. Many (not all) do.
The neck line actually follows the neck, not some easy to do shape.

Again, not for the faint of heart and I don't know where you would buy such a thing "off the rack".

Wade

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

Ring shape - for me I am always annoyed at the lack of "pent roof". I bet that is a royal pain, but it changes the whole look of the piece. I expect that it changes the strength of the rivet area and (with a nicely done wedge rivet that forms a cute point sticking out) changes the way the mail lies.

I agree, I was annoyed that I could never come up with a good way to make it (or explain it) but also I've seen lots and lots of historical examples where the rivet head treatment does not have the "pent roof" shape. One example had a little crown embossed over the rivet head.

Steve

OK, if someone wants to build riveted mail at a reasonable price with a crown on each overlap, sure. I will live without "pent roof".



And anytime anyone wants to wander around on my mail page and look at the rings close up - most of the pieces have some pretty reasonable close up shots. I think you will see what we are talking about on the form of the rings.

http://www.allenantiques.com/Armour-Mai ... ction.html

So, back to the original topic.

How much have we taken a seemingly simple question and warped, twisted and ended up with nothing recognizable?

Wade

The virtue of the welded stuff is that it is virtually indestructible.

The downsides are the ahistorical look and the inability for most people to be able to tailor it themselves.

Steve

Ugh... that pent roof still is eluding me... I wish someone could send me a cast or mold of the business end of their rivet clinching tongs...

Anyway, yeah, the biggest thing that has kept me from getting welded maille (other than the cost) is that it cannot be tailored.

Welded mail CAN be tailored, it just takes different tools.
I know that you can weld the rings in a mild shirt using a torch (I have done it).
I assume that you can weld the stainless rings Knuut uses with a spot welder. That is what he used to use years ago and I don't see any indication that the new stuff is differently made.

In many ways working a welded ring isn't all that different from rivetting. Instead of rivetting pliers you use the spot welder to squeeze the overlap together.

I have never asked him, but I expect that you could get spare rings by asking nicely and paying for them.

Wade

i thought knuut tailored it to the persons body in the first place? at least that is what i had always been told.

Welding won't make the ring any stronger if the links are properly riveted. In both cases the link rarely fails at the join when stressed; it fails elsewhere along the wire, in which case the type of join is irrelevant. The strength of the wire is all that matters.

Question:

What kind of maille would you use if you should protect the armpit of a fighter that is using rebated spears, arming sword and poleaxes?

The idea is that armpit are not a deliberate target, but I really fear thrusts that slip over the breastplate and are not catched by edge rolls of armpit, slipping under the pauldron.

Thanks

I have several butted ring coifs and a couple of welded ones.
However my favorite is a flat ring riveted coif from the classifides.
I don't know who made it but it is very nice.
http://home.armourarchive.org/members/h ... ukeHal.jpg

It has a fit, flow and feel like no other.

IMHO riveted is the way to go.

Hal

Probably you are right, would you use some commercial product, or custom made it with thicker wire?

Dan Howard wrote:Welding won't make the ring any stronger if the links are properly riveted. In both cases the link rarely fails at the join when stressed; it fails elsewhere along the wire, in which case the type of join is irrelevant. The strength of the wire is all that matters.

I expect that is true. And I bet that there are a few people making very small quantities of riveted mail - some custom people and Eric - where it is actually true.

Unfortunately, a lot of the riveted stuff from India just doesn't meet "properly riveted" or (at least the cheap stuff) "properly flattened" either.

I should probably take some of the scraps I have lying around from my Indian stuff and see how it fails. I expect in a lot of cases the rings will bend sideways and start eating each other up and not working like "mail" before they actually open up, but that isn't very nice either. They are just too thin.
Note: the stuff I have really is the bottom of the barrel in quality.

Signo wrote:Question:

What kind of maille would you use if you should protect the armpit of a fighter that is using rebated spears, arming sword and poleaxes?

The idea is that armpit are not a deliberate target, but I really fear thrusts that slip over the breastplate and are not catched by edge rolls of armpit, slipping under the pauldron.

Thanks

If I had to buy stuff off the rack-ish, I wanted to do a lot of steel combat, I didn't want that much maintenance, and the combat isn't part of a living history group with strict authenticity rules, I would probably go with welded stainless.

But I am lazy. And the Knuut stuff really isn't a fair comparison because it is not only welded, it is stainless. That changes two variables at once.

If I were aiming for "correct" I would either have to pay Eric or start building tooling to build my own riveted mail. I am sure I would end up doing it as half riveted and half solid just to save some time.

Wade

Halberds wrote:I have several butted ring coifs and a couple of welded ones.
However my favorite is a flat ring riveted coif from the classifides.
I don't know who made it but it is very nice.
http://home.armourarchive.org/members/h ... ukeHal.jpg

It has a fit, flow and feel like no other.

IMHO riveted is the way to go.

Hal

That one appears to be a decent one. It is probably much better than a lot of the junky stuff out there. Maybe it was an early one from the time Steve was controlling things.

Oh, I should probably set expectations.

I own one decent 16th c. (real) shirt, 2 fun 16th c. sleeves, a simple 16th c. mail collar and several other real pieces of mail varying from a 17 link piece to other shirts. All of them tend to sway what I want to see in riveted mail and what I would like the modern stuff to approximate.

None of my pieces are as nice as the "good" ones in museums, so I would hope that at some point we could get some modern ones to meet their quality.

Wade

eidelon wrote:i thought knuut tailored it to the persons body in the first place? at least that is what i had always been told.

Yes, Knuut asks for measurements and tailors the garment (this is the welded mail). I suspect he has a few standard sizes of each part and sticks together a piece upon order, but the result is pretty good, especially compared to the untailored Indian stuff. I went with Knuut when I purchased my mail because of this very reason. Additionally, welded mail can be tailored by the purchaser, you just have to use riveted rings. I had to do this to correct a mistake on my mail - worked fine.

For SCA combat I went with a welded hauberk from Knuut. For a reasonable increase in cost I got a shirt tailored to me that will last and last with zero maintenance.

My hauberk passed inspection in England to fight at Hastings. I would much rather see a tailored shiny shirt that a shirt that doesn't fit properly and is missing rings.

Uric

You know, once upon a time I had dabbled with designing a machine that would make the rings in their entirety.

This discussion of the lowered quality of the stuff being made overseas is making me consider it again.

Steve

Steve,

I would be pleased to collaborate on that with you if you would like.

Mac

Mac wrote:Steve,

I would be pleased to collaborate on that with you if you would like.

Mac

I would be happy to offer what I can as well. Most of it would be opinion and as much access to my pieces of mail as would help.

Wade