The Armour Archive

Greetings,

Anybody have any ideas on makeing a chainmaille gauntlet. Completely chain that will fit fairly tight.

Patterns would be great. Any other info would be appreciated.



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Stay open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.

yea, i did that once, leme till you one thing, if they fit tight, they are useless, i made that mistake when i made my pair, shattered my knuckles anyways.
you'd need to make them loose and then pad ubnderneath them for any protection...
anyways, for my paterns i used*drumrol*
a pair of cheap woll mittends i grabed for 99 cents at a value vilage.

the other problem i had with them is that they dont stay on verry well unless you make them chainmail on both sides, then you have no grip.
but hey, the LOOK really spiffy. i wish i still had mine

I made a left handed one a few years ago for sword grabbing. A few things about what I did: Most noticable is that it only has 4 fingers. I connected the ring and pinky fingers like a mitten because it fit better and gave me a better grip. How often do you need your pinky by itself in a fight anyway? Maille doesn't want to bend in the 3rd dimension. This is the same reason that I also didn't make the fingers solid cylinders. I used artificial sinew and laced the sides of the fingers. For the knuckles, I added expansions, but since the maille is already laying such that it stretches towards the fingers, the expansions are in the opposite direction as usual. There are also a couple weird seams in the thumb area where it joins at 45 degrees. I put a buckle made of wire and a strap of maille at the wrist so that it stays on. If you understood any of this, that's a great start. It took me a very long time to make it work right. Some of the things I added because of the otherwise inflexibility of 17ga 3/16 ID links. After all this, most other people can't wear it, but it fits me like a glove. If it's for yourself, just build it to fit your hand exactly.

I also have some mittens which are almost done, minus the attaching to the leather mittens. These are maille only on the back and some soft pig suede mittens that I made. Actually, they look a lot like ovan mitts. The leather is on the back too, under the maille, so I shouldn't really feel the rings when I hit something (a definate bonus over the first glove). These also have a maille strap and will have buckles to close at the wrist. These 2 are the same wire and ID as the glove, but they were about 100X easier to make.

Sorry I don't have a site to post pictures on yet. Maille is forgiving so just take it apart and change things until it's just right. Good luck!

When making the strips for the fingers, measure the strip against your finger when FULLY bent. That allows you to have enough slack to close your hand when the glove is on. Attach the chainmail to the glove by sewing it along the edges, or you could make little straps going perpendicular to the finger, like a couple per finger and then just put the glove on and then the chainmail over top. I think 18 ga, 3/16" ID works pretty good. You can make a square for the back of the hand and then a small triangle to cover the meaty part between index finger and thumb. Connect the finger strips to the square and the thumb strip to the one side of the triangle. A leather strap around the wrist would help keep them on if you're swinging a lot. Does this help at all? Don't have pics. Sorry

Greetings,

Maybe I should explain. I don't want these gloves for combat. They are going to be used for the left hand while cutting with a sharp knife in the right. The maille needs to be all around not just ont he top or anthing. Does anyone have a sort of pattern I could follow.

Is it as simple as making a miniture coif for each of your fingers and a square(roughly) for you palm and back of hand?

Owen

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Stay open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.

That would be a butchers glove. There are several saftey supply sites that carry that type of item pretty cheaply.


Janos

I don't think you're going to get any flexibility if you make the fingers like a full tube in a coif method. You might if you use a very "open" weave. One thing is that you need the top to be compressed when your hand is flat so that it can extend when you make a fist (like Sir Dan stated). The palm however, needs to be the opposite so that it compresses when you make a fist. This is going to make the sides really weird if you try to connect them with maille, because they wont line up. That's why I laced the sides (and for flexibility)

I higly recommend the "mitten" style of chain gauntlet... first of all you have a lot less fitting work. Second, your range of movement is greater.

I just make a tube that your hand can fit in, not so snug you can't get your hand back out (think chinese finger cuffs). Then close the end when its lying flat...Back a step, as you are closing the tube, start at the end near your fingers, and when you get to that pesky thumb, leave a good portion of the seam open, so as to be able to add thumb covering (which takes a little bit of trial and error for a good seam and fit).

Now, when I make mine, I use several different sized rings to get it to fit like a glove (oh, this is where that reference came from!).

-Severian

Actually, if you're having problems knowing where to start, I can e-mail you some pictures. If a lot of people want to see them, I'll try to get someone to host them on a site.

[img]http://members.home.net/sword4hire/MailleGlove1.jpg[/img] [img]http://members.home.net/sword4hire/MailleGlove2.jpg[/img]

That's 18 Gu, 1/4"ID rings of galvanised...

That's the left hand one that I have made... I'm working on the right hand one currently... I used no pattern... made the 4 fingers... slowly started expanding them down and out a bit... when the came together comfortably, I connected them... then I made the thumb and fiddled it together as the rows of thumb and hand rows came together.. it's kidan a mess in places... but it feels pretty cool to wear... and if I do decide later to get gloves to wear under, it'll be really simople to expand the fingers, and the hand to make room...



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You don't go through the hardships of an ocean voyage to make friends...
You can make friends at home!
-Sword For Hire-

SwordForHire, that looks pretty good. How flexible is it compared to your hand normally? That's the other orientation from what Sir Dan and I mentioned. How easy is it to take/ fall off? I used a buckle so that I could shake my hand around and not lose it.

Here's mine...

Finger Gauntlet

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"Don't let the doorknob hit you where the dog should have bit you" - Powerpuff Girls
- Cire de'Elron
http://members.nbci.com/CireDeElron

[This message has been edited by Cire de'Elron (edited 03-01-2001).]

I'm finishing mine today. It's a mitten with a leather palm. I'll have pics up soon.


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Saverio
http://members.tripod.com/~SantoBuobo/

http://home.earthlink.net/~grhurley/saint_olaf/index.html

I just put up the pics of my new maille gauntlet. http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003636.html
It would be simple to make an all-maille version of it.

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Saverio
http://members.tripod.com/~SantoBuobo/

http://home.earthlink.net/~grhurley/saint_olaf/index.html

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Llywelyn:
<B>Greetings,

Maybe I should explain. I don't want these gloves for combat. They are going to be used for the left hand while cutting with a sharp knife in the right. The maille needs to be all around not just ont he top or anthing. Does anyone have a sort of pattern I could follow.

Is it as simple as making a miniture coif for each of your fingers and a square(roughly) for you palm and back of hand?

Owen

</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No pattern from me either!
My wife wants one, but my advice is to make the links *small*, the butcher gloves I've seen for sale (very expensive in Australia) all have tiny links.

Jacob

Flexability is good enough... I can't quite close my hand into a fist, but I can pick up a pint glass... I'm just making them for costume wear anyway...



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You don't go through the hardships of an ocean voyage to make friends...
You can make friends at home!
-Sword For Hire-

Pictures would be great! My email is on my profile.


Llywelyn

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Stay open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.

I always run the weave horizontally - like how it would be if the glove was the continuation of a maile sleeve.

Most butcher's gloves I've seen are like this too, it's a bit more flexible than running the weave the other way.