Dusting off the cobwebs

[Mac]

I had similar problems tailoring my aventail. I came up from the shop after several hours of wrestling tiny wedges in to improperly punched links and not getting as far as I'd like to , I told my kids they would all stare to death if I was a mail wallah.

Did you mention to your kids that if you were a mail wallah, that they too would be mail wallahs?

Handling those little rivets is one of the most frustrating parts of mail making. There must be a trick or two that we are missing.

Mac

[Ckanite]

I had similar problems tailoring my aventail. I came up from the shop after several hours of wrestling tiny wedges in to improperly punched links and not getting as far as I'd like to , I told my kids they would all stare to death if I was a mail wallah.

Did you mention to your kids that if you were a mail wallah, that they too would be mail wallahs?

Handling those little rivets is one of the most frustrating parts of mail making. There must be a trick or two that we are missing.

Mac

Scotch

[Signo]

Maybe they cutted the rivet to lenght after sticking it in the ring, so that they could handle a rod of a decent length.

[Mac]

I decided yesterday to go ahead and sew the sleeves onto the MKll vest. This new one is made on a cloth called "ticken" from Wm. Booth Draper http://www.wmboothdraper.com/Hemps/hemps_index.htm It all hemp, and quite strong. It's difficult to rip across the weft, and very difficult to rip across the warp. I can not rip the warp without first notching it and then wrapping around my hands. That's a very admirable characteristic for fabric to be used in a martial garment.

The redundant mail over the shoulders and upper arms has been cut away and replaced with fabric. The savings in weight is noticeable, and it's easier to but on this way as well. You don't have to worry about the mail catching your fingernails until your arms are well in and some of the weight is already on your shoulders.



I'm not done fixing the mail yet. There's still a few hours of remedial rivet squeezing to go, but I have bruised my right hand in a couple of places with the setting tongs and need to give it a week or so to heal. The plan is to have "G" try it on tomorrow, and if everything is OK, I will box it up and send it to my Patron so he can try it on. With luck, it will fit fine, and I can finish the mail work when it comes back.

Mac

[Mac]

... There must be a trick or two that we are missing.

Mac

Scotch

I'm pretty sure the trick is neither Coffee nor Cheap Port. I am hoping it is not Scotch.

Mac

[Mac]

Maybe they cutted the rivet to lenght after sticking it in the ring, so that they could handle a rod of a decent length.

I was experimenting a bit with that a month or so ago for wedge rivets. http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic ... &start=220 I think there is a lot of potential in the idea. The biggest problem I was having was nipping the rivet stock such that I could use the stock as a handle and yet still break the rivet off once it was in place. Perhaps it would work better if the nipping were done with a flush cutter after the rivet was in place. I'll try that the next time I get the urge to reinvent riveted mail.

Mac

[Tom B.]

Looking good.

Do you think you will stick with the ticken?
Did you use a single or double layer of the ticken?
Also what did you do this time to make sure you stiched the mail on with consistant spacing?

[Ernst]

"Ticken" survives in modern American English as "ticking", I believe. It's usually associated with the blue-striped fabric used to cover institutional mattresses, and was used for pants in the American Civil War by the Louisiana Tiger Zouaves.

[Tom B.]

Another question or two;
Will the arm harness be pointed to the shrug or will the points only pass through from the arming doublet underneath?

Have you weighed it to see how much the actual reduction was?

[Mac]

Looking good.

Thanks!

Do you think you will stick with the ticken?

I may investigate their plain weave hemps. They have something at 12 1/2 oz and another at 16. The 16oz stuff may well be to heavy to work with conveniently.

The ticken will certainly do the job, and I may just get some more for the final version.

Did you use a single or double layer of the ticken?

The back is a double layer, and I stuck another thickness in where I will put points for the pauldrons.

Also what did you do this time to make sure you stiched the mail on with consistant spacing?

I laid out the spacings and marked them on the vest. The rows are 10mm and the columns are 6mm (erring on the plus side).

Mac

[Mac]

Another question or two;
Will the arm harness be pointed to the shrug or will the points only pass through from the arming doublet underneath?

Have you weighed it to see how much the actual reduction was?

I am going to provide for pointing the pauldrons to the vest. We may also have points on the doublet as well. Better to have 'em and not need 'em than to need 'em and not have 'em.

The weight reduction was not a great as I had hoped. I will report the numbers later today.

Mac

[Mac]

"Ticken" survives in modern American English as "ticking", I believe. It's usually associated with the blue-striped fabric used to cover institutional mattresses, and was used for pants in the American Civil War by the Louisiana Tiger Zouaves.

This stuff is perhaps not quite so tightly woven as pillow ticking, I think. In any case, it's good that it doesn't have those stripes.

Mac

[Mac]

Today's fitting with "G" went well. There are a couple of things I think I need to change, but it's in the realm of fine tuning. It looks like the sleeves could be rotated down in front and up in back about two fingers width. This would involve making the next generation of vest a bit longer in front and shorter in back. The neck opening could also be a bit lower in the front center.



The test with the pauldrons and arms went smoothly enough. The only hitch was the tendency for the mail to catch on the insides of the upper cannons while putting them on. This is annoying, but not real trouble.



Coverage is good in the extremes of motion. (that white strip that we see is the pauldron leather, and not the fabric on the arm)



Likewise, everything seems good at the elbow.....



....and there are no problems in the back.




In all, I think it's time to send the mail off to have my August Patron try it on. If it fits him the same way it fits "G" then I will make those changes in the final vest. If it fits him differently, I hope to tell from the pics what changes I really do need to make.

Mac

[Mac]

Have you weighed it to see how much the actual reduction was?

When I put all the offcuts on the scale, it comes to about 3 1/4 lb (1.5kg) total.

I may yet take a bit more off the top of the arm, but that won't really amount to much more weight savings.

Mac

[Mac]

I have just put the mail sleeves in a box and sent them off for a fitting. If all goes well, my Patron should have them in "six to ten business days".

Mac

[Ckanite]

Good luck! I hope everything fits very well!!

[AWC]

Maybe you can take all the chain off where the rerebrace lames are covering.

[Mac]

AWC,

The trick is striking a balance of security, convenience, and authenticity.

In order to be secure, the mail needs to underlap the plate by a couple of finger widths, more or less, depending on how much motion is expected. By the time you figure a safe underlap from the elbow, and the armpit, there is not really much that can be removed in between.

I am pretty sure I can justify removing the mail on the top of the arm. I believe that is what we are seeing in the Hastings Manuscript illustration.



What you suggest is essentially two separate gussets; one for the armpit, and another for the elbow. If we were dealing with an articulated elbow, and the amount of mail needed for the elbow was therefore rather small, I think that would be a good choice. Here, though, we have to make sure we cover all of the potentially open places around a "floating" elbow, front and back. That requires quite a bit of mail. By the time we are talking about such a large and sleeve-like elbow gusset, it just seems (to me anyway) more reasonable to connect it to the armpit gusset.

That said... This whole area of gussets and authenticity is largely terra incognita. There's very little information to go by, and we really don't know what they actually did. I am making what I think and hope are reasonable decisions, but we may never know for sure what was usual and typical historically.

Mac

[Kristoffer]

Something I just thought of is why all the evidence I have seen of maille pieces like these seem to be square cut at the edges. For example around the armpit, would it not make sense to follow the edge of the breastplate with a reasonable over(under?)lap?

[Arrakis]

Could have been that it was easier to tailor from pre-made squares of maille put together by apprentices than to trim or fill out edges to shave a few ounces.

[Mac]

I would like to take a moment to introduce the newest member of our team.

The shoes to be worn with the St Florian armor are going to be made by Francis Classe. Let me invite you all to check out his website http://aands.org/raisedheels/index.php Francis is an knowledgeable guy and a fine craftsman. His primary interest is shoes of the 16th C, but he is no stranger to turnshoes, and I am sure he will do a fine job.

The plan is to trade shoes for armor. Francis is going to make two pairs of shoes for my August Patron, and in return I will build him a pair of 16th C mitten gauntlets. I plan to document the design and construction of those gauntlets here on this thread, or on spin off thread to be announced. We are agreed that the gauntlets will not begin till the Gothic armor is "in the bag". It is very kind of Francis to accept this deferred payment schedule.

I hope to post more about the shoes as Francis starts in on them.

Mac

[Alex Baird]

Mac:

May I say that not only do I admire your tagline and the philosophy it encompasses, but also this thread which is a concrete example of living it. It is a real pleasure not only seeing a craftsman's work, but the thought process behind it. You pass on a legacy beyond the steel you form.

[Ckanite]

I have to second what Mr. Baird says. I think the lasting thing in this thread is seeing your thought process as well as speaking to you about the pros and cons of each decision behind the making of this wonderful suit. It has personally made me reconsider a lot of both what I am doing and what I have done in the past and there's a LOT of laughing at my early assumptions as to what I thought I knew way back when...

[drx6x]

After reading the entire im in awe. As an new armor still working on getting my 1st complete set done; the knowledge here has been extremely beneficial. I cant wait for more.

[Ernst]

Could have been that it was easier to tailor from pre-made squares of maille put together by apprentices than to trim or fill out edges to shave a few ounces.

There is some evidence of garments being assembled from patches. Wade's M-2 shirt, and the Wallace Collection A-8 coifette are made in such a manner. I suspect that some journeyman might have turned out mail on a bolt which could have been cut and tailored by a master. Apprentices were probably left with the winding, cutting, flattening, and cleaning.

[Ernst]

Maybe they cutted the rivet to lenght after sticking it in the ring, so that they could handle a rod of a decent length.

I was experimenting a bit with that a month or so ago for wedge rivets. http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic ... &start=220 I think there is a lot of potential in the idea. The biggest problem I was having was nipping the rivet stock such that I could use the stock as a handle and yet still break the rivet off once it was in place. Perhaps it would work better if the nipping were done with a flush cutter after the rivet was in place. I'll try that the next time I get the urge to reinvent riveted mail.

Mac

Perhaps re-grinding an edge on half of your end-nipper setting tongs would do the trick -- a "multi-tool" like modern fencing pliers. A bit of fingernail also helps in dealing with small components.

[Magmaforge]

Ahem. I've been inactive for quite some time. However, I must say that it is a great pleasure to see your work shared generously with the community, Mac.

[Mac]

Thank you, Mag!

Mac

[Mac]

Things are a bit quiet here at the moment. The mail sleeves are now in my Patron's hands, and he will try them on and send me some pics next weekend.

I've been using this time to visit my folks (last week) and work on drawings for Dr Toby's upcoming book.

Mac

[wcallen]

Working on the drawings for Toby is also of great use to us. We want to be able to buy his book.

Wade

[Keegan Ingrassia]

I'll second that!

[Ranif]

Handling those little rivets is one of the most frustrating parts of mail making. There must be a trick or two that we are missing.
Mac

Just noticed this post.
I use el cheapo artery forceps to clamp the ring edges flat, wiggle an awl in the hole to ensure holes are lined up, then feed the rivet held in another pair of artery forceps, a pair of multigrips squashes the rivet.
Ranif

[Mac]

Ranif,

That's a very sure way to do it. It's suitable for us modern guys tailoring a piece of mail, but if you had to it for every link in a shirt, I think you would want something that required less handling. A savings of only one second per ring will save more than a day's work over a whole hauberk.

Mac

[scott2978]

I'll try that the next time I get the urge to reinvent riveted mail.

Got a chuckle from this.

[Mac]

I'll try that the next time I get the urge to reinvent riveted mail.

Got a chuckle from this.

I hope that did not come across as snarky. If any derision was intended, I meant it to be directed at myself.

Mac