The Armour Archive

Sorry for the bad scan. I had to lighten it to even show the rivet heads.

I'm slow right now, but I'm extremely new to this, and doing it all by hand without mounted punches or riveting tongs. I'm using a slit carved into the face of my anvil (i.e., the 65 pound chunk of train track) which works fairly well for punching.

First, I know I have some of the links backwards. I was trying like hell to keep everything lined up as I added the connecting link, but things went weird. In the future I'll be adding to this one link at a time, now that I know how to stick a rivet through an opened link the smart way (if I close them right before inserting the rivet, the punched area sorts of "clicks" together)

Two, I'm having the most trouble with rivet setting. I think there's a very slight angle to my punch blade (drift blade, whatever), because the blade exits the indentation off-center. I know I'll have to play with the punch shape a little to get better results. What I have now is a blade slightly thicker than those found in a utility knife, which cuts down on the mangled rings.

For a drift, I'm using rectangular masonry nails, ground down, sharpened on a tool sharpening block with the point tempered to brownish with a cigarette lighter flame. I could just chuck it in the oven at 350, but I don't want to temper the whole thing... just the point.

I'm not having many serious problems with flattening, I'm cutting my rings with a built-in overlap and annealing them while they're held in the air by wire and something other than my hands. I've tried annealing them while they rested on a 1/4" steel plate, but I'm guessing that acts as a heat sink.

Most of the mangling effect to the overlap was created during punching.

More practice will make this a lot prettier and a lot faster.

Keep it up. I'm sure you'll get faster with practice, and there should be more people doing this (including me).

Ay, don't worry, I too am very slow in mail weaving.
But what gauge or diameter (because wire doesn't have gauges) is the wire? and what's the inner diameter of the rings?
-Justin

Hey Spike, how about using alternating rows of washers and riveted rings to increase your weaving speed?

Get or make some tongs. 99% of the alternating riveted row standard I did was just hand pressed with tongs. I got a 90 link row done in about an hour once I got a rhythm going.

Second on the tongs.

Steve Forth makes them, and they're like $30. Well worth the money.

He also provides mail making supplies. (when they're in stock) Awesome stuff!

The rings are 16 ga. rebar tie wire, 3/8" diameter. I want to eventually go smaller, but again, I'm new to this.

Spike,
I'm also having the same trouble with keeping the dang rivets facing the right way. I look at it, decide which way it needs to go to be facing correctly, put on the ring, rivet it closed, and VOILA! WRONG WAY! Then, of course, I curse and swear that the NEXT one will be right - and it usually is - but the one AFTER that - WRONG again. I guess it just takes practice.

I think your rings look really good! Keep up the good work!

Cat