Chainmaille Sheets? Interested?

Prince Of Darkmoor · Post by **Prince Of Darkmoor** » Thu Feb 22, 2001 4:16 pm

I've toyed with the idea before but never thought it through - would there be any interest in buying square feet of chainmaille? I mean, it would make putting together a hauberk easy and rewarding for the people like me who like to get results quickly.

I'm thinking about selling a 12x12 inch square of maille in different size links in a 4-1 pattern. Maybe even a 6-1 pattern too. Also, give the person a handful of rings to sew up the pieces with if they want.

These wouldn't be hard to make, and I do think that they'd sell pretty easily. What kind of prices would people pay for a 12x12 sheet of:

5/16" 14ga galvanized
3/8" 14ga galvanized
7/16" 14ga galvanized
1/2" 14ga galvanized

5/16" 14ga aluminum
3/8" 14ga aluminum
7/16" 14ga aluminum
1/2" 14ga aluminum

Well?

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Fri Feb 23, 2001 8:45 am

PoD, I would'nt see anything wrong with charging $20 a square foot for 5/16" and a little smaller. The bigger stuff you mention might go for less. Good idea for people
that want to hurry up a piece their working on though.

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Flatfork Armouries
cavalier_h@angelfire.com

Vladimir · Post by **Vladimir** » Fri Feb 23, 2001 8:53 am

I think chainmail sheets would be awfully uncomfortable to sleep in. It's a neat idea, but it is just not for me.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Fri Feb 23, 2001 9:13 am

Thank you for brightening our day Vladimir.

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Flatfork Armouries
cavalier_h@angelfire.com

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Fri Feb 23, 2001 10:23 am

A variety of sizes would be usefull. A 1' square patch of maille makes tailoring difficult.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory

Garridan · Post by **Garridan** » Fri Feb 23, 2001 11:10 am

Vlad, I had the same thought... friend of mine is always planning to make maille curtains, but never has...
Matt -- I'd buy them because with 1' patches, you can bang 90% of a hauberk together in about an hour... so what if it makes tailoring difficult? Measure yourself, and if its too big, take out the overlapping rows; if its too small, add a few rows. Different sizes would add processing time, and therefore price.
at $15/patch, a vest (my size) would cost $90 or so, and would remove all of the hassle from PoD's point of view. He doesn't have to deal with expansions, decoration, angles, or ANYTHING. Just has to weave a square. That keeps the price down.
This is actually what I was planning to do with my maille-weaving machine... except it'd weld the links, too. If I ever made it, tho, I'd be selling 4' wide patches, however long you wanted.
--tom

Prince Of Darkmoor · Post by **Prince Of Darkmoor** » Fri Feb 23, 2001 11:50 am

Cool. I was thinking $20 for the 5/16" too. I can scale my prices down accordingly off of that. Probably sell the 1/2" stuff for $15 and then have the 3/8" and 7/16" fall somewhere in between there. Maybe even offer a 2 foot square patch or something. The best part of it is that I can let my colleagues weave the sheets while I work on things like expanding rows and such.

I also like Mad Matt's idea about a variety of sizes. Simple geometric ones like triangles and rectangles would come in handy.

On a side note, I think my dad has stumbled onto something quite interesting. Last night he was messing around with the winding jig and he put on a 1/2" hex shaft (6 sided rod) and wrapped a coil on it. It looked pretty cool! It couldn't be saw cut because then it wouldn't look like a hexagon, but these might make some nice novelty maille items. Who knows what you could do with them...