The Armour Archive

I have a Windrose MTO Norman helm that was made to have a chain aventail attached. I ordered it that way, but have yet to have the funds to attache a aventail to it.

Problem #1: I don't have the money for a chain aventail.

Problem #2: The helm is designed to have a chain aventail to fit/move/absorb blows right.

This is my mistake and I've know about it for some time. What should I do to correct it? I have time but little cash and no skill at maille making.

Could I, for the meanwhile:

#1) Attach a padded aventail to it it?
#2) Attache a scale aventail to it?
#3) Do something else?

I want to be as close to what a 840ad Khazar Empire Volga Route trader would do as possible.

Thoughts?

-Ivan

Do a leather one. Looks good on those helmets.

you could do like i did and just get a butted maille coif off of eBay for like $25. undo the top of the coif and attach. fairly inexpensive and will work pretty good until you can afford something better. plus after removing the top of the coif you will have extra rings to fix minor repairs. that's probably what i would do, but that's just my 2 cents.

IvanIS wrote:I have a Windrose MTO Norman helm . . . I have time but little cash and no skill at maille making. . .

-Ivan

IvanIS, I do not wish to be unduly harsh -- but just what the bleedin' hell do you think you're doing not developing such skill? The short answer is "Get that skill, and do not delay." You'll have use for it from time to time.

Yeah, butted mail is slow. So is hand planishing. And either process uses a minimum of tools: you could drop the whole kit for either into the bottom of a small-size school backpack (not the kind that makes little kids look like Special Forces route marchers).

Get skillz (altogether mad skillz too) from MAIL and The Ring Lord's Chain Mail Forum -- tons of tutorials, examples, even inquiries about armor stuff.

Mail goes slowly enough that you can arrange a nice mail drape/aventail for your hat and have it come out nice first time. Go for it and no kvetching! Put movies on the idjit box and use the vedge-time to knit your mail piece together. Do it once, and you're about an expert. Tools are cheap, galvy wire cheaper, and butted steel mail really doesn't mandate anything fancier.

I would go for a padded avintail/gorget combo untill you buy or build one.

A number of places sell them and a few of use on the archive would be happy to teach you or sell you one.

Icefalcon, atlanta armoury, and knutt are known for quality welded/riveted mail.

Forgot to add: I tore the gripping tendons in both arms about 11 years ago, and grip strength intensive things are a bit tough sometimes (I started 10 yrs ago being able to hold a sword for 5 min at a time). Thus why I've yet to try to make my own aventail from wire.

-Ivan

That does put a different complexion on things -- and suggests making it of 16ga galvanized steel wire as being less of a load on the ligaments than the SCA-usual 14 gauge. 16gaSWG@1/4" links for good strength and reasonable time in building will produce a very fine and smooth piece of mail.

Varukh's suggestion looks better and better, doesn't it? Very similar money to obtain two good-quality (not bargain bin) pairs of pliers, a steel rod to coil the wire around, and six to eight pounds of wire. Repurposing a butted coif only needs the pliers, and you should use good-sized ones for the leverage, such as 9" slipjoints from Crescent, or similarly sized linesmen's pliers. Needlenoses are not good for this work; the grip is not right and can only be improved by contortions or using the elbow in bentnose needlenoses. The wider noses of slipjoint pliers give the better leverage for the 1/8 twist that opens or closes a link.

Getting altogether away from any idea of temporary mods, 18 gauge, riveted, using strong leverage for the riveting pliers and the piercing, also suggests itself as a boy-that-one's-some-kinda-craftsmanship alternative. If need be, such riveted links could be as large as 5/16" ID, as mechanically fastened links don't have to be as carefully proportioned -- what maillers call Aspect Ratio or AR -- as butted ones would.

For either statistic of links, your hand cutting tool would probably be the 350mm size of boltcutter, which involves no use at all of hand squeezing, but instead cycles with your entire arm musculature. The jaws of such a boltie won't fit within links of that ID, but they don't have to. Just angle the coil of incipient links until the jaw tips bear on the wire, and pump the handle once. Clips the link right off the coil, near silently too. Again, this is something doable during TV time: round up a container to catch the little steel cheerios, seat yourself on the couch, park one handle of the bolties in the crease of your thigh and hold the other with one hand. With the bolties' jaws in your lap, feed the coil into the jaws with the other hand, and work the handle up and down. Brush accumulated links into container every so often.

Either type of link, the force levels involved are modest, and the resulting tendon exercise, pursued moderately, would seem more therapeutic than traumatic. Or do I misunderstand some other detail yet? People without wrecked tendons usually run into a limit with some soft-tissue bruising and soreness across the palms and have to quit mailling for that day and perhaps the next. They're often good for forty-five minutes to an hour of weaving to start per session; I myself never went beyond three hours of actual working once my hands toughened up, though I might spend time fondling my mail during or after! The more immediately one quits after noting pain starting, the quicker the recovery. You may never run into this one if your tendons in their present shape demand it.

I've never tried them before and I don't know how well they would work with thicker wire, but I've heard of rings that simply slip onto your finger, they essentially have a slot cut into them that the ring slips into and you use that in place of pliers. But as I said, I'm not too sure on how well they would work. Maybe Konstantin could enlighten us. A quick search on mailleartisans.org didn't exactly yield what I wanted.

For about $50 bucks or so you should be able to pick up a whole side of 3-4 oz oil tanned leather from Tandy. I used a suede eventail on my first Norman helmet many years ago and it both looked good and functioned well.

Your other option is to shop the clearance bins at your local upolstery fabric shop until you find something fairly heavy weght that looks good. Go for that Italo-Norman look.

Findlæch wrote:I've never tried them before and I don't know how well they would work with thicker wire, but I've heard of rings that simply slip onto your finger, they essentially have a slot cut into them that the ring slips into and you use that in place of pliers. But as I said, I'm not too sure on how well they would work. Maybe Konstantin could enlighten us. A quick search on mailleartisans.org didn't exactly yield what I wanted.

I think they call those ringlike tools "jump ring closers." They work on skinny wire of soft materials and have two or three slots of different widths. Quite the thing on beaders' jump rings, but lack the leverage for heavier sorts of armor wire.

What does is the same idea with more leverage: a small bar of metal with a sawcut slot in it, usually across a corner and cutting in a little ways, to admit the wire of the link. You can improvise this tool out of a small crescent wrench, opening its jaws enough to make a narrow slot and taping the knurled adjusting worm-gear in place so it doesn't drift open. The bar of metal is smoother.

IvanIS wrote:I want to be as close to what a 840ad Khazar Empire Volga Route trader would do as possible.
Thoughts?
-Ivan

The shape of that helmet would have been better for 13 century Kipchak and the decoration belongs to a particular Polish Saint - but nothing to be done for that now.
Maybe later consider changing out the decoration. We can talk then.
Option 1 learn to make mail - no big deal just a bit of time.
Lots of palm muscles though - I guess your injury would prevent it.

Option 2 - probably not right for a trader but
A Khazar heavy cavalry man could/would have a lamellar aventail. Bring it all the way around to cover your chin as well. No gorget necessary!
Course, I wouldn't go with the same pattern plates you have now, but that's details.

Option 3 - A cloth/leather "hood" would be good as well. Do a search on the History Forum for a thread I started about hoods, it should include keywords like khazar byzantine turk.
I think a cloth and leather Aventail on the same pattern as a full Turkic hood should be reasonable.