Tailoring a mail sleeve

[woodwose]

Hmm, not a detail you pick up from looking at pics of the mail sleeves hung up in Churburg -- they show the sock-heel shape at the bend of the arm just fine, but left or right sleeve? Not so much. I'd been under the impression sleeves of mail were one pattern, no handedness at all in munition grade anyway, so this is news.

Mail sleeves hung up on an armory wall certainly give the impression of symmetry. However, in light of my recent foray into the subject, I must conclude that this apparent symmetry is illusory. In fact the point of the elbow is somewhere between ""down" and "back", and the arm reductions are carried out so as to be in back. In short, they are either rights or lefts, and if you put one on the wrong arm, it does not fit nearly as well as if you put it on the correct arm.

Mac

Can a right arm sleeve be turned inside out to make a left arm sleeve?

[Keegan Ingrassia]

I wouldn't think so, because of the rivet heads. Turned one way, it'd be smoother against your under-layer, whereas the other would want to grab and tear.

[Mac]

Can a right arm sleeve be turned inside out to make a left arm sleeve?

WW,

Like KI says, the rivet head will be on the wrong side, but otherwise it would work. It's like turning a glove inside out, it becomes the opposite laterality.

I did this a lot while working on this project; so I could try things on my left arm, which is somewhat "normaler" than my right.

Mac

[Ernst]

X-Post from Historic Research. A list of mail sleeves with data; when it's been taken and when it hasn't been.
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