The Armour Archive

I've been using the pattern at this site to tailor my haubergeon.

Butted Mail: A Mailmaker's Guide

Has anyone else used this pattern?

Is there a happy medium of tailoring I should be aiming for? An extra 2" width for any given area? Extra 4"?

Last night I was trying on my work... It was tough to get into, fit very well, gave full movement and required pliers to get out of

Bartok

Very happy he hadn't used rivetted links...

Bartok:

I am using that pattern as the basis for my riveted shirt. Basically, I expanded from the collarbone back over the shoulders and down the shoulderblades, to give more maille behind me (across the shoulderblades) than there is in front of me. This allows you to bring your arms together in front without the maille restricting you.

What is your ring size?

The maille should not be stretched tight when you are wearing it. It should hang loosely (though not too loosely).

I think the circumerfance of my hauberk is around 60+ inches.

Steve

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Forth Armoury
The Riveted Maille Website!

The shoulder area expansion has worked out very well. I might have made the chest a bit small, but I can still reach back without restriction.

My links are 3/8" ID, 14 guage.

The really tough part seems to be the contractions at the waist and the contractions from the shoulder expansions. I can't seem to get my head and shoulders through the waist of the shirt very well.

Currently I'm trying to remove the waist contractions from the front. I'm also debating removing some of the shoulder contractions which extend to the top of my bum.

I'm a really short guy, 5'2", so I used fewer expansions for the shoulders 8 instead of 9. I also had to move the waist contractions inbetween the shoulder contractions.

I've probably made it too tight all over, tonight I'll slip it back on and check how expanded the links are.

Thanks Steve,

Bartok

Heh, my body doesn't have much of a tapering shape to it, so I didn't contract my shirt much. I did contract a bit under the shoulderblades to take up the excess maille there (my ass isn't that big).



Steve

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Forth Armoury
The Riveted Maille Website!

I used this pattern as a baseline for my 3/8id 14g byrnie, and I had mixed results. First let me say that I only used it as a base and winged it from there, so many of the problems are bound to be of my own making. Also this was not my first bit of mail, I`ve made several shirts and coifs prior to this, as well as other mail odds and ends.
I made a lot of extra material over and behind the shoulders. This allows for almost total unrestricted upper body and arm movement, and it works well. I made it with a very tight neck, which more than any tailoring makes it a little hard to get out of(it always catches on my nose!) I tapered in some at the waist, and out some at the hips. I made the begining of the sleeves wide, and narrowed them on the way down the arm (lower bicep length)
The shirt fits my body very well, and the weave taughtness is just where I wanted it. Not too tight, not too slack. when it is on me the tapering effect is noticable, most notably at the shoulder blades where there is a lot of slack when I stand relaxed. Several other people of varied body types have tried this shirt on and it doesn`t quite fit any of them right(although a couple claimed it did, I could tell from looking that it wasn`t 100%).
Now the problems: do to all the extra over the shoulder, combined with the width of the armholes, I have a roll of extra material that sits under the arms that I had not anticipated. The plus side of this is that it aids in the free range of motion, the down side is that I hate the way it looks!
The other problem( I have NO idea how I managed this!) is that one sleeve is about eight links wider in circumfrence than the other(if you count rings around the hem of the sleeve one will count at eight more than the other) both sleeves fit well, and nobody seems to notice it until I point it out to them. So far I deal with this by putting the wider sleeve on my swordarm, but I will at some point deal with it in a better way, as well as the armpit rolls.
This was the first major bit of tailoring I did on a shirt, and I was attemting to custum fit it to the wearer(me) as much as possible. To that end I did suceed overall. To make a shirt that allowed the same range of motion without tailoring would have dramatically added tto the weight of the garment making it almost prohibative. The types of problems I encountered on this shirt were first timers for me. Other shirts I made for other people went together without any problems at all and they and myself were very pleased with the finished product.
I don`t know if this helps any, but that is my experience thus far.
P.S. I don`t like the coif pattern the give. I spread out my expansions more, and make the coif more form fitting thus eliminating the need for a laced slit in the back. No complaints so far. In 16g 5/16id they stay in place on there own, in 14g 3/8id they stay pretty well, but a lace around the brow makes sure.
Good luck, hope this helps!
John

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"and the springfieldians heroicly slaughtered there enemys while they prayed for mercy!"

It looks like my links are pretty stretched. Not taut, but defintiely not loose either. I'll have to chop the shirt in two and make it broader. All that remains is to guess how much broader. Probably one unit front and back should loosen it a bit.

I took out the waist contractions. I'm not really that tapered either

Your hauberk looks cool Steve. Someday I'd love to try that...

Thank you for the heads up Muttman. I haven't done the armpits yet, so I'll see if I can keep any slackness to a minimum.

Thanks again guys,

Bartok