The Armour Archive

was copper ever used for chainmail or any other type of armour or weapon

I don't have a source but I believe some Celtic warriors used copper armour. Dwarlock made a bit of rivetted maille. If anyone has his web page address, please post it.

In period, maille was predominantly made of wrought iron. Non-ferrous rings were sometimes used on the hems of sleeves and the torso, and sometimes along the brow-band of coifs. Occassionally, non-ferrous rings were also used to make decorative designs in maille, though only small, talismanic designs, not the large crosses, dragons, etc. often seen woven in maille today (that we know of).

Steve

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Forth Armoury
The Riveted Maille Website!

Only correction to what Steve said --
Since Europe was NOT specified in the question --
Some non-ferrous ring interweaves were actually quite substantial in Indian and Persian shirts.
These may be woven as an alternating checkerboard look (whether with squares or triangles or other geometric shapes) -- which may well amount to half the shirt being non-ferrous,
or verses from poetry or religious writing were woven in -- the ferrous metal being the "ground" and the non-ferrous being the "text". Again, the "writing" may have quite substantial coverage.

...also, if I'm not misremembering, there is a large percentage of maile that was made of tougher steels rather than iron (again, this may all be to the East of Europe).

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Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
The Red Kaganate - http://www.geocities.com/kaganate
silkroad@spam.operamail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Raibeart:
I don't have a source but I believe some Celtic warriors used copper armour. Dwarlock made a bit of rivetted maille. If anyone has his web page address, please post it.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well found the source I was talking about. The armour I was thinking of was bronze mainly caps and shields not copper maille.

One interesting use of copper in maille manufacture comes from the Sutton Hue burial. The maille shirt was made of iron but with rivets of copper. I can't seem to find the direct reference I was looking for, so will post when I run across it.
-Cad

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-Chuck
aka Cadwallon y' Rhudd

That's wierd. Usually for later maille it's the other way around. Brass links-steel rivets etc.
It seems to me like they would not hold well. But, the Northmen did some wierd things.

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FIRESIDE ARMOURY
www.firesidearmoury.com

Norman:

I did not know that about the patterns in the garments. That is very cool.

"also, if I'm not misremembering, there is a large percentage of maile that was made of tougher steels rather than iron."

I'd like very much to see references for this, as the only references I have for metallurgical analysis are the 16 rings checked by Dr. C.S. Smith, who only found 3 of them to have enough carbon to be rated as steel.

Steve

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Forth Armoury
The Riveted Maille Website!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Chuck Davis:
<B>One interesting use of copper in maille manufacture comes from the Sutton Hue burial. The maille shirt was made of iron but with rivets of copper. I can't seem to find the direct reference I was looking for, so will post when I run across it.
-Cad

</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

--thanks for posting this Cad, i learned somthing today i wasnt aware of.

i was thinking you were crazy so i grabbed a few reference books on the dig and lo and behold you arent crazy

the first book i grabbed (Angela Care Evan's "The Sutton Hoo Burial Ship") confirmed it.

Seems a bit odd to use a softer metal as a fastener, you'd think it would be the weak spot in the link when stress was applied (ie a spear thrust or sword hack)

i could be wrong though

thanks again Cad!

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Hálvgrímr Aðálraðarson

[This message has been edited by Halvgrim (edited 03-28-2002).]

Chinese scale armour was sometimes made of copper as well.

Lu-shan

It seems copper rivets were widespread if not common. Steve has some Turkish mail with a few copper rivets, and I recall some Spanish mail from Mexico used copper rivets also.

I thought there was a chinese copper scale armor in the Silkroads armour site. Anyone seen it? I wonder how that construct would hold under SCA rattan combat?

Copper for armor use mostly was out by the Early Roman period in favor of harder bronze and brass. Somtimes is was used to the makers mark ring, norse ring rivits?, egyptian scale rivits, but mostly for decorative use. They new copper was a corrosion preventer in 'white' metals, but for some reason never applied the discovery to iron to make soft stainless. Most stainless nowadays uses chrominum or molybendium, but copper is occasionaly still used in the formulation. As a side note, a beautiful shirt of mail was made for Duke Rolf. Black iron with his arms done in braxed brass rings. It got a tad bit rusty so in when into Sir Alfric's mail cleaning drum...10 lb. of sand and ball bearings in a 30 gal. drum spun my a washing machine motor. All the rust went away, as did the black on the iron and the design became undistingusihable beyond 10'. Sigh.

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Sir Theodrik of Skane,
West, Mists, Blackwood Company
'Lude Fortier, Lude Juste, Nemini Damnum!'

A few years ago, while in Bosnia, I made a shirt of 10ga copper wire that was laying around there. It goes just below the waist(ran out of copper) and short sleeves, but still weighs over 40lbs.

Other than ceromonial, I don't see how it could have been used.

[This message has been edited by Hobbyist (edited 03-30-2002).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Halvgrim:
<B> --thanks for posting this Cad, i learned somthing today i wasnt aware of.

i was thinking you were crazy so i grabbed a few reference books on the dig and lo and behold you arent crazy

the first book i grabbed (Angela Care Evan's "The Sutton Hoo Burial Ship") confirmed it.
</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Your welcome. It may be that this was just a burial piece. Made espically for the burial. Just conjecture on my part.
-Cad

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-Chuck
aka Cadwallon y' Rhudd