The Armour Archive

hey, were the rings on authentic rivited maille cut with the overlap or were they overlapped after they were cut? i've seen evidence for both

If you've seen evidence for both, doesn't that answer your question?

-Gregory-

I believe that they were usually cut and then overlapped.

The reason I believe this is:

1) cutting rings with the overlap built in results in rings that have nearly perfectly round inner diameters. This is rarely seen in authentic maille.

2) cutting rings with the overlap built-in means you have to cut rings one-at-a-time. This is obviously much slower than cutting them by making an incision down the length of a spring, which 2, 3, 4 or more rings per cut.

Steve

Cutting first then overlapping also uses simpler tools. It's no thing for us at all to Dremel a notch into a pair of small bolt cutters, but the Middle Ages boasted neither Dremels nor bolt cutters. (Nor, until the later Middle Ages, bolts. They had to get really good at cutting repeatable screw threads first.) Shear or chisel cuts seem to have been the norm. End nippers were also likely a medieval technology, particularly the long-handled and powerful farriers' nippers version.

Each cutter type leaves a distinctive manner of cut. A pinch cutter of metal rods like a bolt cutter makes a symmetrical >< cut in soft wire, working by being two wedges hitting the metal and stretching it apart until it pops. The hardness of the metal affects when it pops and the shape it assumes when it does. Hard wire modifies the >< cut into kind of a // cut with notches kittycorner above and below. Maillers call this a Z cut, for convenience -- the ends of the Z mark where the notches of the initial stage of the cut are made and the diagonal of the Z is where the hard wire parted.

Nippers with the edges made like \| produce a wire cut like >|, predictably enough, and this shape remains on the link ends after they have been flattened, so even from finished mail the type of cutter may be discerned. Such edges are known as chisel edges.

Shearing tools, whose cutting edges pass each other, produce cuts like ||, sometimes with burrs from the shearing. The further working of the links often removes any burrs, pretty much. Vestiges may remain, and be spotted.

The shape of the cuts leaves a shape in the end of the overlap. The >< cut produces an overlap that is very suggestive of the head of a serpent, and this is present on both sides of the link. The || gives a shape like the end of a spatula, and everything else is more or less some variant or mixture of these two. Students of historical mail can use the link ends as a data point on the character and making of the mail they are examining. This is the kind of thing Erik D. Schmid teaches us. Opened my eyes, I can tell you.

Authentic mail's links are often slightly deformed towards a D shape rather than a perfect O shape, with the vertical bar of the D being where the overlap and riveting are. An overlap that could stand some improvement may be attacked and tweaked with flat-jawed pliers or needlenoses, whose tapering jaws are handy for this work -- aligning overlaps that are a little skewed, or lengthening or shortening overlaps as needed to arrive at an overlap of close to 3/16". This often flattens the overlap area to a less rounded shape, and thus the D distortion. This may shrink or enlarge a link enough to put it in a different link size, so I sort these out. The root cause of this is probably cutting links a little off what I should. It's not a problem; I just save the links for some other use. Too-small links are good for hiding expansions in the mail mesh. Enlarged links might find their way into a graduated-link-size project (rare, but not unheard of).

Isn't it true that a lot of maille was alternating solid (stamped, punched, or welded rings) and riveted rings? If so, where can I find a piece like that? I have noticed that Forth Armoury seems to have died. Everything is out of stock, and there doesn't seem to be any updates last I checked.

Erik D. Schmid makes the best half rivited half solid shirts in my (and many others) opinion. the only problem with them is that its kind of expensive. Deepeeka makes a half rivited and half solid roman style shirt, but its best to wait for the Get Dressed for Battle shirt to hit the market instead of buying the Deepeeka shirt.

Von Sussen (I think that's the name) makes decent riveted maille, but I do believe that it's all riveted not half and half.

hope this helps,

Aaron

Adam H. wrote:Isn't it true that a lot of maille was alternating solid (stamped, punched, or welded rings) and riveted rings?

The answer to that is "sometimes." The Romans were famous for doing it that way, and the economic/industrial implication here is that the Romans had a fair bit of available sheet metal to punch links out of. Iron sheet pretty well dried up after the fall of Rome, not to become as available again until the fourteenth century.

Viking/Dark Ages alternating solid/riveted is rather iffy. Links at first identified as solids have been shown to be of riveted construction at a later date. Heavy corrosion on small samples is often the culprit here.

It is possible to weld links medieval style, heating the links to weldable heat, whipping the link through a flux and then crunching the link ends together with a pair of pliers. It's a dance that takes skill and speed, as the tiny mass of the link loses its heat quickly. Notice no anvil is involved -- compared to the mass being welded, an anvil is a hugely massive heat sink.

Towards the fifteenth century, while alternating solid/riveted apparently never entirely went away, they began to lean towards the logistical and manufacturing simplicity of maintaining inventory of only one type of link, and that seems to have been the motivation for their apparently producing all-riveted mail all the time.

Actually, alternating row mail was the standard throughout most of the mail period. It wasn't until the 13th/14th century that we begine to see a swith to all-riveted mail in Europe. The Gjermundbu mail shirt, which is the only known mail of Viking origin, is made of alternating rows.

The whole/solid links used in the construction of these pieces have been shown to be of punched design. Many of these pieces still have links having a square section. Of course this is normally for links made outside of Germany. In Germany they tended to have a much more flat section. With regards to European mail, one of the only pieces that has been conclusively shown to have welded links is the mail drape found with the Coppergate helmet. Other than that one piece, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of punching.

Indian and Middle Eastern mail however seem to have had welded links of some sort. In any event, the solid links used in European mail were for the most part punched.

Now, the only question remains, is where can one get a reliable source of punched rings, and would modern washers be a suitable substitute?

You want metal that's thinner than most modern washers, David, but this can be had from manufacturers. A casual poke at the Seastrom site suggests custom washers can be got for use as rings.

I have two samples of GDFB Roman maile here at my desk. Its 6mm OD alternating solid, and riveted. One section is tinned, and the other is let bare. From what I have been told GDFB is copying this style from an existing piece of Roman maile.

The tinned sample is simply beautiful, but to me it looks no different than new galvinized maile.

From what I have been told GDFB is copying this style from an existing piece of Roman maile.

You have been told wrong. It is their own concept.

is it even close?

Not really, but they are trying.

Maybe they'd get it all the way right if they paid you a fat consultant's fee and followed your directions carefully. They'd be trying to realize a return on investment.

We can dream!

So Eric if its so wrong, can you please tell us what is wrong with it?

Reid wrote:Maybe they'd get it all the way right if they paid you a fat consultant's fee and followed your directions carefully. They'd be trying to realize a return on investment.

We can dream!

Make you dream a reality then. Send them an e-mail. steven@gdfb.co.uk

For one thing the size is off, due to the fact that they are basing their dimensions off of mail that has been subjected to corrosion and wear for one to two millenia. The research they have done leaves much to be desired. I know because I have seen both it and the customer critiques as well. The lapped joints on the links are also wrong in that they should be lapped the opposite of what they currently are. I would also add that the riveted links should be slightly flattened as well. The joints themselves are also quite wide for this type of mail. They should be more narrow.

What it boils down to is that this mail is only a downsized version of a few of their other pieces. Because of that it lacks the specifics needed to make it Roman mail.

As for sending them an e-mail, I am totally serious about it.

Erik D. Schmid wrote:As for sending them an e-mail, I am totally serious about it.

Hmmm. You place great confidence in my powers of persuasion -- which confidence I share, being by profession a salesman. Hmm. I won't act on the instant, but I will mull it over seriously and consider what I might say. I'd be telling them to spend money on you, without even myself having been a customer. An interesting position, no?

Well, no need to anymore. I have updated my information webpage to reflect this. http://webpages.charter.net/erikdschmid

Erik:

What is the current ordering status on the GDFB wedge riveted maille? I see on their website that it will be available in September. How solid is that date?

The GDFB website needs a bit more updating, but Stephen has been quite busy as of late, so itmay nothappen for a bit yet. He and I are going to go over exactly what the mailsection will contain and how it will look in the near future.

After his visit here in a couple of weeks we should have just about everything sorted out and will then be able to give everyone a more definate time frame. Right now we are looking at December or January which means I need to update my webpage as well. Now this is for my style of mail and not the current style they are selling now. For information on the current mail styles I would send Stephen an e-mail and ask him.