The Armour Archive

I just got a new riveted habergeon from Von Sussen. It's got what appears to be a baked-on oil finish (everything's very consistently black) and it's coated with enough spray oil that it drips like a cheap pizza besides. I don't care for either condition. I figure I'm going to hit it up with simple green or fast orange cleaner to degrease it, but what are my best options for stripping off the black and making it look like plain 'ol mild steel? Non-toxic chemical soak methods preferred- this is flat-ring mail but with the older style of round-head rivets, and I am concerned about it shedding links if I tumble it too vigorously.

Klaus

Klaus,
I would consider the two options you listed Simple Green Fast orange or my favorite Castrol Purple degreaser. I use that on wire I want to take the grease off of. Of course TIDE works well also!

I tried vinegar to remove black, but I noticed it is hit or miss. I had it work once and the next time it did not budge. Not sure why...

The Eastwood metal wash works great for this;

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?item ... itemID=372
One can is more than enough for stripping a shirt.

this will probably leave it a dull steel grey, if you want to get it shiney you'll need to tumble it.

Cheers

I use the purple degreaser, then hose it off and dry it quickly and thoroughly. ( Doing it on a hot sunny day helps with this) There will probably be som spotty rust so I then have tumbled it. My tumbler will do aventails nively and I have done about 6 in this way. It is not big enough for a chirt so I have not solved this problem yet. one of my shirts I brushed with a stiff bristle brush after the degreasing. It worked well but did not shine th email in any way. It is dark grey now. I would like a more metalic finish on my other shirt so I am waiting to degrease it so no rust forms while I am trying to figure out how to tumble something that large.

By the way, some Italian reenactors of my aquaintance use floor polish on their mail to keep it from rusting. I have tried it and it seems to work pretty well. The floor polish leaves a hard shell but it does not seem to be prone to chipping or flaking like clear paint would. It is essentially a plasticised wax.

Thanks to all for the advice. I'll try the vinegar first, and then maybe the Eastwood product. Maybe I can rig up a simple tumbling machine with a plastic barrel and wooden supports, and whack it around with some sand to put some shine back into it. The prospect of rust doesn't bother me so much as getting black oil slime everywhere- if anyone raises an eyebrow at rust stains on my pourpoint, I can always cite Chaucer.

K

Klause the vinigar would strip galvanization off but it wont do anything on the grease. Just thought I'd save you a step. The Eastwood stuff has a side benefit of passivating the metl as well as cleanign it so it wont flash rust post cleaning.

I just sold my Forth haubergeon last week and cleaned with the E-wood stuff it took about 20 minutes socking ina 5 gallon bucket with few tablesppons of cleaner mixed in water.

The surface oil/grease is not the problem, it's the baked-on black finish. That's what I want either the vinegar or Eastwood compound for. Anyway, I can't do anything to it until we buy a hose, which will be next weekend when Zil gets her first paycheck and we go on a household-goods buying frenzy.

Soak it overnight in straight vinegar. That will remove it.

Steve Sheldon used to offer a cleaing and polishing service. IIRC, it was $25, plus shipping. I'd send him an email.

That's a possibility, but since it took nearly two months to get this shirt from von Sussen- between ordering it too small, him not answering e-mails for two weeks while at Pennsic, then forgetting to send my replacement for another two, and finally, his assistant not receiving the updated address info I sent him well in advance and mailing it to my old address in Boston a month after I had moved out, so that I had to wait for the PO to forward it across the country... I'm now reluctant to let the damn thing out of my sight.

K

I did a scrub with Simple Green and then a soak in vinegar- problem was the first wash didn't get all the grease off so there are still patches of disgusting yellow residue, plus it rusted faster than it dried after I rinsed off the vinegar. Now it's all autumn colors- yellow, orange and brown. Pretty, but not at all what I wanted. Cet, I should have taken your advice from the get-go. I ordered the metal wash from Eastwood, but now I'm wondering- does it remove rust as well as grease, or will I have to hit it with yet another product and/or a wire brush first?

Klaus

Contact Steve ( the infamous Steve of Forth Castle). He used to have a maille cleaning service

Tim

Yup, I have a full set-up for cleaning, polishing, and drying maille. It's $25 an article.

I have been experimenting with the Future Floor Wax also, and it rocks.

Steve

Steve, what's your polishing process like? I'm tempted at this point just to hand it over and pony up for the cleaning, but it ain't the most well-made mail in the world. It's already lost several rivets due to nothing more than normal handling and tossing in and out of the wash bucket; I'm afraid if it undergoes a vigorous tumbling, it'll start to really shed links- and I haven't even worn it yet. This is definitely the last time I'm buying craptastic bargain-basement riveted mail.

K

has anyone ever tried a light pressure media blast. I have 2 maille shirts from sussen and am preparing to strip them this way.

I believe Jeff Hedgecock has the stuff for cleaning and polishing maille as well. I'm not sure if he offers this as a service, but he was using it on the stuff he was importing from GDFB. This might be an option, as you are both in CA.

Jeff did my camail for free after the fact because I'd purchased one of his new ones before he started selling everything with the tumbled finish- I don't think he offers the service otherwise.

K

Well, the Eastwood product ain't all that, I'm afraid. I first soaked the shirt in Jasco Metal Etch to get the rust off- fairly evil stuff with a phosphoric acid base (same as naval jelly) diluted in water 3:1. All the rust came off with no problem. I hosed it off thoroughly and then dunked it in water with the Eastwood metal wash- it called for 5 teaspoons of powder per quart, but I lost count around teaspoon no. 25 and just eyeballed it to half a can. I let that soak for an hour or so, then hung the shirt up to dry, and because it was dark by this point, I brought it indoors for the night.

Anyhoo, the Eastwood product is supposed to inhibit flash rusting, but it's doing a half-assed job at best. The very top of the shirt that dried out first is mostly clean, but now there's fresh rust all over the shirt body- generally where the water collects around the rivet heads- and the bottom of the shirt, which is still drying, has started to go very brown and is going to be mighty orange in the morning.

And if the answer is "the shirt has to dry out quickly so flash rust doesn't form" in order for the flash-rust-inhibitor-properties to work, I say that's like advertising insect powder that kills your bug instantly- if you pour a shovelful of it down the bug's throat and stomp on him 'til he's dead. (Old "Down East" joke.)

So apparently, I'm fighting in a rusty shirt (or not, as the case may be) and there's fuck all I can do about it.

Klaus

Silly costumer- clean and degrease first and then do rust removal. The oils/dirt will block the rust converting chemicals otherwise. To ensure a fast dry try an old carb rebuilding trick: do your final rinse in very hot water- near boiling if possible, the water should evaporate of the metal very quickly and help minimize flash rust, then seal with something like wax or a silocone based spray ( or bake on some oil in the oven; probalby bnest when the wife's not home )

I'm confused. How can I clean it (again) through an existing layer of rust? And even if it wasn't already rusty, if I use an acidic rust remover last. wouldn't that negate the benefit of a rust-preventative coating in the cleaner?

Well it sounds like it's now clean but rusty since the grease you were originally trying to remove would have prevented rusting if it were still present. I'd use the rust stripper you originally used ( Jazco stuff) and then rinse it in very hot water so that it dries quickly. The Jazco stuff should leave a phosphatized coating which will inhibit rust to a certain extent and a hot water rinse shouldn't change that. Follow this up with a physical rust barrier of some sort- wax based, silicone based, baked oil, gold plate etc...

Gak. More toxic hideousness. Steve, let's talk- I PM'd you.

Yes, I thought all of the chemicals were just to strip the coatings? If it's just a dusting of light new rust why not just tumble it clean? Riveted should hold up fine...

Klaus,

I believe Jeffrey Hedgecock uses a cement mixer with wood chips to remove/buff-out the coating on his riveted offerings.

If you get a successful solution, please post. I've got the same problem.

I've thought about trying a 5-gallon barrel w/locking lid and some sand to try and clean-up my aventail using the old "roll it around" trick while watching TV reruns.

-- Gest

It's not the same quality riveted mail as Jeff's or Steve's. The rivets are round-headed and not very robust, and it has been shedding rivets with very little provocation- every time I haul it out of the washtub, there's a little pile of rivet heads in the bottom. I'm afraid what proper tumbling will do to it.

Just got Steve's opinion and he agrees- tumbling probably isn't the answer for this shirt. Anyway, I got it extra-large for chest sizing and I was planning to lop a foot or so off the bottom anyway, which is where the rust is worst. I'll clean that up at some point and turn it into a tie-on skirt.