The Armour Archive

I am making myself a camail out of butted ring so I can have a better looking kit. I plan to eventually replace it with some nicer riveted mail once I buy a nicer helm. I like the butted because it is easy to carry around and work on during quiet moments. I have a small pair of needlenose pliers I keep in a small container along with about 100 links. I get the chance I pull them out and weave together some small sections and attach them to the larger piece back at home. Works great. Started my camail 2 weeks ago and now am working on filling in the corners. hope to be done by the end of this week. I am only working on it about 2 hours a day btw.

Trevor Barker's gift to the mailling world. His directions replicate a c.1438 German mailshirt. But mailshirts changed very little in their construction throughout the Middle Ages -- the big variety was in overall comprehensiveness. A 13th-c. hauberk would have been built the same way, just with mufflers and coif incorporated.

An old article of mine. The Trevor Barker is much more sophisticated about the body tailoring than I was at the time -- go with him wrt the body.

I dislike needlenose pliers for armor mail, save for the specialist application of both adjusting, and gauging diameters on, riveted mail links. They don't give the proper grip; you want broad-nosed pliers like two pairs of slipjoint pliers.

RenJunkie wrote:If that's the beeswax in a wood frame, that's out because of the apartment (I used to make wooden swords, but any woodwork is verboten here).

Could you expand on this some more? I mean, sure, you're there in tidewater Virginia, and the East Coast is plague-rat full of restrictive covenants -- but not even by hand tools? Watercolor painting is messier! It's hardly as if they have the Condo Police inspect your interior weekly.

I have recently done more mail than I want to think about.

I didn't want to work hard (but did more than I wish). What I did was buy rings and rivets and then assemble them. Once you have a pair of mail making pliers and if you assume you are starting from rings, riveted really isn't more trouble than butted.

This may sound odd. But I think that it is really true.

I was working in the 9mm flat stuff. Round rivet.

I never closed a link - that annoying stage in butted where you have to push the ring ends so that they are flush. I also never had to open a ring. I just pushed them together (like the magic act where you take rings with overlaps and push them together edge-on) and then squeezed the rivet in the pliers.
No noise.

And the result is riveted not butted.

It is at least worth thinking about.

Wade

wcallen wrote:I have recently done more mail than I want to think about.

I didn't want to work hard (but did more than I wish). What I did was buy rings and rivets and then assemble them. Once you have a pair of mail making pliers and if you assume you are starting from rings, riveted really isn't more trouble than butted.

This may sound odd. But I think that it is really true.

I was working in the 9mm flat stuff. Round rivet.

I never closed a link - that annoying stage in butted where you have to push the ring ends so that they are flush. I also never had to open a ring. I just pushed them together (like the magic act where you take rings with overlaps and push them together edge-on) and then squeezed the rivet in the pliers.
No noise.

And the result is riveted not butted.

It is at least worth thinking about.

Wade

Where do you get these magic mail making pliers good sir? Care to climb down off your mountain and share that with us humble masses?

RenJunkie wrote:Ok, my impression (Mid-13thC) needs maille. I cannot afford to do riveted maille. I'm not even sure about manufacturing the stuff (lots of reasons). So, proper maille is out. For now.

Christopher

There is another option. Not wearing any mail at all.

Plenty of evidence by this period for padded armour on it's own, possibly not in a knightly portrayal but it would be accurate and you could conceal hard protection within it (to better protect yourself for the SCA game).

I appreciate that making a garment like this might be a little daunting but it isn't much harder than a basic T-Tunic and will take you less time to hand-sew than a butted mail-shirt.

2d
N.

I have no interest in doing a totally padded impression like some of the guys in the Mac are shown. I'd rather do an "unarmoured" sort of impression. Ultimately, I want maille on my upper body, and gamboised cuisses ending in soupcans. I have a specific look I'm after in the end. And the 13thC guys in padded armour is not a look i want. One day when I do a War of the Roses type look, yeah, a jack is a big part of the look I want there. Just not in this case.


That's good to know, Wade. Tho, I was more concerned with screwing up the tailoring, and then having to cut the rings off to fix it.

Thanks for that link, Konstantin. If I do make at home, I'm sure that'll be crucial.

Quick design question....are hoods still part of the hauberks, or are they starting to be used separately?

As far as portrayal, Looking all knightly isn't a big thing. I plan to do....Combat Archery!!! <hides>

Thanks!
Christopher

People consider me to be anally pedantic but I have no problem with butted mail for what you are trying to do. Superficially it has the right look, it is a good way to learn to make mail, and it won't bother the neighbours. Get the weaving process down. Learn about tailoring and how to do expansions and contractions. Worry about riveting later. Hell I have a lot of butted mail lying around. In the past I would often try part of a prototype in butted mail before attempting a more accurate version in riveted.

My only problem is with people who make this stuff and try to convince others that it is "period". Most of the riveted stuff isn't period either so it doesn't make much of a difference.

Lots to consider on this.

Thanks, everyone for your input!

Christopher

That being the case, it sounds like a decent option. As has been pointed out, butted mail doesn't hold up well to being hit by steel, rebated steel, or clubs, but I'm pretty sure that it holds up great to yielding.

Nothing wrong with yielding. Prevents people who hate archers from getting a little overzealous in their battering of them...lol

Besides, my left knee has been informing me this past month that kneeling is a painful idea. And getting thumped even with an accidental glancing blow....I don't like to think about it...lol

And I got this nifty 30# draw longbow with nothing else to do......

Christopher