Chainmail

[John Martin]

I've done a search and I found nothing for chainmail. I know the general way of making chainmail is to link rings together. Some people just use wire and sodder it, but I want to make it out of steel and forge weld it. I would like to know the best way of going about this, and the thickness of the steel that I should use, and if I'll need a jig to make the rings, other than bending it. And about the diameter of the rings.

[Candidquality]

There are other forums covering armor design which someone will post shortly i'm sure. If you want to be authentic there's a bit of research to do. If you're not really concerned with that, then do what you think will work. Though I have to mention that forge welding 10,000 links might get a bit tedious. I believe the best loop technique I've seem was to heat and wrap on a bar. Then hot cut(or hacksaw if preferred) across the spring you've made and make individual links. If you're going to weld them, then you might consider leaving enough at the ends to overlap.

Good luck and have fun.

[Finnr]

Armour Archive has tutorials on chain maile.
Finnr

[John Martin]

I've been looking through that, and what is the difference between butted chainmail and riveted chainmail. I can't find it on the site.

[Frosty]

Butted maille means the rings are cut so the ends meet in a butt joint and are held in position by spring action of the rings.

Riveted rings are a lot more time consuming. You draw one end wide and punch a hole, the other end is drawn into a tennon, bent and threaded through the hole and peaned like a rivet. This is a very time consuming and expensive method of producing chain maille.

Welded maille links are excruciatingly rare and EXENSIVE due to the huge amounts of skilled labor involved.

Frosty

[IRon_FOrgerI22]

How to make chainmail Part 1This a video is on how to make your own chainmail there is a second part on how to and then there are 2 more videos on how to make a chainmail shirt enjoy!

[Jacob]

Rivetted and solid links were used historically. The solid links were either welded or punched. The manufacture of the solid rings is difficult to be sure of, because suits of half solid-half rivetted mail tend to be older and often rusted into an ugly wad if there is any left. Rivetted rings are wound around a mandral, cut, the ends are overlapped and hammered together, pierced, and then rivetted with a pin or wedge rivet.

Wire sizes varied. 16-18 gauge is a good start. 1/4-3/8 ID.

Butted mail skips most of the trickey steps, but still may require hundreds of hours. I have most of a suit made in 17ga 1/4" ID butted links. There are probably 50,000 links and 500 hours involved. The "cool factor" of my nice suit fell down a notch when cheap rivetted mail from india became common. I also have a couple of 14ga butted suits which are even heavier. Butted suits need to be heavy or else their own weight pulls them apart.

Forge welding will require a lot of practice and an anvil sitting right next to the fire. There is a guy who has figured out a way to spot weld rings (include "knut" in your search).

[ThomasPowers]

M, why are you not asking your questions on that site? Seems strange to ask questions about a site dedicated to the subject of armour somewhere else...

Not to mention that they will deluge you with links to other maille sites as well as discuss/argue the proper terminology. Hint I would use the term mail or maille instead of "chainmail"...jargon gets it's licks in on narrow focus sites!

[Glenn]

BP0109 Cutting Rings for Chain Maille

[John Martin]

I asked on here and there, I want a smith's input and maille makers input.

[matt87]

I did a bit of research on maille-making a couple years ago. See if your library has a copy of Ffoulkes' "The Armourer's Craft". Think it's from 1912, and is somewhat like the armourer's Bealer.

Teh conclusion I came to is this:

- Butted is fine for some situations. Still takes a long time though. Not authentic though; if you can seperate the rings with a pair of needlenose pliers then what chance will there be with a fulll sword swing, even a non-live edge?
- Welding already has been mentioned. You might be able to spot-weld rings, as already mentioned, but forge welding would be a) more authentic more difficult.
- Rivetting/bradding is the way that most maille was constructed 'back in the day.' Still lots of effort. Ffoulkes says that some rings were solid and speculates that they may have been stamped/punched from sheet iron, but IIRC most these days think they are forge welded wire.

Ffoulkes could not, apparently, see the point in solid rings mixed with welded/punched, since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. However, I think that it was a matter of time saving; you can heat a wire ring to welding heat fairly quickly without the problems associated with heating lots of rings just to weld one, and it was a lot of fiddly work to rivet or brad a ring. With, say, Euro 4-to-1 pattern you would only have to rivet/brad 1 ring for every 5; you make up a bucket of welded rings and link 'em with brads!

Another big problem is finding plain mild steel or iron wire. Mind you, drawing wire down by hand would be good practise

As far as jigs, look up coiling mandrels on maill-making sites. Save you a lot of time!

[Mikek]

ive done some welded maille, more butted maille than you could shake a crane at.. welded maille is part of how i got into bs in the first place. what i did was take an insulated firebrick and hollow it out and put a hole in the side. then i took a mapp torch and pointed it into the hole on the side. use a really heavy duty (prefferably cheap) set of needle nose pliers and use those as your tongs, pick up ring stick it in the "forge" get it a good orange color. dip into borax, put back into heat until it gets that butter look to it pull it out hold it where just the overlap is on the piece of plate (what i had at the time) and wack it with the hammer. drop into a bucket of water, 90% weld success rate on them, making the 5-lets was a little harder but once you got the hang of it it went pretty fast. helps if you preheat your plate because it will suck the heat outa the little rings really fast!

i used bailing wire, close as you can buy to wrough iron wire. i tumbled the rings between initial welding and assembly to get rid of flux residue, made 1 shirt... it paid for my junker 4x4 lol

[ThomasPowers]

You know there is quite an overlap. I could answer your questions over there as a smith and as a maille maker...and as a history of ferrous metals technologies nerd...

Try to find a copy of "Treasures of the Kremlin" and see the maille shirt in it!

[Rich Hale]

M I think this has been covered a bit in the above posts, but forge welding is simply not a basic skill that one comes from the factory knowing how to do. Forge welding is an advanced skill that requires practice and in many cases individual instruction. It is best learned useing relatively thick cross sections of steel say half inch thick or so. That size does not lose the heat so fast. That said it is certainly a skill that everyone that wants to smith may want to acquire. The more skill you can get proficient at the faster you will be able to move on to more advanced projects. You build those skills by starting with basics and a lot of repetition. There are no short cuts to this. Metal moves in specific ways between the hammer and anvil while hot. Different parts of the anvil and different face shapes of the hammer control this. All these skills are availeable to you in simple forms in the IFI blueprint sections, scan the list and pick projects you can feel comfortable starting with. Forge welding small links is a skill most folks would not even attempt. They lose heat almost faster than you can reach the anvil. You have a lot of interest, if you are willing to spend time on basics you can learn so much by useing the resources on lilne here that you will be amazed.

[ThomasPowers]

Saw your post over there. Pay attention to SoFC he is a world renowned researcher on maille!

On welding maille, I once discused with JPH the possibility of using a clay concentrator---sor of an inverted funnel to channel hot gasses up so they could be used like a blowtorch. AIR he told me about squish welding in the fire.

[antigoth24]

i took me about two months of research to find all the info i need on all the types of mail/ learning to make them. and just last week on a trip to my local library i found all that info in a childrens' book...but anyway for what kind of mail your making really depends on the time period you want anything basically before 1 AD could be butted anything after could be riveted but there was still one or the other based on where and when you where. butted is by far much faster, cheaper, and less time consuming. but riveted is stronger and lighter (in most cases) but unless someone is actually going shoot an arrow at you butted would be the way to go. i prefer to use 12 gauge steel wire used for fencing (you can buy it at home depot or lowes- $10 for about 200 ft) and i go with 1/4 inch or smaller diameter rings. making its simple once you get the hang of it all you need is patience.

[ThomasPowers]

Once you get to the medieval period I know of no example of butted mail that wasn't an in the field repair or strictly for ornamental use.

During the age of maille the *wire* was worth a lot more than the labour and since riviting is at least 10 times as strong as butting (see the pull apart test data over at armourarchive) it would be like having your rolls royce converted into a yugo!

[Fruityloops31]

butted armor IS strong. chainmail was meant to stop a sword from cutting the body via slashes, even riveted and welded mail would be defeated by a piercing weapon such as a spear.

ps. theringlord.com although in Canada " shipping is usually pricey" makes excellent rings especially mild steel, and stainless.

[ThomasPowers]

And rivited mail of the same wire material, diameter and ring size is on the order of 10 *times* as strong.

As the wire was the expensive part of making mail in medieval times riviting was the standard method.

Today the cost of the wire is trivial compared to the cost of the labour and butted is often used.

However go to any museum and look at the originals and save for expediaent repairs and ornamental "show" (parade) examples yopu will not find butted maille.

[Angus]

I have made countless numbers of mail corras's and coifs and most of them were the customers preferance on how much they wanted to spend, so most were butted. Drawing out one end and threading it though the other in the best way and very historicaly accurate and it looks really cool. Been making armor for about ten years now so if you got any other questions just ask.

[ThomasPowers]

I finished my first maille shirt in 1981 so I have a couple of years in the craft myself.

[Chad Becker]

Also, be sure to check out Maille Artisans International League and The Ring Lord's Chainmail Forum

Both are excellent communities centered around chainmail, both artistic and armour.

Edited July 21, 2009 by mod07
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[matt993fod]

Best thing to do would be to learn to weld before you try a mad project like this.

[Wolf's Den Armoury]

Hi all. I'm a professional maille smith and have been for going on 15 years now.

I fully agree with what Chad just said. go to M.A.I.L. - Maille Artisans International League - Home and The Ring Lord's Chainmail Forum - Powered by vBulletin Both are excellent resourses for anything and everything dealing with the subject of maille whether it be butted, riveted or welded, even going into the metalurgy of the various materials used in the manufacturing.

Glad to be here. Kind of difficult learning how to blacksmith on your own. I hope this will reduce my learning curve somewhat. [grin]

David

Edited October 21, 2009 by Wolf's Den Armoury
typo

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

If you want welded with less time, and effort couldn't you TIG the ends together? Make the rings, thread them up and hit them with the TIG torch. Then hammer them a bit to cover the weld up.