Show me your chain maille , please add ring sizes as well ...

Don't have any pictures of my 1/4" ID butted ring shirt; I finished it in 1981 and never converted the pics off the floppies...

It's old and cruddy looking, I'll think about it.

Frosty The Lucky.

Isn't all chain maille cruddy looking frosty ? 

Is it merely ornamental or is it proper armour ( bent shut or welded / rivited ( if you have the patients , skill, time ))

Thanks

Michael.

Of course NOT, would a person with enough wealth to own a suit of armor wear cruddy maille? We're talking knights and gentry they have squires and servants to keep their duds looking good. Well linked maille is sensuously beautiful in it's visual texture, drape and how it moves. No cloth moves so exquisitely well it's almost erotic.

PROPER armor? Do you mean ceramic boron body armor with Kevlar over and under? Nope don't need it hope I never do.

I made a fantasy scale suit with a bronze helm based on a 10th.c Viking helm. Unfortunately my wood lathe didn't have the power to spin the pot so I sunk it instead and it's nowhere as close as it should be. The chain drapes around in s skirt, unattached it over the eyes to make the openings. I'm not even sure where it is, it fell so far below expectations I don't think I've shown it to anyone in a few decades, Deb might not have seen it even.

The rings lap. Most maille wasn't riveted let alone welded I believe most was butted or hammer lapped. Thomas would know better than I, that part of my library grew feet.

Why would I show it to the world?

I don't need patients I'm not a doctor.

Frosty The Lucky.

Sorry, I meant the chain maille we make as fun projects, I can never get my rings even , I weld mine so they tend to have a bulge .

You made scale maille !?!? Wow, that's awesome ( applauds )

On 02/06/2016 at 10:48 PM, Frosty said:

 Well linked maille is sensuously beautiful in it's visual texture, drape and how it moves. No cloth moves so exquisitely well it's almost erotic.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

I think you love your work a little too much frosty ... Just kidding, i coulthae saiitbeter myself .

Michael.

FYI

"Chain mail" is a form of armor in a modern fantasy game.

"Mail" or "maille" is an ancient form of body armor made from steel rings.

Gold chain I made last year 

oh goodness I haven't made chainmail in decades. being cheap and broke most of my life I used 14ga galvanized fencing wire, a 3/8ths dowel rod for winding, power drill (usualy cordless) and the lid from a 50caliber ammo can to put the other end of the dowel into.

I've tried using a Dremel, I've used wire cutters of various sized and configurations. I think the wire cutters I used most looked like a very small set of bolt cutters... and I wore out like 5 of those cheap things.

I got pretty got with 4-in-1 weave, but never had the time to try others.

If you're looking to make maille, I can make a few suggestions. If you're wanting to see some work, well, I've done a bit myself before. Boxweave, Viking Wire, and even some tricky stuff like Dragonmaille.
 

Naw I finished my 1/4" ID rings maille shirt around 1981, I also made a tie out of the very small split ring stuff, nickel plated spring steel...Worth manufacturing IIRC.  Helped me out at work once when I was taking someone else's "iffy" change through the change review board.  I wore my maille tie and at the end of the presentation when I got to the "Any Questions?" Instead of getting torn to shreds over the proposed change,  I got the head of the review committee asking about my tie.  Short digression on maille and handed it around and out the door all paper's stamped!

6 in 1 hauberk I completed a while back. Just butted maille. 3/4" ID (I prefer them large for 6-1) 16 gauge rings. Picture is not great, sorry. 

electric fence wire?

 

..... Maybe.... 

 

OK, yes it was haha. 

Lets just say that in the SCA I have a 4 digit membership number beginning with "2"....

The SCA? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they do historical reenactments of combat, right? If so, I must say, that is awesome. 

57 minutes ago, Will W. said:

The SCA? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they do historical reenactments of combat, right? If so, I must say, that is awesome. 

You would be only partially correct there, Will. The combat is only part of it. There is also Archery, Thrown Weapons, Arts and Sciences, and Feast Preparations that are all done in as close a period fashion as one can manage. Archery includes medieval style crossbows and selfbows for period shoots, and allows traditional style recurves (including Takedown) for standard competition. Thrown Weapons competitions are done with three weapons, at two distance ranges for each weapon. Axe @ 10 and 20ft, Knife @ 10 and 20ft, and Spear @20 and 30ft. Arts and Sciences include *everything* from Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing to Weaving, Wood Carving, and even Siege Engineering... Feast Prep, well... it's pretty much what it says it is.

We've done iron smelting using Y1K technology---one of the things we learned was the importance of having a person splashing water on the back of the bellows thrall as the sparks rained down from the short stack scandinavian bloomery...

Markus Davis

That sounds fantastic! I would love to see all of that. Seems like it would be a great time. 

Thomas

That seems like a lesson that only needs to be learned once haha. As one who burns charcoal in my forge, I can only imagine the shower of sparks that would come out of a bloomery. That sounds very interesting nonetheless.

We used to do it every Pennsic; dig the clay out of the creek, build the bloomery and smelt iron from ore,  Learned a lot after a decade of experiments...

Thats really cool. I've always wanted to see a bloomery in action, but to take part in it would be pretty interesting. I am beyond curious, what did you do with the bloom when the smelting was complete?

3 minutes ago, Will W. said:

Thats really cool. I've always wanted to see a bloomery in action, but to take part in it would be pretty interesting. I am beyond curious, what did you do with the bloom when the smelting was complete?

Will, where are ya located? I'm sure there's a group of some sort, be it a barony capital, a Shire, a Canton, or even a College, near you. If you would like, I'm pretty certain you can PM either myself or Thomas and we'll gladly point you in the right direction.

I've checked for things of that nature in my area, with little success. But, you may know better than I. I'm in central New York State. 

I'm just realizing how off topic this thread has become haha. 

I see 13? Groups listed in Western NY: on the http://aethelmearc.org/groups/local-groups/ 

17? NY groups listed for the East Kingdom: http://www.eastkingdom.org/LocalGroups.php 

for a total of around 30 groups, my state has  only 11 but we are much less densely populated.

We were getting 15 pound blooms after a number of years, made into a lot of things; I still have a piece and my laurel medallion was made from a piece of Pennsic Bloom.

 

I was mistaken. I thought he meant groups who did smelting haha. That is interesting though, I am going to look further into this. Thanks.

That is awesome, about the bloom I mean. Seems like it would be a lot of fun.