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Post by rammstein on Jul 21, 2008 1:19:16 GMT
Period maille is SOOOO much stronger than butted maille it's amazing.
First off, butted maile often fails simply because the rings don'thold themselves together properly. I've seen butted maille tear itself appart simply by hanging on the rack. When a sword hits the maille, some rings break but most of the failure is caused by rings being torn apart. With rivited mialle, this doesn't happen. From tests I've seen on period historically accurate rivited maille, swords can't even get through it without the mightiest of cuts.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2008 2:40:34 GMT
This thread reminded me to check out my heat treated maille idea, so I Just did an experiment.
I heated a few of these spring washers with a torch, and when they were glowing a nice bright red, I dropped them into cold water. They came out VERY hard, a file just skated over the surface, and when I tried to bend them with pliers, they wouldn't budge, eventually cracking when I put a lot of force into it.
If this maille was hardened in this manner and then tempered properly, it would be formidable, and vastly superior to the galvanized fencing wire butted maille.
Being of butted construction it probably still wouldn't be as strong as the riveted iron period maille, but it's a completely different animal from the usual modern butted type.
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Post by Jeff K. ( Jak) on Jul 21, 2008 3:34:26 GMT
I know of a metal fabricator in Lethbridge who does his own chainmaille in the butted style but he uses a spotwelder to join the links. Imagine welding these spring washers? That would be tough!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2008 12:28:58 GMT
Yes it would! Anneal the links, knit the maille, weld the gaps, then heat treat to a spring temper! That would be some tough maille... I found this link to a guy's plans for a maille motorcycle jacket. He goes into some detail about the strength of the spring washers: www.phillipjackson.co.uk/made/chainmail/motorcyclejacket.html
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2008 1:33:23 GMT
A couple years ago I was really into maille and made myself a hauberk and coif as well as several smaller pieces. Everbody has already covered the butted vs. rivited debate pretty well so I wont get into that but just share a great website thats a huge resource for anybody interested in maille. www.mailleartisans.org/
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2008 1:30:57 GMT
A couple years ago I was really into maille and made myself a hauberk and coif as well as several smaller pieces. Everbody has already covered the butted vs. rivited debate pretty well so I wont get into that but just share a great website thats a huge resource for anybody interested in maille. www.mailleartisans.org/I wish I had your patience, the largest thing I have made is a belt ;D Thanks for the link
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2008 19:36:20 GMT
I just thought I'd add to this thread some discoveries I made yesterday.
I bought a maille hauberk, and now I understand people's aversion to butted maille! There's nothing really wrong with the hauberk because I don't intend to wear it as armour, but there's no way on earth that this stuff would protect you during battle.
The links are 1.6mm thick wire with an ID of 9mm. I made some modifications to the hauberk to make it into a byrnie, and discovered to my horror that I could bend the links by hand!
Now I understand a couple of things:
1. I see now why people say that butted maille can fall apart under its own weight.
2. I now understand how someone could make a shirt out of this stuff. My only experience was with the spring washers above, and they are REALLY hard to bend. Just from making a belt, I have worn the teeth off both pairs of pliers, and I still have scars on my hands from the blisters. I simply did not understand how someone could make a whole shirt out of them. With these flimsy rings, I could make one in a week or so if I put my mind to it.
3. I now understand why people sneer at butted maille.
Well, I did a test. When I trimmed down the hauberk into a byrnie, I was left with a few largish pieces of maille. I placed one of these on a wad of rags over a wooden box, and thrust the tip of my sword into it. As expected, the tip of the sword went through all of it like a knife through butter, the rings simply bending open.
Then, I tried it with a sheet of maille that I had made from spring washers. Not only did the sword not penetrate, but the tip was damaged a little, and I had to do some work with a file to correct it. The maille was completely unharmed apart from some slight marking to the zinc plating.
I therefore maintain that spring washers make pretty good maille. After seeing some real period maille in museums, and noting how thin the (soft iron) wire is, I genuinely believe that spring washer maille would offer equal, if not superior protection, even though it's butted.
The obvious disadvantage is that it doesn't look completely authentic, and it's darned heavy! I tried on a hauberk made of these about 10 years ago, and it took two people helping me to get the thing on! That was mostly because I hadn't got a clue about the proper technique back then, but even so, it was VERY heavy.
It must have taken someone an enormous amount of time to make, and it was being offered for sale for £70. I still kick myself for not buying it...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2008 0:35:22 GMT
Well I'm not sure how the metric units convert to inches, but my shirt was 16ga 5/16ths inch and it is strong enough to wear and does not fall apart under its own weight. 16ga 1/4 inch makes very nice maille.
I'm not claiming it is as strong as rivited or that it offers good protection, but for general wear or even non steel combat it simulates maille pretty well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2008 12:31:36 GMT
You're quite right, I just reread my post above, and I think I gave the wrong impression about my new shirt.
I'm actually very pleased with it, and I don't believe that this particular shirt will fall apart under its own weight. I think the links are 16ga 3/8", and these seem perfectly adequate for costume type wear. However, I was able to bend the links by hand. I must qualify this by saying that I am a body piercer, and I'm used to bending and adjusting titanium rings. I also have pretty strong hands, and bending the links by hand certainly wasn't comfortable to do, but it was just about possible.
I have seen maille made from thinner wire than this, and I can therefore understand how they could come open under their own weight.
I think that the difference is that as well as being thinner and larger in diameter, the links are not spring tempered like the spring washers, so they bend open more easily.
I cannot budge a spring washer by hand even a little bit, and I am able to hoist my 14' body weight by the belt that I made from them, even though it's only 3 links wide (which means that the load was across only two links widthwise) I haven't tried, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I could hang my body weight off a simple chain made of the things.
Compared with this, the links in my shirt seem like they are made from paperclips ;D
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2008 20:08:03 GMT
Actually 16ga 3/8ths is considered sub standard. 16ga 5/16ths is decent, and 1/4th is very good.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2008 2:52:56 GMT
bah, plate armour for the win.
p.s. isn't 3/8> 1/4? I'm completely confused about this width system of yours.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2008 3:55:28 GMT
bah, plate armour for the win. p.s. isn't 3/8> 1/4? I'm completely confused about this width system of yours. large rings are not as strong as smaller rings (wire size being the same) - from a very simplistic point of view, there is more "air" and less metal in the shirt, for once. Ancalagon
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2008 8:01:17 GMT
Yep 3/8s is bigger than 1/4 but that doesn't make it stronger. With maille its all about aspect ratio. The inner diameter of the ring compared to the outer diameter (this would include the thickness of the wire).
Basically you want a smaller ratio. For example, you can have a thick wire and a thin wire, with the same inner diameter rings, and the thicker wire will make the stronger ring. Same thing if you have the same size wire, the smaller ring will be stronger.
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Post by swordboy bringer of chaos on Aug 22, 2008 8:19:29 GMT
is it possible to heat treat chain maille (to harden the steel)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 14:00:19 GMT
is it possible to heat treat chain maille (to harden the steel) I'm not sure how easy it would be, but in theory it should be IF the steel has some carbon in it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2008 13:47:44 GMT
Oh ah. cool. I thought it meant the thickness of the wires. my bad.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2008 5:17:27 GMT
is it possible to heat treat chain maille (to harden the steel) I'm not sure how easy it would be, but in theory it should be IF the steel has some carbon in it. Steel has to have carbon to be steel. Steel with no carbon is iron.
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