Good News! Starting a Rivited Maille Project!

Hello all and thanks for dropping by!  My birthday recently past and I was graced with some wonderful gifts one of which is some rebar tie wire.  To those of you medieval hobbyist out there this means one thing...RIVITED MAILLE! Yes, I have in my possession several hundred feet of blackened, annealed, 16ga steel rebar tie wire. 

Yes, it's beautiful but what it is to become will be even more spectacular.

The process:
I will wind the wire around a 1/4" mandrel into large coils about 1 foot long. It then look like a large spring. I will cut the ring individually with a pair of modified bolt cutters. The modification allows me to cut the rings so that there is an overlap.  Then I will re-normalize the rings and begin the flattening process. That steel bar in the photo will be used in this step. With a tube just big enough to accomodate the bar I can place a ring at the bottom of the tube upon a steel surface and proceed to drop the bar upon the ring and flatten it. This will give a nice uniform flat ring. Then I will either punch a hole in the ring and use a cylindrical rivet or drift a hole and use a wedge rivet. The wedge rivet is more historically accurate, however.

So thats the crash course on rivited maille. I am so excited to start on this! Once I have a large enough piece of maille I plan on conducting some long range (50-100yards) armor penetrations test with my warbow :)

Thanks again for viewing! feel free to comment, ask a questin or two, and please let me know your reaction below!

Chainmaille Armor Pet Peeves

More and more in the armoring world I am seeing an influx of people making chainmaille.  This is awesome and it is where I began my armoring career. However, there is one main thing that many of these people do that irks me! I am referring to folks who decide to attach sleeves at a 45 degree angle.

Here's what I mean....

Here is a non-45 degree hauberk...

You'll notice the 45 degree suture, in the first picture, where the sleeves are attached to the main body.  The second picture is a simple "T" shaped hauberk.

People freak out with the "T" shaped hauberk because when one wears it and their arms are hanging at their sides, the ring pattern elongates, and becomes very open

Such as this...

Here, you'll notice the rings overlap each other providing more coverage and protection

Now, my pet peeve comes when folks mistakenly say that the 45 degree arms provide better protection.  Most folks who choose a chainmaille hauberk with 45 degree arms, choose it purely as an aesthetic choice. 

In a combat situation a medieval Knight, man-at-arms, or whomever, would fight his opponent with their arms up.  Which, while wearing the "T" hauberk would cause the ring pattern of the sleeves to bunch up and provide great protection.  If a soldier were to be wearing a 45 degree hauberk, only while the arms are hanging at one's sides do the rings of the sleeves overlap in the proper pattern. However, as soon as the arms are brought up, the ring pattern elongates, drastically reducing the effectiveness of the armor.  Since it would be foolish to fight an opponent with your arms down and much wiser to fight with your arms up, it makes sense to choose the type of chainmaille that will best protect you.