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Thoughts on chain mail ring size
#1
A few thoughts on the protective properties of chain mail prompted by various previous threads.<br>
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Chain mail is strange stuff; held in the hands, its strange properties of being at once very flexible and completely non-elastic give it an unusual feel – a feature that might explain some of the more exotic chain mail web sites, but I digress.<br>
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The flexibility of chain mail make it a poor protector against various crushing blows.<br>
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However, the non-elastic properties of chain mail give good protection against a piercing weapon such as stab from a spear or sword. Although the point of such a weapon might place great force on one individual ring – enough to break it – this is not sufficient to penetrate the armour. More rings have to be broken to make a slit large enough for that deadly two inch deep wound. Every ring that has to be broken or distorted in order to penetrate the armour will take energy from the force of the blow.<br>
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Just how many rings have to be broken or distorted depends upon the nature of the weapon. A stiletto dagger or a bodkin headed arrow or pilum point obviously requires far fewer than spear or sword.<br>
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Another factor is the size of the rings. Small rings that are made of fine metal will break more readily that larger ones, but they distort much less (they are just too small). So, an attacker is going to have to break more small rings than large rings. My guess is that it takes more energy to break a ring than to distort it.<br>
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So, it may be that small rings offer protection that is just as good as large rings – maybe even better. Small rings have the advantage of being lighter overall, but much more expensive to produce.<br>
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It should be possible to come up with some mathematical model of different sorts of parameters of mail against different weapons, although I don’t think that I am up to this myself.<br>
<p></p><i></i>
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#2
I see a lot of people concentrating on this or that type of armor as one has advantages and disadvantages against x-type weapons. My question is why should it matter?<br>
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There are lots of armor finds that should give the dimensions that were used to construct them.<br>
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Remember your armor is a secondary defense against blows. It's there in case you don't deflect it with your shield.<br>
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Valete,<br>
<br>
Owain <p></p><i></i>
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#3
I've recently started a hamata project. This is what I'm doing, alternating rows of riveted and butted rings in 16 gauge steel of about 10mm outside diameter. Yes, I know that butted is incorrect, but there is a picture of the real stuff in JRMES, Vol. 4 that looks alot like alternating rows of riveted and butted rings. There is also a drawing in Bishop and Coulston of alternating riveted and welded rings that looks very similar to what alternating riveted and butted rings would look like. I've tryed welding, but cleanup of the burnt borax residue is an issue. I'm not sure about how to go about stamping rings. <p></p><i></i>
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#4
I have a book by dan shadrake that shows after the rings are cut they are pounded through a metal funnel like object then the overlapping ends smooshed flat and a small chip inserted.<br>
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Valete,<br>
Owain/Cicero/Dave <p></p><i></i>
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#5
A now departed blacksmith I used to know told me that before the advent of modern welding methods, 'fire welding' was practiced, which aparently did not require the use of a secondary agent (such as modern welding wire). This was the method he used but I never had the oportunity to watch him doing it. I generally assume it to be a method of fusing metal together under heat, but this is just an educated guess. When I asked him about butted vs welded mail he considered that any experienced blacksmith could have welded mail rings together easily and quite quickly and did not think that the number required to make half a mail shirt (as opposed to the rivetted half) would be particularly taxing, given enough time. He also said that it might, after a long time, be difficult to tell a fire welded ring from a butted one just by looking at it (taking a jab at the examination of photographs as evidence of metalurgy - one of his favourite hobby horses), but said that he had never tried to weld rings as small as 7mm external and so was not prepared to commit himself absolutely to the idea of mail being welded and riveted rather than butted and rivetted.<br>
David Sim would probably be a good person to talk to about this.<br>
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Crispvs <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=crispvs>Crispvs</A> at: 2/5/04 1:23 am<br></i>
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.romanarmy.net">www.romanarmy.net
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#6
Avete!<br>
Forge-welding of mail rings has been done by several modern craftsmen. (The Armour Archive and the Arador Armour Library are good places to pick up information like this, not to mention the Mail Research Society!) They have found out several things. Forge-welding requires the pieces to be at a very bright heat, and clean of any oxides. Modern steel requires a flux like borax, but ancient wrought iron is essentially self-fluxing because of the silicates it contains. The pieces to be welded are brought to heat and then hammered together with rapid light strokes rather than solid heavy ones. (This can lead to molten slag squirting out of the joint, so watch your toes!) Mail rings are so small that they only need to be sqeezed together with plyers, but they lose their heat so fast that one craftsman actually does the squeezing while holding the ring in the flame. Another uses a red-hot anvil to hammer them on. Otherwise, yes, it goes quite quickly. As I understand it, the ends to be welded are overlapped like a riveted joint, not butted.<br>
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Ancient samples of welded rings are usually very difficult to distinguish from those punched from sheet, especially if there is corrosion or wear. Sometimes it takes microscopic examination to determine if the slag inclusions are running across the diameter (meaning it was punched from sheet) or around the circumference (meaning it was made from coiled wire). Be careful!! MANY original fragments of mail have been partially restored with MODERN BUTTED RINGS! Don't let them deceive you. I would be very skeptical about mail that is alternating rows of butted and riveted rings--that makes less sense than all butted!<br>
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Dave, I've also seen that illustration of the "funnel" for reducing a ring and making the ends overlap, it's in dozens of medieval armor books. But after making a couple riveted rings myself, I'm wondering if there is documentation for it, or if it is necessary at all. Even with 16 gauge wire, which is about as heavy as the Romans seem to have used, it takes only a second and two pinches with the plyers to reshape a ring and overlap the ends. And if you simply cut them from the coil with the overlap already there, you can skip even that. But I'm hardly a mail expert so I couldn't say for sure what is known, or what current wisdom is.<br>
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In any case, Romans used round rivets, or square-section rivets with round rivet holes! This continued into the 12th or 13th century, along with the practice of using alternating rows of solid rings. Mail that is all butted, with wedge-shaped rivets, becomes the rule in the 14th century.<br>
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Punched or stamped rings can be made with a regular "Whitney" metal punch. Just punch out a ton of "dots" with the outer diameter that you want, then change dies on the punch and put a hole through each dot. This is a little finicky because these rotten rings are about the same diameter as the dies on the punch, and smaller than the width of the "jaws", so you need needle-nose plyers to handle them. Then they get stuck on the die when you punch the hole... As an alternative, find a company that manufactures washers, and either pick out the size you need or have them custom-punch them for you. Sell the extras off to all your friends. And don't get galvanized metal!<br>
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And Dave, yeah, there are lots of fragments so we ought to know a lot about the dimensions we need. But as with other artifacts, most of them are locked in museum cases or closets, and some of us are on the wrong continent anyway. Curators will let serious researchers get their hands on the artifacts to take measurements, but that can take serious time and money that most of us don't have. If you can get access to anything, do it! And let us know what you come up with! There is some data like that already in various articles in JRMES and other publications, and some on the web. But a lot of stuff that is dug up never gets measured, except maybe for a scale drawing somewhere that doesn't mention thickness or weight or....<br>
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Whew, that cover everything? Valete,<br>
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Matthew/Quintus <p></p><i></i>
Matthew Amt (Quintus)
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
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#7
Well alternating riveted and welded would of course be better, but alternating riveted and butted is the closest approximation that I can actually make. For the riveted rings I have found the easiest thing to do is to flatten the entrire ring usign a flattening jig, a 3/4 inch thick piece of steel with a 1/2 inch hole for a 1/2 inch grade 8 bolt used as a piston. A few whacks with a hammer does the job. <p></p><i></i>
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#8
Here is a picture of the small bit of maille that I've made:<br>
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66.66.186.34/roman/maille.jpg<br>
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Pro:<br>
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1. Alternating flat and round rings<br>
2. Alternating riveted and non-riveted rings<br>
3. About 10mm outside diameter, mild steel (non-galvanized)<br>
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Against:<br>
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1. Riveted rings are pounded entirely flat, not just the tab ( I haven't yet tried just flattening the tab, flattening the entire ring looks to be easier)<br>
2. The round rings are butted, not welded. Judging from the pictures that I've seen I'm not sure that I agree with Matt Amt on the welded rings having been overlapped. Besides, cleanup of the borax residue is not easy. I also do not have the means of making the tooling required to make stamped rings.<br>
3. The rivets are triangular, not round. <p></p><i></i>
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#9
Go to:<br>
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66.66.186.34/roman/maille.jpg<br>
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The picture makes the rings appear larger than they actually are. The inside diameter is only 1/4 inch (6.35mm). I'm still in the process of learning how to get just the right amount of flattening for the riveted rings. In using tools meant for medieval maille I've made a few compromises. Feedback is appreciated. <p></p><i></i>
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