02-05-2004, 06:04 PM
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
Whew, that cover everything? Valete,<br>
<br>
Matthew/Quintus <p></p><i></i>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
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>
<br>
Whew, that cover everything? Valete,<br>
<br>
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/
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
