Punched mail

[Conal]

I am pondering mail shirts ;

Some are all rivited using drawn wire.

Some are alternative punched flat rings & drawn wire rivited.

Question; was there a benefit in drawn wire for rivited bits as I have seen Persian mail ( much later than "Roman Times "), which is of alternative punched flat rings & rivited flat rings?

Looks good

[Lusitano]

The strongest maille in our times is welded mail, stronger then riveted. This is because rivited mail altough stronger than butted the rivit is the "weak link"(because its softer metal). Since welding (as we know it) would be impossible at the time the strongest option would be punched rings. Since you cant make a maille with just punched rings they would use alternate rows of punched and rivited.

So the strongest mail would be punched and rivited.

I have seen images of maille testing with crossbow bolts or bow arrows (cant remember wich) and with purely riveted rings the bolt could sometimes break the rivit and pierce the maille.

Edit: found the test images you can see them here http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread ... adid=72060

[ARudling]

The flat links in flat riveted links are made froma drawn wire which is flattened as part of the process of making the link.

Flat solid links can also be made from wire & forge welded, but this is a lot slower than a punching process - usually.

[tommy303]

One can of course assemble a mail shirt out of just drawn and rivited rings. Such was frequently done in post-Roman times and there are quite a number of fragments and complete examples scattered about various museums. That the Romans appear to have preferred alternating rows of rivited wire rings and solid rings punched out of sheet is probably indicative of the time and expense of making mail. Besides having a benifit of being stronger than mail made solely of rivited rings, alternating rows of punched and rivited rings can cut the time of manufacture down by perhaps 1/3 as well as easing the drain on skilled labour.

[tommy303]

As something of an aside, I once saw a mail shirt made with flattened and rivited rings, apparently made for one of the early Czars (I believe it currently resides in the Hermitage Museum). Each ring is engraved with what appears to be Psalm. Talk about a labour intensive shirt.

[Conal]

Why did they not just punch all the rings ... cut & overlap some & rivet those?

Was it easier to make wire than sheet for punching ?

[ARudling]

Roman non-punched links seem to have been mostly round section with a small overlap area flattened & using a round rivet.

Simple reason must have been, it worked & was quick enough to make.

Also making wire is actually quite a quick easy process, once your draw plates are set up that is.

[Erik D. Schmid]

The strongest maille in our times is welded mail, stronger then riveted. This is because rivited mail altough stronger than butted the rivit is the "weak link"(because its softer metal). Since welding (as we know it) would be impossible at the time the strongest option would be punched rings. Since you cant make a maille with just punched rings they would use alternate rows of punched and rivited.

Not entirely true. If the mail is made properly, then the riveted joint will be stronger than the rest of the link. This is due to the work-hardening the lapped joint undergoes during manufacture.

One can of course assemble a mail shirt out of just drawn and rivited rings. Such was frequently done in post-Roman times and there are quite a number of fragments and complete examples scattered about various museums. That the Romans appear to have preferred alternating rows of rivited wire rings and solid rings punched out of sheet is probably indicative of the time and expense of making mail. Besides having a benifit of being stronger than mail made solely of rivited rings, alternating rows of punched and rivited rings can cut the time of manufacture down by perhaps 1/3 as well as easing the drain on skilled labour.

Mail made of alternating rows of riveted and solid links was by the far the most common type of mail. In Europe it was used into the fifteenth century. In the Middle East and India, far longer. The time saved in using punched links as opposed to all riveted would be minimal at best. This may have been different during the Roman period, but during the Middle Ages there were shops that did nothing but manufacture links. These were then sold to shops that actually constructed mail garments from them.

[tommy303]

Hi Erik,

If I understand it, Roman shops specializing in mail seem to have made the rings on site, although this may have varied from place to place and it is possible some shops may have jobbed making the links out to other shops, although I am not aware of any that did so.

[Erik D. Schmid]

Hi Erik,

If I understand it, Roman shops specializing in mail seem to have made the rings on site, although this may have varied from place to place and it is possible some shops may have jobbed making the links out to other shops, although I am not aware of any that did so.

Interesting. Do you have a source for this information?

[tommy303]

The information I had was from correspondence with Michael Simkins and HR Robinson a good many years ago. If I recall Robinson felt that such evidence as there was seemed to indicate armour and weapons production was centered around a number of large specialist factories or fabricae located within various parts of the empire, supported at user end by smaller shops near garrisons and by soldiers within units trained in the repair of armour and weapons.

[Erik D. Schmid]

Does this account for the entire Roman period then?