Maybe somebody can help me here. I have a Mail shirt from the 17th century that was in service with the Dutch East India Company. Of course, when I got the shirt it was quite dirty and oxidized. So, in an attempt to clean it up I put it in an ultrasonic cleaner used for gun parts. It worked suprisingly well. However, the cleaning uncovered the nature of construction and it was shocking. Each link had been braised with brass to secure them in the shirt. I have heard of butted mail, rivited mail but never braised or soldered. Now since there were no torches or soldering irons in the 17th century my question is "How did they do it?". The construction hours alone would be daunting even with modern devices, not that rivited mail is a picnic. Any enlightenment into this would be greatly appreciated.

Don , brazing/soldering was a common construction technique on indo persian weapons ( at least the examples i've owned some of which went back to the 17th century ) and is much older at least for jewlery work in Europe . As to the
how for brazed brass , and this is only supposition on my part but I would guess that something like the old fashioned
soldering irons that were in use till the middle of the last ( 20th ) century would be used . Wouldn't mind seeing a pic of the shirt though . I've never encountered an example of what you've got .

Unfortunatley the photos did not show good detail and were taken a while ago. I hope they help. Who am I kidding, I hope the attachments can be seen.

Don[img][/img]

OK, what is the trick to posting a photo?

second try...and hopefully success!

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Thanks Don ! Thats cool as... . Nice sword . Whats the background on it ? Is The Dutch East India Company shirt the one
I saw on e-bay about three or four months back by any chance ? Just curious as I was eyeing that one pretty hard .

Yea, the original owner of the shirt put it on ebay a few months back in an attempt to sell it. I told him that if he couldn't sell it there I would buy it. Its a nice shirt and quite a bit cheaper than a mail shirt from the 15th century (recently going for over $9000 at auction). As for the sword, its Viking era (circa 950-1050) type X. It was recovered in Belgium. It is a very plain sword with no embellishment other than a possible faint trace of iron inlays in the blade. The robust tang and wide blade makes this sword a handful, definitely a slashing weapon.

They look great together in the pics . A young fella thats apprenticing with use has a maille shirt of i'm guessing 15th century date . He got it from his uncle when he visited him in Ireland back in the early 90's . The guy had bought and old
castle/manor there and this this was in an old trunk with some other junk in the attic . Theres still a sleeper or two out there .

*laughs* Like Allan, I remember seeing that shirt on ebay - still have the pics from it, actually. I'm afraid I can't help in explaining the construction, but it's nice to see where the shirt ended up! ;)

Its funny how common it is to see an item re-appear from time to time. It gives me hope for all of those missed opportunities :cry:

Thank you. There is some heavy pitting throughout. Some parts of the sword are a bit more oxidized than the rest, and there is a crack within the forte but it only goes half way through the blade. With the crack there it has curbed my inner child from swinging it around to see how it handles . :D