and just to clarify to use a drift is just to poke a hole in the material??

Thanks to S. Sebok for this. Here is a website with a good range of the Indian mail available for export.

http://www.snexports.com/chainmaille-armour-detail.html

Well after reading this whole thread I wish I discovered it sooner. I got a few things to add to it. I do realize indian made maille is rather inferior in quality to real historical maille. But I would like to say I think wedge riveted indian maille is closer to actual historical wedge riveted maille than indian dome riveted maille is to historical dome riveted maille. The main difference is the lack of the triangular end of where the rivet comes out as seen in historical examples. Dome riveted is nothing like the historical type as it has that double ended rivet, that creates a lot of problems, such as rivets falling out easily and whatnot and extra wear to gambeson. Indian wedge riveted doesn't usually have the problem unless the holes are punched rather than drifted. Still think the rings are a bit too thin though, now that I have seen Erik's maille up close and actually own a coif by him by sheer luck. It would be nice to see indian made maille that uses Erik's way of making it then I would for sure buy one.

I'm trying to assemble a haubergeon myself out of loose rings, and as such have a few experiences to share. I think that the GDFB flat ring round rivet rings work very well with the Ring Lord punched washers, but Kult seems to be constantly out of stock on them. I then got some rings from another supplier (silly me) that I assumed were the same. What I eventually learned was that the places in India make rings out of 18g wire as well as 17g wire. The punch hole in both is the same size, which means that the 18g rings are weaker- probably not armor grade. The 17g rings seem to be very durable though, maybe not as much as real round rivet mail but good enough for most uses.

The moral of my story is that not all mail rings are created equal- even within the same factory, different wire sizes are used which can compromise the quality of the product. Always be sure beforehand of the wire thickness of your loose rings before ordering them.

For reference, here is a failed ring from an all-riveted hauberk by one of the companies that imports Indian maille. There are a lot of types and levels of craftsmanship available today, so a prospective buyer should think carefully and ask lots of questions. Getting armour which is much too big, or shreds your arming garments, or weighs twice as much as you expect can be an unpleasant surprise. None of the Indian rings is very accurate, but rivet type and wire cross section are not the only ways to be less wrong.





Note that the rivert hole is so off center that the ring burst open when the rivet was peened. I would estimate that one in a thousand links in this garment was ready to fall apart, and one in ten is dubious. If we pay careless, unskilled work prices we get careless, unskilled work quality!

To my inexpert eye, about two thirds of Dan's criticisms apply to this ring as a simulation of the ability of late 14th century maille to resist edges and points. The weight of the wire is similar to the heavy examples published by Burgess and Smith, the overlap is generous (but squeezed thin), and the rivet holes are round. The hauberk has other bigger problems as a simulation of how late 14th century armour looked and moved.

That would fall under point 3

Quote:

* Rivet holes are either too large or not centred. Both will leave too little material on one or both sides and the link will tear too easily.

I've seen a couple of metalurgical analyses of mail which document the rivet size pretty thoroughly. A rivet of .5-.7mm diameter in wire beginning at 1mm-1.6mm seems normal. Are the modern Indian rivets simply too large for the wire used in the ring?

As you know, my Yushman project is made with riveted maille. I bought it from an European supplier, but I'm 99,9% sure that it's Indian of origin.
Answering your question I could give you these sizes - my links are approx. 1.45 mm in diameter, while the rivets are 1.3-1.35 mm.
Other interesting issue is the quality - it strongly depends on the particular lot. What I mean - I was delivered my links in two shipments. With first I had no problems - when riveting its links, I got torn link with ratio about 2 or 3 of 100 (or 2 - 3%). But with the other shipment this ration was average about 1 or 2 of 10 (10 - 20%), while sometimes it was disastrous - about 35 - 45%.

The exact metallurgy of the link is far less important than all the other of the points I listed. It doesn't matter what the Indians make their links from, they are still going to be a lot more susceptible to breakage than proper riveted mail. You'd need to use both modern alloys AND the correct links to improve protection beyond what they had historically.

Just a quick thought here; we know there was a varying level of quality in plate armor, couldn't it have been the same with mail? A better craftsman may be pickier about say the centering of the rivets and having the rings all lay correctly whereas a poorer guy might not have enough to get that level of attention to detail, and any protection is better than no protection, so do you think this could have been the case?

Sorry for my lack of clarity there. By poorer I only meant to convey less expense. I wasn't trying to suggest any of it was cheap by any means, only that there would be varying levels of quality and therefore price, as seen in plate. I've seen some plate that was obviously cheap and barely more than a flattened bar, so I thought maybe there would be mail that was somewhat "rushed" ( not to say it could be done quickly) just to get it out there, if that makes sense. Kind of an " I don't have armor and I need some A. S. A. P. " situation. And if that was the case then some of it might have been somewhat clunky, more like what we have in some reproductions ( though I highly doubt any of it was ever that bad). Of course this is purely speculative and really means very little, and you all have probably forgotten more than I'll ever know about mail.

Stretched, dented, and twisted links are good. It means that they have absorbed energy that would otherwise have gone to the wearer. If you come out of a battle with your armour completely destroyed but you are relatively unhurt, then it has done its job.