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Simon Van Der Spoel




Location: Australia
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PostPosted: Wed 11 Jun, 2008 4:10 am    Post subject: Wedge Riveted Mail         Reply with quote

Hey all, newcomer on deck, thought I'd drop in and say hi, I'm looking at re-enacting an effigy of Don Bernaldo...Estanza, who died in 1237, so wedge riveted mail will be part of the part of the plan, so do you guys know of decent wedge riveted mail distributers? I know of the riveted mail from india that is getting around Australia, but that's not wedge riveted its round headed rivets, but anyone know of any others? I have a very nice sword from manning imperial, Craig's work is just brilliant, I'll have to post pictures or a link soon

Talk soon all,

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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Wed 11 Jun, 2008 4:19 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

1237 is the very earliest that wedge-riveted mail begins to appear - and only in Germany. You'd probably be ok if you went with round riveted mail. But it is really a moot point. Unless someone like Erik replicates the links for you they won't be even close to historical.
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Corey D. Sullivan




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PostPosted: Wed 11 Jun, 2008 10:24 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I cannot comment on the wedge vs. round at the time of 1237, or the accuracy of indian maille, but I do know that these guys sell them, sort of:

http://www.eindiabusiness.com/wedgerivetedchainmail/query.html

"He had scantly finyshed his saienge but the one armye espyed the other lord how hastely the souldioures buckled their healmes how quikly the archers bent ther bowes and frushed their feathers how redely the byllmen shoke their bylles and proved their staves redy to appioche and loyne when the terrible trotnpet should sound the blast to victorie or deathe."
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Michael Edelson




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PostPosted: Wed 11 Jun, 2008 6:33 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Wedge rivets and round rivets look about the same from the top (outside of mail). It's only if you look at the back you can see the difference. As Howard said, the Indian round rivet looks nothing like historical round rivet. The Indian wedge rivet stuff, when it's good, looks fairly close, except the riveted area is squashed flat instead of having that mountain peak shape (I think they call it watershed look?).

This is of course a general statement...there are probably times and/or places where this is not so, but none that I know of. Also, I believe that in the 13th century you were most likely looking at alternating row solid/riveted.

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Grayson C.




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PostPosted: Wed 11 Jun, 2008 6:41 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This thread begs me to ask a (slightly off topic) question...



What's the difference?
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Chris Gilman




Location: California
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PostPosted: Wed 11 Jun, 2008 7:03 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

In my opinion your biggest issue is tailoring. Untailored mail is an obscenity and an abomination on the face of the earth…Ok well may be I find it silly. WTF?!
People get accurate styles of mail, nicely made plate, but T-tunic mail shirts. They don’t fit and frankly look terrible. Real mail was made in a human, tailored, form. The sleeves didn’t bag out twice the size of your forearm and sag around your midriff like a liposuction patient. It should fit nice and close, have gussets, nip and tucks, crotch flaps, and all sorts of wonderful tailoring tricks that reduce the weight, make it really fit, work better and make it look better.
So gentlemen read some books, get out you pliers and tailor your mail.

Chris
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Jean Thibodeau




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 8:46 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Grayson C. wrote:
This thread begs me to ask a (slightly off topic) question...



What's the difference?


I would guess that for some people ( not me ) part of the fun or obsession is to try to get their " kit " including everything from their arms and amour to the colour of their underwear as true to period as possible and as close as far as our limited knowledge permits: A perfectly legitimate " quest " and why not if that is what makes the hobby interesting to one? Cool

Others have " looser " criteria: A five foot rule or a ten foot rule or more where the kit looks authentic. Others have a 8X magnifying glass rule + a feel and texture rule ( Even the soft kit must be of the same as period materials down to the style of weave and stitching ).

With swords one can push the concept to where one wouldn't want to make a sword " better " than it was possible to make in period.

There is a lot of room for all sorts of wants and expectations in this hobby.

Oh, and I care more that my maille is as strong and effective as possible and if I could get it in mythrill or unobtanium I don't think I would care much about the rivet style. ( All else being equal if it is also authentic to period I'll take that also. Razz Laughing Out Loud ).

Actually my last maille I bought is welded stainless steel so there are no rivets to worry about. Laughing Out Loud

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Grayson C.




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 8:48 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hey Jean

Sorry I wasn't questioning the legitimacy, merely the structure of the maille itself - I'm afraid I don't understand what is being discussed - All I know is "rivitted" and "butted."


Thanks
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Jean Thibodeau




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 8:55 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Grayson C. wrote:
Hey Jean

Sorry I wasn't questioning the legitimacy, merely the structure of the maille itself - I'm afraid I don't understand what is being discussed - All I know is "riveted" and "butted."


Thanks


Oh, Eek! Well, I'm no expert there but in different periods maille seems to have been put together using round little rivets or little triangular wedges of steel used as rivets.

There is also the all the rings being riveted or half the rings being solid rings either punched out of a sheet of iron or steel or forged welded into closed rings and the other half riveted. All welded rings seen to have been made also but a lot more time intensive to make I think as they would have to be welded as the maille was assembled

Rings could also vary greatly in size and weight of wire be round or flat.

Others know a lot more about tis than me as I'm mostly repeating what I read here in others topics dealing with maille.

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James Barker




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 10:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The difference is in shape, wire thicknesses, consistency, rivets. The details on the higher end shirts vs. the real deal are less off than the cheap stuff but to the trained eye you can see the differences up close. One detail is most production stuff is round while most historical stuff is slightly oval.

I tend to spend the extra money for maille and get something like the GDFB maille than the ultra cheap Van Sussen Ebay shirts which are barely a step above butted maille in look.


I am with Dan on the flat maille dating; the 13th century is when flat riveted links show so you may want to think about using round riveted with alternating flat punched links. Also to make any shirt more historical it should be tailored. A wedge gore in the neck front and back, gores in the front and back body thin at the chest wide at the opening like a tunic, and gussets under the arm.

James Barker
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C. Gadda





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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 11:09 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Is there any evidence for tailoring in early material, such as pre-Roman conquest Celtic or Migration/Viking Age shirts? I would assume they did, as neither the Vikings nor the Celts were fools, but I was wondering if any hard evidence has turned up.

I have in mind the remarkably well preserved hauberk from Vimose (~4th century A.D., I think) which is nearly intact. Does anyone know if a thorough analysis was ever done on that one, and if so were the results ever published?
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Ed Toton




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 11:15 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

That's been my biggest complaint about most off-the-shelf mail available, is that it's not tailored, and generally is designed like flat T-tunics. I'd love to see some patterns or details on proper tailoring of the body, arms, etc, as it would have been done in period. I tend to do trial and error in working on my hauberk.
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M. Eversberg II




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 11:24 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

James, what are these "gores" you speak of? I would like to see a shirt proper, as I think I've only seen "off the shelf" stuff. Would a maille shirt be made as a generic T-tunic, then fitted as part of you buying?

M.

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James Barker




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 12:09 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

C. Gadda wrote:
Is there any evidence for tailoring in early material, such as pre-Roman conquest Celtic or Migration/Viking Age shirts? I would assume they did, as neither the Vikings nor the Celts were fools, but I was wondering if any hard evidence has turned up.


I don't think we have more than fragments and shirts that are too damages to tell like the Sutton Hoo shirt from that era. There are many medieval shirts and I don't know of any that are not tailored in some way.

M. Eversberg II wrote:
James, what are these "gores" you speak of? I would like to see a shirt proper, as I think I've only seen "off the shelf" stuff.


A gore is a pie wedge shape whether we are talking about maille or cloth. The idea is to create tapering areas in a shirt to help with movement and fit. Most medieval shirts taper thin at the waste and widen for the neck and back and also at the hips.

Look at these images; the first is an image I took at the Museum of London of a 14th century shirt, the second is a cut out of the neck area and the red highlights the gore and the seam:





M. Eversberg II wrote:
Would a maille shirt be made as a generic T-tunic, then fitted as part of you buying?


I am unsure the medieval way of doing things but I have been slowly altering my tube maille shirt from GDFB for some years. I only have the neck gores in right now and plan to do a front gore soon. Riveting maille takes loads of time.

James Barker
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Felix R.




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 12:14 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think, it qould be no problem to tailor/fit a off the shelf shirt. Indeed some helpful comments on this would be appreciated. It is exactly what I am trying to do in the future. I ordered a capapie Haubergeon and want to change it, so it fits well. One thing that makes tailoring a little difficult is, when the inner diameter to wire thickness ratio is of, so the maille has too much strech. Then it is nearly impossible to tailor. But that doesn´t seem to be much of a problem in flat rings.

EDIT: That is a nice example, James.
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M. Eversberg II




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 1:14 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

So to construct this, you simply leave that V open, then come back with thicker rings? The pictures are good, but not too sure about the construction just by looking at them -- wire seems thicker to me. I am assuming this constricts it a little around the shoulders, so it rides better?

M.

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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 1:30 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

M. Eversberg II wrote:
So to construct this, you simply leave that V open, then come back with thicker rings? The pictures are good, but not too sure about the construction just by looking at them -- wire seems thicker to me. I am assuming this constricts it a little around the shoulders, so it rides better?

M.


It's not so much a matter of thicker rings as opening up the area. Imagine the red triangle section above is gone and the sides of the V are closed up. That's going to constrict the shoulders. The inserted V creates more space.

Gores, triangles and sometimes diamonds, give more room and more custom tailoring. If the mail is tight on the chest, for example, you might open up a straight slit in the links at the chest. Into that slit rivet a kite-shaped gore and you free things up a little in all directions.

Happy

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Felix R.




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 1:32 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

No, it´s is actually not thicker rings. It is tailoring. When you have a look at how the gore is set in, you will see that some rings catch 5 rings instead of 4. This wouldn´t be obious if you distribute those rings evenly. But when set in a pattern, it looks like a triangle is set in. In this way you can make the weave wider or more narrow. Depending on the position and distribution of those rings you will recognise triangles or not.
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James Barker




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PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 1:57 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

M. Eversberg II wrote:
So to construct this, you simply leave that V open, then come back with thicker rings? The pictures are good, but not too sure about the construction just by looking at them -- wire seems thicker to me. I am assuming this constricts it a little around the shoulders, so it rides better?



Basically open your tube shirt up by removing one column of rings; then rivet the "V" shaped gore into the line opening. The fat end is up towards the neck and the small end is pointed down towards the mid section.

Here is a 30 second drawing of what I mean. Ok the first image is a tube maille shirt from any dealer; the line down the middle is the removed column of rings and the gores are pictured above and bellow. The second image is them inserted.


James Barker
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Last edited by James Barker on Thu 12 Jun, 2008 2:06 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Craig Peters




PostPosted: Thu 12 Jun, 2008 2:05 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Michael Edelson wrote:
Also, I believe that in the 13th century you were most likely looking at alternating row solid/riveted.


I've heard this too, but as I understand, we have hardly any mail from the period when alternating rows of solid and riveted mail was the norm. So I'm not totally certain if this is a generalization we can safely make.

Does anyone know of specific photos or examples of mail like this? I seem to recall that there was a Scandanavian shirt from circa 1200 that exhibited alternating rows.

For that matter, is there any advantage to wedge rivets over round rivets?
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