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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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 Posted: Mon 27 Jun, 2011 3:21 pm Post subject: butted mail |
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Question. how well would butted mail function between two layers of padding for sparring practice? Im afraid the rings will open by the blunt force and slowy those holes would get bigger. Any advice?
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Ian S LaSpina
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| Posted: Mon 27 Jun, 2011 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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With a layer of padding surrounding the maille, it should open with much less frequency than if it were being hit directly. The good thing about butted maille is it's relatively easy to repair as long as you stay on top of the repairs as they become needed. In general though reproduction butted maille isn't all that great for actual combat and sparring use.
Riveted maille can be had pretty inexpensively now and will take a beating much better. It's also generally lighter than butted maille. It's a giant pain in the butt to repair, but will rarely need it.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 27 Jun, 2011 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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A long time ago I made a shirt out of very small butted links (4mm) and it has survived a knife thrust and a whack with a pool cue with no damage at all (it was worn by a bouncer under his shirt while he was on duty).
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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Mon 27 Jun, 2011 10:35 pm Post subject: Butted mail |
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Thanks guys for the reply! The thing is, im sewing the mail between the two layers of padding, making a coat. Its called a Khazaghand. (Dan we already discussed this in another topic  ) Anyway, for that reason it won't be easy to repair. As for historical acurate, it doesn't have to be for me. You won't see the mail anyway, its just that I want to feel the weight for training and its protection with tournaments or sparring. Therefore I wanted to know if butted mail would do the trick because a friend of mine is making butted mail armour. That would be a big cost saver for me.
Btw Dan, I introduced that same friend to your article about mail yesterday. I read it a long time ago didn't know you wrote it. Very informative, thanks for posting it on this forum!
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Mon 27 Jun, 2011 11:24 pm Post subject: Re: Butted mail |
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| Sander Alsters wrote: | Thanks guys for the reply! The thing is, im sewing the mail between the two layers of padding, making a coat. Its called a Khazaghand. (Dan we already discussed this in another topic ) Anyway, for that reason it won't be easy to repair. As for historical acurate, it doesn't have to be for me. You won't see the mail anyway, its just that I want to feel the weight for training and its protection with tournaments or sparring. Therefore I wanted to know if butted mail would do the trick because a friend of mine is making butted mail armour. That would be a big cost saver for me.
Btw Dan, I introduced that same friend to your article about mail yesterday. I read it a long time ago didn't know you wrote it. Very informative, thanks for posting it on this forum! |
You could use welded stainless maille instead:
1) It's welded, so stronger than butted.
2) It's stainless so you don't have to worry about the maille rusting in between the wet padding when you sweat or if you get caught in the rain. It might still rust under extreme conditions but a lot better than carbon steel.
3) You can buy it in finished garments or as sheets of welded maille that you can cut into patches to sew into you garment.
4) You could wear an under layer of padding, then the maille and then another layer of padding over and not sew it together.
this way you could use the maille as regular maille if you want it to be seen.
Source of stainless maille, there are a few but this one is convenient since you can buy what you need in sheet form or as a finished shirt or haubergeon. I have one of these and they are lightweight and very small diameter maille:
The Ring Lord: http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproduc...cat=Scales
Finished maille & sheets of maille: http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproduc...cat=Scales
You can get a small sample patch of this maille for testing at a small price before committing to buying a lot of it.
Bought a maille shirt form them a few years ago and the customer service was good.
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Tue 28 Jun, 2011 6:10 am Post subject: |
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Agreed with Jean. Welded stainless would be best in a kazaghand. You might need to tumble it in a barrel (or a cement mixer) for a while to rub off any burrs.
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Tue 28 Jun, 2011 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Agreed with Jean. Welded stainless would be best in a kazaghand. You might need to tumble it in a barrel (or a cement mixer) for a while to rub off any burrs. |
The welded maille I have is perfectly smooth and one doesn't feel any burs that I can tell: Other brands of stainless maille may be rough at the weld.
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Wed 29 Jun, 2011 2:55 am Post subject: Butted mail |
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Thanx again! I will look into it! Maybe there is a way of making it myself with a welder.
I will send an email to the ringlord and ask for a price estimate. But for now I'm still figuring out how much padding I need to use to be effective. My gamebeson is fairly thick and I wanted to make this one with less padding. I gues what I need to figure out, how much padding will be sufficient in conjunction with the mail. Try to make it as light as possible.
I also found some pictures of Japanese Kusari Katabir armour. There you can see how the mail was sewed on the fabric. The Kazaghand that one of the Osprey books depict has nails punched through it. I don't know how or where he fuond evidence for this. Dan maybe you got an idea?
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Ahmad Tabari
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| Posted: Wed 29 Jun, 2011 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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If you are still considering getting a butted shirt then I reccomend get dressed for battle. Their prices are pretty reasonable and from what I hear their products are of good quality. I am not sure if they have stainless rings but you can ask them to zinc coat the mail.
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Eric S
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| Posted: Sun 03 Jul, 2011 9:27 pm Post subject: Re: Butted mail |
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| Sander Alsters wrote: |
I also found some pictures of Japanese Kusari Katabir armour. There you can see how the mail was sewed on the fabric. |
Here is a link with pictures of many kusari items including Katabira with butted mail either exposed or completely hidden between layers of cloth, as many as 5 layers in some cases. This kusari katabira is completely lined with hidden butted kusari. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz238/estcrh/kusari/?start=all
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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Mon 04 Jul, 2011 4:37 am Post subject: kazaghand |
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Thank you very much Erik! This might really come in handy. Btw I found someone a son of a jeweler who works with iron and was willing to weld the rings together if I would go for butted rings. What I dont know is what he charges for it. Than I need to see what is the cheapest^^. I was thinking of an stainless steel hauberg. What do you guys recommend? I mean what kind of steel or iron is best. I could coat it myself against rust. I need it to be protective for sparring and durable. The weight isnt much of an issue. As historical acurate as possible. I need to train with it to get used to the weight. losing a few pounds couldnt hurt;-) .
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Mon 04 Jul, 2011 6:16 am Post subject: Re: kazaghand |
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| Sander Alsters wrote: | | Thank you very much Erik! This might really come in handy. Btw I found someone a son of a jeweler who works with iron and was willing to weld the rings together if I would go for butted rings. What I dont know is what he charges for it. Than I need to see what is the cheapest^^. I was thinking of an stainless steel hauberg. What do you guys recommend? I mean what kind of steel or iron is best. I could coat it myself against rust. I need it to be protective for sparring and durable. The weight isnt much of an issue. As historical acurate as possible. I need to train with it to get used to the weight. losing a few pounds couldnt hurt;-) . |
Welding one ring is probably not a problem but think of the time it would take the welder to weld 10,000 to 40,000 rings in a haubergeon ! The welded stainless steel maille I mentioned is machine made and machine welded otherwise the price of having somebody spend 200 hours doing one ring at a time is going to cost a lot and I'm guessing that the jewellers just hasn't calculated how much of his time it would take and how much he would have to charge for his time just to break even !
Also, does one weld one ring at a time while assembling a maille piece or does one take an already finished butted shirt and try to find and weld each and every ring already part of a shirt ? Don't know what works best, or how it would be normally done but it's not a case of " can I have it for next Monday " after giving it to the welder on Friday !
Also since you want to sew the maille inside between layers of cloth the maille supplied as sheets you can cut up and even overlap patches of it as you sew them in ...... what it looks like doesn't really matter since the maille won't be visible in any case ! This is probably easier than tailoring an under layer of cloth and a matching over layer of cloth to match a finished maille hangergeon.
And as I mentioned before you might opt to use the under layer and over layer with the mail between and not really have to sew everything together.
One question: Why do you need the maille in between the cloth for actually sparring ? If you are not using sharps the maille won't be doing much more than a sufficiently thick cloth armour to protect you ! The maille could be useful and needed if you permit the use of full power thrusts in your fighting and would have been useful in period when dealing with sharps.
So, for practical reasons I don't think the maille is needed but at times when reproducing period kit one wants a period piece put together as real armour even if only for the satisfaction of having the same as one would have in period. 
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Wed 06 Jul, 2011 10:22 pm Post subject: Re: kazaghand |
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[quote="J
One question: Why do you need the maille in between the cloth for actually sparring ? If you are not using sharps the maille won't be doing much more than a sufficiently thick cloth armour to protect you ! The maille could be useful and needed if you permit the use of full power thrusts in your fighting and would have been useful in period when dealing with sharps.
[/quote]
Well, because in a Kazaghand the mail sits between layers of cloth. The padding is on top to also protect the rings from blunt weapons. And because of the sun, the steel won't get so hot^^. The thing is I really like the Kazaghand and eastern armour in general. I just really have to have one, for show, to look at, to fight in, and to have that feeling that I'm wearing something awesome! It might not be all historical but you wouldn't see it on the outside. I'm anxious to start working but the things is money is scarse. If I have some developments, ill post them on the forum...if anyone cares:P
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Justin Lee Hunt
Location: North Baltimore OH Joined: 28 Jun 2011
Posts: 38
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| Posted: Thu 07 Jul, 2011 11:12 am Post subject: Re: kazaghand |
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| Sander Alsters wrote: | [quote="J
I'm anxious to start working but the things is money is scarse. If I have some developments, ill post them on the forum...if anyone cares:P |
A while back my nephew got his first maile for his birthday. In the shopping around we found this site and their prices are good, as is their maile.
http://www.realarmorofgod.com/store/html/Prod...t-115.html
I can feel for your financial issues. I hope this helps. God Bless
I opperate a website for my reenactment troop it's www.orderoftherouseclan.org Be sure to check out our forums www.orderoftherouseclan.proboards.com
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 07 Jul, 2011 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: kazaghand |
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| Sander Alsters wrote: | | And because of the sun, the steel won't get so hot |
IMO this was made up by historians because they couldn't think of any other reason why mail would be covered. Same with the surcoat. I doubt that the sun or climate was given any consideration at all - after all, they had uncovered mail in this part of the world for the previous thousand years with no apprent problems. It is far more likely that the kazaghand was developed for fashion reasons. As you said, it looks good 
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Eric S
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| Posted: Thu 07 Jul, 2011 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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A couple of reasons that armor of all types was sewn between layers of cloth in Japan, this might not apply to other cultures.
Weather protection, (especially in winter), to keep the armor from snagging on other clothing being worn, as padding from other armor being worn on top, to hide the fact that armor was being worn at all (never under estimate the element of surprise).
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William P
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| Posted: Mon 11 Jul, 2011 8:52 am Post subject: |
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someone may have alreadysuggested this but i think that when you join a link with its neighbours, yod do well to take a pair of pliers and actually make sure the ends of the maille are propperly butted together,
i notice that some suits ive seen arn all actally butted, theres a tiny gap betwen the eends which makes the fabric tha much weakerand increases the chance of links coming loose and seperating
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This is a standard topic