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Martin Kallander
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 Posted: Mon 13 Mar, 2023 3:21 am Post subject: what are the cons on solid rings in maille? |
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alternating solid maille gets a lot of praise as being stronger and faster to produce since it has fewer rivets than fully riveted maille. historically fully riveted maille was very common however, so why was that? What are the reasons you would not want maille with solid rings?
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T. Kew
Location: London, UK Joined: 21 Apr 2012
Posts: 256
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| Posted: Mon 13 Mar, 2023 5:12 am Post subject: |
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One obvious factor is that you need to make solid rings as well as riveted ones. Nowadays that's easy - you can buy flat solid washers punched out of mild steel sheet trivially. Historically, it's not clear it was anywhere near as easy. If you're making solid rings by forge-welding them out of wire, for example, is it really any faster to do that vs just riveting every ring shut during assembly? Even if it is a bit faster, is it worth having two parallel production processes in your workshop?
HEMA fencer and coach, New Cross Historical Fencing
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Augusto Boer Bront
Industry Professional
Location: Cividale del Friuli (UD) Italy Joined: 12 Nov 2009
Posts: 294
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Mon 13 Mar, 2023 1:59 pm Post subject: Re: what are the cons on solid rings in maille? |
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| Martin Kallander wrote: | | alternating solid maille gets a lot of praise as being stronger and faster to produce since it has fewer rivets than fully riveted maille. historically fully riveted maille was very common however, so why was that? What are the reasons you would not want maille with solid rings? |
The impression I get from books and articles by medievalists is that as iron goods got drastically cheaper, there stopped being a market for the 'cheap version' of mail (half-riveted) in western Europe. Sometimes things fall out of use because they are cheaper. But that is just a guess!
www.bookandsword.com
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Parker D.
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| Posted: Mon 13 Mar, 2023 3:25 pm Post subject: Re: what are the cons on solid rings in maille? |
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| Martin Kallander wrote: | | alternating solid maille gets a lot of praise as being stronger and faster to produce since it has fewer rivets than fully riveted maille. historically fully riveted maille was very common however, so why was that? What are the reasons you would not want maille with solid rings? |
I think the better question is cons historically, although riveted is so much better anyways.
Think of it like this which is more stronger if it were to take an impact, a ship with a steel frame with riveted thick steel plate or a ship with a molded frame of steel plate. It goes back to how and why maille exists. When you take an impact from say a sword strike where is the weight getting dispersed from the physical blade? At whatever point the rings slide to by the direct bluntness of the strike and maximum force is being applied to in the one spot of the ring, "the weakest point in the chain". But it being, that solid maille rings can't be made (without soldering) where is the most force or should I say, the weakest point in the ring that it would go too? The soldering joint, (if it was a full ring instead of a rivet). With riveted maille, the force is being applied (to a degree, aside from the second point of the dispersion of the attack naturally against the area of the maille being applied) when the ring(s) slide around from the attack its force is going towards the ring and thereby a steel rivet conjoined by steel rings with other steel rivets, instead of with "full ring" maille its getting applied to soldered joints (at least historically if it was), which is why real maille, or riveted maille, is so expensive even today. It's a very good armor even to this day, shark divers use it all the time. Although because your literally wearing with say a hauberk or riveted maille "long shirt" your wearing a literal coat of steel and rivet, and because of that it gets heavy and like I said expensive, it takes a long time to make. But it also gives you practically protection in any area most armor can't cover well or at all, to the same level, like the weakness of the underarms and other under joints, which plate cannot do generally. Maille can pretty much protect against any strike except for a really bad blunt force and is much more prone to penetration because of it being rings instead of a plate. Plate can protect better depending on the individual plate, but generally, much better from penetration and can handle blunt force much better. No such thing as a maille knee guard. But there is a coat of maille to protect against most attacks. But that goes with times. Theirs a reason why warhammers and rondel daggers stuck around. But thats besides the point. But the penetration on maille is largely overplayed since you always wear a gambeson, not to mention a shirt is under that, usually. It's pretty difficult to even penetrate a genuine good quality gambeson, even with like an english war bow, especially if it has a maille shirt over it. But anyways, hope that helps.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 13 Mar, 2023 5:44 pm Post subject: |
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IIRC when Erik did some stress testing of his mail, the links failed along the wire, not the join, so there is no appreciable difference between the strength of a solid link and a riveted link if they were the same thickness.
Solid links weren't made by soldering or welding. They were made by punching them from plate. The whole point of making solid links was to save labour. There is no saved labour if you had to solder/weld each link closed. And even if you did weld the links closed, why would you not weld all of them instead of messing around with rivets?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Parker D.
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| Posted: Tue 14 Mar, 2023 10:24 am Post subject: |
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I think were talking about two different "full rings", the ones I think your referring to are "half wire rings", and even that comes in different derivatives. Especially since you mentioned punching plate, I never considered that "full ring" and full ring is a modern invention (generally speaking), and thats the point I was making too, you would just make riveted mail over "full ring" and of course you would have to weld all of them, but I think were talking about two different methods of weld too. But in terms of maille in general, there are actually several reasons as to why one would not got riveted. Riveted is expensive theres no getting around it, it takes more material which was important historically, and its heavier. I've seen a lot of half ring maille to riveted but again just depends, half ring is so much easier to make and its lighter, but its much less protective in my opinion. But of course titanium riveted maille solves that problem but thats not exactly historical either. Generally speaking when I see people making maille its some form of half wire, whether thats punched plate or through the wire method. I'm more familiar with the wire method so can't speak for that, but. And I am saying rings breaking because of the solder not exactly at the point from which the ring was soldered, I was saying thats the weakest point, "the weakest point in the chain". Its an interesting topic for sure.
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T. Kew
Location: London, UK Joined: 21 Apr 2012
Posts: 256
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| Posted: Tue 14 Mar, 2023 11:38 am Post subject: |
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Could you define your terms perhaps? I'm not clear what you mean by "half ring" vs "full ring". I'm also not clear why you think riveted rings would be heavier (and in comparison to what alternative?)
More generally, when we're talking about historical mail I think it's important to be clear about historical (vs modern) methods of construction. Broadly speaking, there seem to be three historical approaches taken in Europe:
- Made from wire, riveted shut
- Made from wire, forge-welded
- Made from sheet, punched out
Skimming through Wijnhoven, it seems there are examples of both approaches in the archaeological record. Roman half-solid mail consistently appears to be punched, medieval and renaissance examples are a bit more mixed. Overall, he concludes:
| Quote: | | To summarize, both forge welding and punching are found in mail and can co-exist, as observed in India and Europe. The dominant tradition for the manufacture of solid rings in Europe seems to have been the punching method. Also for antiquity most evidence points to this technique. The solid rings from Sörup remind us that despite the dominance of the punched production method, the alternative of welding was also practiced. |
Martijn A. Wijnhoven, European Mail Armour: Ringed Battle Shirts from the Iron Age, Roman Period and Early Middle Ages, Amsterdam University Press 2022, p201. The reference to 'solid rings from Sörup' is a find of mail fragments from ca 50-150AD in a burial site in northern Germany, see p.403 for details.
HEMA fencer and coach, New Cross Historical Fencing
Last edited by T. Kew on Wed 15 Mar, 2023 12:37 am; edited 1 time in total
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Tue 14 Mar, 2023 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Parker D. wrote: | | I think were talking about two different "full rings", the ones I think your referring to are "half wire rings", and even that comes in different derivatives. Especially since you mentioned punching plate, I never considered that "full ring" and full ring is a modern invention (generally speaking), and thats the point I was making too, you would just make riveted mail over "full ring" and of course you would have to weld all of them, but I think were talking about two different methods of weld too. But in terms of maille in general, there are actually several reasons as to why one would not got riveted. Riveted is expensive theres no getting around it, it takes more material which was important historically, and its heavier. I've seen a lot of half ring maille to riveted but again just depends, half ring is so much easier to make and its lighter, but its much less protective in my opinion. But of course titanium riveted maille solves that problem but thats not exactly historical either. Generally speaking when I see people making maille its some form of half wire, whether thats punched plate or through the wire method. I'm more familiar with the wire method so can't speak for that, but. And I am saying rings breaking because of the solder not exactly at the point from which the ring was soldered, I was saying thats the weakest point, "the weakest point in the chain". Its an interesting topic for sure. |
Some solid rings were welded but it was rare. They were mainly used in "theta-mail", where the solid links had a bar across the diameter. In regular mail the solid links were primarily punched from plate. Mail was made like this from the Roman period through to the Renaissance
It would be good to read this first so that we are all on the same page and using the same terms.
http://myArmoury.com/feature_mail.html
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
Last edited by Dan Howard on Thu 16 Mar, 2023 12:29 am; edited 1 time in total
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Martin Kallander
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| Posted: Wed 15 Mar, 2023 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Dan Howard"] | Parker D. wrote: | | The only historical mail that was welded was "theta-mail", where the solid links had a bar across the diameter. |
Why weren't those punched?
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 16 Mar, 2023 12:23 am Post subject: |
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| Martin Kallander wrote: | | Why weren't those punched? |
Some were punched, some were welded. The "Mail Unchained" article, linked above, discusses them.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Graham Shearlaw
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| Posted: Fri 17 Mar, 2023 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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One issue is there less processing, drawing wire makes sure that its free from slag inclusions or metal delamination.
A second minor befit is that you might be able to stamp out the ring and imprint a design or text in one operation.
But mail with that kind of decoration is quite rare, a single cast ring is more common as guild or armoury marks.
| Sean Manning wrote: | | Martin Kallander wrote: | | alternating solid maille gets a lot of praise as being stronger and faster to produce since it has fewer rivets than fully riveted maille. historically fully riveted maille was very common however, so why was that? What are the reasons you would not want maille with solid rings? |
The impression I get from books and articles by medievalists is that as iron goods got drastically cheaper, there stopped being a market for the 'cheap version' of mail (half-riveted) in western Europe. Sometimes things fall out of use because they are cheaper. But that is just a guess! |
Mail certainly was replaced quickly from armour where it could be, for both an economic reasons and weight savings.
A coat of plates with separate mail sleeves, collars and skirts was often cheaper then a mail shirt.
Here's some numbers from Armour in England, 1325–99 , Thom Richardson, Journal of Medieval History 37 (2011) 304–320
A mail shirt was on average 25s but a cheap coat of plates 13s. 4d.
Pairs of mail chausses were 6s, pairs of sleeves, pisanes (either mail skirts or mail trunks) and aventails were 3s. 4d.;
So by skipping the whole shirt you could save a considerable sum or get greater coverage.
That is before we get into any protective advantages of a coat of plates over mail.
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Len Parker
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| Posted: Mon 20 Mar, 2023 3:35 am Post subject: |
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I believe the Kazazova and Wenceslaus shirts have welded solids.
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Martin Kallander
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| Posted: Mon 20 Mar, 2023 11:05 am Post subject: |
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| Len Parker wrote: | | I believe the Kazazova and Wenceslaus shirts have welded solids. |
I looked up Wenceslaus and is this really his mail? I did not know they had separate collars in germany at the time
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Len Parker
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Len Parker
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Parker D.
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| Posted: Mon 20 Mar, 2023 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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I found the most interesting ones to be from the crusades. There are a few examples but most are just fragments.
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Len Parker
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| Posted: Tue 21 Mar, 2023 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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The coppergate helmet has welded solids.
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