Is anyone edging their maille in leather? Adding ties over key locations? Is it as good as advertised?
Yep, I'm happy with it from the "house testing" so far. I'll post some pics of mine tonight or tomorrow.
I leather edged the bottom & split of the hauberk (as pictured in the Bayeaux tapestry), the top of my fauld, the top of my chausses (to make pointing easy and keep the points from fraying on the steel rings), and I've also been toying with the idea of doing edging on the voiders.
As for ties, I need to order some buckles for my soupcan knees and elbows. The buckles on those, tightened up, should be almost like ties. I often see mention of ties at the knees and elbows - less often at the wrists, but I'd wager it's since (some? most? many?) hauberks had integral mittens and the lower sleeve would be kept in place by the hands. One exception I know of is a picture where a knight in mail is kneeling (I think?) to remove an arrow from himself and is untying his mitten - I can't remember if it's period or not; I'm leaning towards not, though.
One thing I read somewhere that made a substantial difference with a hauberk is once you get the hauberk on, lift your arms above your head and have someone tie a cord (or a small belt) around your waist. When you lower your arms, the slack in the upper mail will "flop" over the belt a bit - but the lower half should stay in place. The benefit is that now when you lift or move your arms, the mail will not try to pull or stretch against your sword belt, as long as your sword belt is at or below where the cord/inner belt is. And as a bonus, you aren't attempting to "lift the weight" of the hauberk along with your arm so you fatigue much less, as well as having the weight partially distributed on your hips/waist instead of all riding on your shoulders.
