Cheater chausses

[SirNathanQ]

Is Icefalcons blackened riveted flat ring maille dome riveted? 
Would it work with this tool here? http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=OB2361&name=Flat+Ring++Dome+Head+Riveting+Tool

Also would the 5k rings they sell cover some lower leg "cheater" chausses?
BTW, does anyone know where to buy like square feet of maille or something? riveting those, while possible, seems like a killer job 

[Sir Rodney]

The Ring Lord carries sheets and strips of welded mail, but not riveted.

[Sir William]

For the chausses I'd do the welded mail too if I could afford it...most people are looking at you from the waist up so you can cheat w/the chausses and only catch flack from the likes of us, who do look at the entire kit.  But you know we wouldn't give you any grief. 

[James Barker]

Icefalcons maille is dome riveted, I have a set of the 6mm chausses. If you want his loose rings he also sells the tool to rivet with, just email him and ask him about it.

[SirNathanQ]

Ahh, ok. So is the ringlords strips and pieces relatively historical looking? Like with a good diameter and such? Cause I don't want to have the ringmesh style transparent metal curtain thing going on....... 

BTW, how much are the tools from Icefalcon? And possibly would he sell pieces like that?

[Sir James A]

IceFalcon's rivit tool is something like $30, and it's designed specifically for his rivited mail. I have the IceFalcon tool, and the Historic Enterprises one - the HE one kinda mangled the IF rivits and didn't work at all (I have the 9mm stainless rivited).

HE pliers - http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t8/jba3/medieval/historicenterprises.jpg
IF pliers - http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t8/jba3/medieval/IceFalcon%209mm%20SS%20rivited%20rings/P1010005.jpg
** NOTE: I added the black rubber "grip" to these.

The only thing that might be plausible for a base to "cheater chausses" would maybe be the arm voiders, but at $350 for those and $495 for the full chausses, you're probably better off to buy the full chausses and cut away any part you don't want (to reuse elsewhere, of course ).

I *think* 5K rings might cover some cheater chausses for people with a smaller frame, depending how "cheater" we're talking - rear and sides of the upper leg only? Entire sides and rears, ankle to hip? I have 10K rings to get mine done, but I feel like household robots that could make them for me will become available before I get them done myself.

[SirNathanQ]

well the Cheater chausses are lower leg only, that go underneath padded ciusses. so knee down, and probably including sabatons (integrated)

[Sir Ulrich]

I bought the GDFB rings and rivets (mostly to make sabatons and mittens), personally I think most historical maille was motley looking and didn't have all the same rings and rivets. Still waiting for them to come though, I'll post pics when they do come.

[SirNathanQ]

Historically, it all depends on time and persona station.
Military Gear didn't fall off the face of the earth after it became "unfashionable"
But knights cared about how they looked. during the period in which maille was the primary armour, I think you would find maille to be relatively uniform among a single piece. But as it gets older, then you might find some variation from repair and such.

During the 14th century, however, a popular style of maille was wedge riveted/solid ring inter meshing.

[Sir Ulrich]

Yeah, I bought dome riveted rings so they should match with the others in the Icefalcon maille (even though I plan to use them for a separate piece), I may have to blacken them though. But for someone like me who's reenacting a typical foot soldier or man at arms I think fashion would matter less.

[SirNathanQ]

Oh yeah. Definatly. I thought you were referring to the actual rings themselves, and not the colour.

[Sir Ulrich]

I actually believe most maille used different sized rings for different parts of the body. Like the more vital parts used thicker rings and the smaller parts like the arms used smaller rings. I saw that on one maille standard on James Barker's site.

[SirNathanQ]

I would like to see historical examples of that.
I have seen pieces that use a different size and thickness to achieve a form or a stiffness, but not for protection. I also recall that this practice is past the age of maille in time period.
Most of the accounts I have read from the age of maille (Usama Ibn Watshisface's book of contemplations and John of Joinville & Geoffry de Impossibletospell's Chronicles of the crusades) do state that for added protection knights would sometimes wear "Double-Mail" or "Jousting Hauberks"
Honestly we have no Idea what this is actually referring to.........

[Sir Ulrich]

Personally I think double maille was probably double ringed maille(6 in one prehaps?) and jousting hauberks were thicker gauge wired maille to protect against blunt impact better than regular maille, they were just a bit heavy and took a while to get used to in combat, thus werent used for warfare nearly as much.


As you can see on this hauberk the rings around the collar are smaller than the ones protecting the body. I would assume a lot of maille actually had that, we just don't see it in period art because it's impossible to depict that way. It's also possible that there were some cheaper varieties of maille that used larger rings that would protect a bit against slashes but not stabs. Kinda like ring maille but weaved in a hauberk.

[Sir James A]

That's pretty cool, I haven't seen period mail with different sized rings before. I'd wager "jousting hauberks" or "double mail" would be a simple 8-in-2 pattern. It's exactly like the 4-in-1 pattern we're used to, but with doubled-up rings. And 4 out of every 5 rings could be cut as a "pair" and left as 2 joined together, since you only need to separate 1 out of every 5 rings to link the mail. I've also heard of the 8-in-2 as "king's mail".

I've seen a few examples of 8-in-2 style on japanese armor, but that's mostly apples to oranges. I haven't seen it on anything european. Of course, I hadn't even seen the hauberk above, so keep that in mind.