Amazon Maille

[Sir Matthew]

Anyone know anything about this Maille http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FChain-Haulberk-Shirt-Knight-Armor%2Fdp%2FB005LLSCAS%2Fref%3Dcm_cr_pr_pb_i&h=qAQEYi3UK. A freind of mine asked me about it, he's thinking of picking it up as cheap startere Maille. I'm a bit leary because of the price and it coming off Amazon. Thought I would check here to see what consesus was.

[B. Patricius]

I'd avoid it like the plague personally.  But then again, I'm crazy and making my own.  It definitely looks to be galvanized at least in the picture, if that even is the maille being shipped in the picture... and on that note, it's mighty hard to have galvanized riveted maille, meaning it's butted. 

My first impression was a cringe as soon as I saw "SCA" and the other keywords in the top and then: "Although this medieval merchandise would make a great piece for your medieval armor collection, this is strictly for decoration only!" as a disclaimer basically.

My personal opinion, I enjoy making maille, be it riveted or butted.  Right now I'm doing some in butted just because I have the resources easily accessible.  It doesn't take "too long" but again that's all in the eye of the beholder/purchaser.  The journey for me is far more gratifying than just purchasing stuff from vendors online.

YIS
B. Patricius

[Sir James A]

I'd avoid it just based on what it did to that guy's face, from putting the mail on.

It's not a terrible price, though certainly butted, but if you have the patience to tailor it, it shouldn't be too bad.

[B. Patricius]

I'd avoid it just based on what it did to that guy's face, from putting the mail on.

It's not a terrible price, though certainly butted, but if you have the patience to tailor it, it shouldn't be too bad.

LOL about the face 

I hate tailoring mail, it drives me bonkers personally.  So I just go from scratch, but that is just me.  I'm not crazy though, contrary to popular opinion about my mailwork, my mom had me tested 

[Sir Edward]

I was going to ask if the $70 price tag includes the creepy smiley face.

[Sir William]

Not to mention the bingo wings...butted's out unless you're making it yourself.

[Sir Ulrich]

Thats cheap but butted maille is lacking in quality, especially with those bingo wings. I think Leganoth bought the same hauberk, cause it came with a coif as well and he got his stuff off of amazon.

[B. Patricius]

Sir Ulrich, I personally have found plenty of butted mail that was of a better quality than some of the imported riveted mail out there.  It all depends on the craftsman and if they care or not.  But I think that's what everything really comes down to.

[Sir Ulrich]

I usually go after the wedge riveted maille due to the rivets being less likely to fall out as well as having a flat inside, that means it wont scratch you or shred your gambeson as you take it on and off. Of course that problem can be remedied easily by having a canvas gambeson or splitting the hauberk to be a lace on like James Anderson's hauberk, mine however is made of linen so I needed to fix that issue.
Butted maille is easier on the arming clothes only issue is it comes apart if you pull it too much, usually starting with the armpits, but high tinsel steel has less of that problem. But I've seen some pretty crappy looking riveted maille online before like the GDFB round ring round riveted stuff, but I have sworn off butted maille mainly due to the weight involved as well as it coming apart with "maille moths" as people call them. Then again ever since looking at pics of museum examples and actually owning a piece of Erik D Schmid's maille I find it hard to like butted maille mainly due to the fact I like my armor to be functional.
I will say european outfitters often make better quality stuff, at least in my experience, my maille chausses I ordered from Germany were rather high quality and were missing NO rings or rivets. But you will have high shipping prices, only reason I could afford mine was it was something small and not that heavy.

[B. Patricius]

Fair enough Sir Ulrich.  I eventually will upgrade to full riveted mail.  As of right now, I'm making 16ga 5/16" butted.  And that, combined with all the rest will still weigh less than what I'm used to before I got into medieval kits.  My riveted will be realistically 16ga or 17ga... I have better access to 17ga in bulk in town via horses, cows, etc needing fences

I'm also going to be following this article when I upgrade http://armourarchive.org/essays/rivet_revgeorge/  I'm just not one to support or condone other people's mediocrity like what I've seen available online.  I'm that anal and I know it.  I'm also in general happier with my best than other's work if I can do it myself, even if theirs is better.  Needless to say, my next decade will be spent with pliers in my hands!

here's my primary tools, btw the mini-vice grips are essential for any long term mail-ing (sp at all? lol) they help out so much with their added grip, and I got mine 4 for a dollar on sale!

[Sir Ulrich]

I used to make butted maille out of stainless steel wire, which my dad wouldnt let me make it from galvanized cause he said it was "toxic". Little did I know it was only toxic if you HEAT IT UP and breath in the fumes. I also made it out of copper but it often came apart and was too heavy, also I used a mini bolt cutter to cut them and they didnt butt together that well and came apart. I spent hours doing it to no avail, I got tired of doing it and decided to test it against some arrows, needless to say it went right through. I still didnt know ALL maille was riveted except in japan, but looking through my old files I saw a pic of wedge riveted maille I saved as long ago as 2005. I just was more of a "rennie" in those days and didnt care much for historical accuracy. I would be quite satisfied with maille I'd make myself but that I am saving for when I have the tools to do it which I probably should invest in soon. Making butted is good practice to make riveted though also it's better to make your own butted rather than buy the hauberk, at least with making sleeves, I think Sir Edward made his own butted aluminum maille and it was bingo wing free. Bingo winged maille is really an eyesore for me to be honest, especially with the longer sleeves, on short sleeves it's not nearly as bad looking.
My riveted hauberk is 17 gauge, my old one was 18 which seemed kinda thin for me. I am not sure what gauge my chausses are but I am guessing either 17 or 18. I have never made my own rings for riveted maille, but if I ever do I plan to use iron wire rather than steel and find out a way to make it historically dome riveted, rather than the double ended indian made dome rivet. Or I will just use wedge rivets because they're easy to make and rivet and they're fairly strong and still period for the century I am doing (late 13th early 14th).
For now I will just settle for having wedge riveted with solid punched links, which my hauberk is 9.5 MM 17 gauge, and my chausses are 8MM and my coif is 7MM. Still need to get hand protection though, my gambeson has those integrated mittens which I was planning on modifying my hauberk to have added mittens with leather palms, with the gambeson's mittens acting as the padding for my hands so I don't have to sew padding to the hauberk.

[B. Patricius]

sounds fair enough Sir Ulrich.  I found quite a few sites and references for making completely period mail.  I heard the annealed rebar wire is fairly close to original in makeup.  The trick has been finding that thin enough, everything I've found in local hardware stores is about 14 gauge or so.  In the amount of time it takes, my "fakie" kit of mail I'm doing right now will take me, all of it, chausses, mittens, coif, etc about the amount of time it would take to make one leg of chausses in a period dome rivet.  So for now, my kit is getting it assembled and looking good enough as a compromise.  I know how to make period mail, I also know how long it takes, and I'm not happy with India's, or its pricetag

[Sir Ulrich]

Mind linking to some of the stuff on how to make period riveted maille? I might be interested in trying it out once I get the tools.

[Sir James A]

Of course that problem can be remedied easily by having a canvas gambeson or splitting the hauberk to be a lace on like James Anderson's hauberk

Yes, it does help reduce the snagging while getting the mail off and on. The primary benefit of it is that it lets you put it on and off like a jacket, so you don't have to do the "mail dance" or have it bunching up on you as you pull it on overhead. I have a haubergeon split in front, and one that isn't, so it's easy to make direct comparisons on. I have a thread on here about leather edging the mail for ties once it's split, the pictures are outdated and from my hauberk, I did a haubergeon recently that I think is a better job, but the process is pretty much the same, I just used waxed linen thread instead of shoe laces.

[B. Patricius]

Mind linking to some of the stuff on how to make period riveted maille? I might be interested in trying it out once I get the tools.

So as not to hijack this thread, I'm starting a new one on recreating period riveted mail:
http://modernchivalry.org/forum/index.php/topic,2475.0.html

Sir James, any chance can you link your leather edging post to my thread I started up above? that'd be great!