Riveted Maille Aventail

[Sir Brian]

I am sorely tempted to replace my aventail on my bascinet with a more authentic/expensive riveted aventail; however the pickings are a bit slim. Anyone have any recommendations? – Oh did I mention I want mine all flat brass riveted rings? – Just because I like to be different AND difficult.

I have a line on getting the brass rings and if I must I’ll make my own but only if I can’t buy or commission it for a reasonable price, less than $300.00

[Sir James A]

I haven't seen any in brass before, but there's a few places you can get riveted brass rings (Historic Enterprises is where I got mine - Cap-A-Pie also has them). Just a heads up, the Historic Enterprises brass rings come with steel rivets and not brass; don't know why and they're so tiny you can't see, but just wanted to disclaim that.

Have you thought about a regular mild steel riveted one, painted with brass colored paint?

[Sir Brian]

I haven't seen any in brass before, but there's a few places you can get riveted brass rings (Historic Enterprises is where I got mine - Cap-A-Pie also has them). Just a heads up, the Historic Enterprises brass rings come with steel rivets and not brass; don't know why and they're so tiny you can't see, but just wanted to disclaim that.

Have you thought about a regular mild steel riveted one, painted with brass colored paint?

Hey thanks for the heads up on Cap-A-Pie! I didn’t know about them. They also have the steel rivets but do offer the brass in 6mm rings so I might go for them. 

I don’t think the paint would work since maille is self-cleaning and would likely rub off any paint. 

Then again it might be cheaper and faster if I just work with an entire sheet of maille, sure it’s welded but certainly less time consuming and reasonably priced to boot.
http://mailletec.com/node/67

[Sir Wolf]

a sheet of mail won't help you with an aventail. you need to make expanding rows to the rows will flair out and make a circle. i haven't seen a entire brass one before. just brass edges

[Sir Edward]

This doesn't help with the brass issue, but one way to do an aventail is to cut down a coif. It's mostly the same thing anyway, with the helm replacing the upper part of the coif.

It might be easier to do that and then brass-edge it with a few rows or something.

[Sir Brian]

a sheet of mail won't help you with an aventail. you need to make expanding rows to the rows will flair out and make a circle. i haven't seen a entire brass one before. just brass edges

So you don't think it would work for me to use my removed existing aventail as a rough pattern to cut away the excess links? - Makes me want to try it first on some other excess material just to prove if that is a sound theory or not. 

This doesn't help with the brass issue, but one way to do an aventail is to cut down a coif. It's mostly the same thing anyway, with the helm replacing the upper part of the coif.

It might be easier to do that and then brass-edge it with a few rows or something.

I've consider this as well and may end up doing it this way for a mild steel one with brass edges. 

[Sir Wolf]

lol no, if you look carefully at the rows on your aventail you will see some rows have an extra ring here and there. this allows the mantle to open up.

a coif will already have this expanding row. so if you cant find an aventail, get a coif and cut the top out of it. it's the same thing

[Lord Dane]

I am sorely tempted to replace my aventail on my bascinet with a more authentic/expensive riveted aventail; however the pickings are a bit slim. Anyone have any recommendations? – Oh did I mention I want mine all flat brass riveted rings? – Just because I like to be different AND difficult.

I have a line on getting the brass rings and if I must I’ll make my own but only if I can’t buy or commission it for a reasonable price, less than $300.00

Sir Brian, not sure if you are motivated to make one but brass rivoted maille rings by the 1,000 package is pretty cheap at medieval-fightclub. I bought to tailor the edging on my black ring maille.

[Sir Wolf]

oooooooooooooo dare dare dare!!!!!!!!!!!

[B. Patricius]

I am sorely tempted to replace my aventail on my bascinet with a more authentic/expensive riveted aventail; however the pickings are a bit slim. Anyone have any recommendations? – Oh did I mention I want mine all flat brass riveted rings? – Just because I like to be different AND difficult.

Sir Brian, it appears the jolly old sailor in you is showing through!  Personally, I think the brass would look EPIC on your kit, but then again I'm a bit biased as I am a jolly old sailor too and I want brass anywhere and everywhere I can! 

As Sir Wolf said, expansion rows are critical to getting a coif to lay right.  It's much the same as a cappa clausa, period liripipe hood, or any other kind of cowl.  It's basically a circle opening with a larger circle on the perimeter.  Here's a drawing of the top of a coif, with a central ring, if you just "expand" that with a neck hole instead it's much the same as an aventail or coif. 

If you were to use only a strip rectangle that was parallel and equilateral on the two longer sides and shorter sides, it would wrap around and leave a big triangle opening. I wish my camera would work so I could post pics of everything since I did that as an experiment (why not sort of way) when I was making my gallowglass coif.  For that one, the mantle ended up being four very large trapezoids, it created the "corners" seen in the effigies as well.  A standard coif, aventail, mantle has expansions basically dispersed throughout to make it fit right.



Here's a great resource I've used almost as a bible of sorts for all my mail work:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/trevor.barker/farisles/guilds/armour/mail.htm#sect4-1
also all the drawings I have posted come from his site.  Excellent resource.  Pay special attention to the "expansion" section. It's kinda confusing when you start, but makes more sense as you go.

[Sir Wolf]

i always hated the 5 triangles at the top. i always did it the other way. made the expanding rows from the very center.

[Sir James A]

Since you're doing an aventail, and not a coif, the top expanding rows don't matter. You can get some outer expansion by having the rows at the helmet pulled in tightly and leaving the bottom loose, but not a whole lot - think of it as tightening the top of a mail fauld.

I think a sheet could be very useful. What I would do is get the sheet as wide as the bottom row of links, figure out the contraction ratio you want, and then start to cut a "wedge" at even intervals around the sheet, from top to almost the bottom. Then go back and close them up as contraction rows. Instead of working "forwards" by trying expansion rows, work "backwards" with contractions.

So start with this:

------------------------------
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
------------------------------

Then kinda like this:

--  --  --  -- --  --  --  --  --
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
------------------------------

Row by row, of course, but that's the gist of it. Then you'll be closing up those wedges you cut out by passing the lower part of the link through 1 extra link than the row above it; 1 top 2 bottom, or 2 top 3 bottom.

It'll still be tedious, but not as much as doing it from scratch.

[Sir Brian]

...OR...
As a variation of your earlier suggestion Sir James, I could get a steel riveted coif/aventail and then have it brass plated locally!

[Sir Wolf]

i think we have a wiener. err winner

[B. Patricius]

...OR...
As a variation of your earlier suggestion Sir James, I could get a steel riveted coif/aventail and then have it brass plated locally!

da-da-duh! 
why hadn't we thought of that sooner!? any chance does electroplating work on something as complex as riveted mail?