Arms, Armor & Armour

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See also: Smithing; Toolmaking; Metalworking

The Apprentice Armorer's Illustrated Handbook For Making Mail A Clear Systematic Guide for the Do-It-Yourselfer : This handbook is intended to provide a simple, systematic approach for making Mail Armor. While many books describe the use of mail and may show a picture of a person wearing it, the materials and processes for making mail have not been well addressed. This handbook contains clear illustrations and lessons-learned, so that anyone who has the curiosity can indulge in a new hobby. As a hobby, making mail may be rather new, but the concept has been in use for millenia.

The Armour Archive! The Archive is an on-line Journal devoted to teaching people how to make armour. I try to gather as much armouring information as I can to help beginner armourers avoid reinventing the wheel, and to help advanced armourers grasp the finer points of armouring. The collection of essays found within this site is just one source available. The message boards on the Archive are frequented by many advanced armourers who willingly share their knowledge with newcomers to the craft. The "ESSAYS" section is a real goldmine!

M.A.I.L. Articles: M.A.I.L. started from a simple idea: artisans congregating at The Chainmaille Board would come together to create a resource for all, a place of communication, information, and tutoring. We started this resource because chainmaille had no neutral, definitive information database. Excellent database of projects and tutorials.

Beginner's Guide to Mail by Eric Slyter. So, you want to learn the craft of making mail, but don't know where to start. This article will serve as a primer for the "newbie" who is interested in learning the simplest form of mail- butted rings in the European style of 4-in-1. By "butted" I mean that the ends of the rings are simply "butted" up against one another, rather than closed via welding or riveting. Butted mail appears to be wholly inauthentic in Europe with the exception of the fragments of mail found in the Vendel-era Sutton Hoo ship-burial, now in the British Museum. Despite the obvious anachronism, the advantages of building butted mail are that the tools and materials are pretty inexpensive, and it can be done pretty much anywhere. This article will address the tools and techniques you need to get underway as quickly and cheaply as possible.

An Armourer's Basic Safety Guidelines by Eric Slyter. Armouring requires the use of a lot of tools, and as such has many inherent dangers both obvious and not. The purpose of this article is to give a brief overview of the typical hazards in an armourer's shop and the safety equipment necessary to keep you in one piece.

Building Spaulders- An exercise in basic hammerwork, finishing, and assembly by Eric Slyter. Spaulders are a popular and intelligent choice for a beginner's first plate armour experiments. They provide a valuable exercise in basic hammerwork, finishing, and assembly that can be done with relatively few tools (as plate armour goes) and with relatively little time (in terms of a first-timer's efforts). The techniques learned here can be applied to many other more complicated pieces. I will also preface this by saying that what I present here are not the only ways to arrive at the final result... these are merely the ones I have learned and found that work, and this is my attempt to make those techniques accessible to the beginner.

General Metal Working and Helmet Construction by Jason Grimes. I have just touched the surface of general metal work and helmet construction. I don't go into details, just the basics. I am trying to find a kind of general theory of armour construction that the armourers of old used to do the magical things they did. It is unfortunate that they didn't write something down about their craft, although I do believe that when armour went out of fashion, the armourers just went into other professions that still today use the same techniques. Even though I only talk about helmets in this paper, you can use the techniques for any part of a suit of armour. (see also: An Introduction to the Skill of Making Armour, and Basic Armouring- A Practical Introduction to Armour Making)

Facts and Myths About Armour Patterns by Eric Slyter. Patterns are often regarded as the key to building armour. Many times people request patterns for this helmet or that gauntlet, or even a mail shirt, but what can the pattern really tell a person about how to build armour? This article will hopefully shed some light on the answer.

Glossary of Armour Terminology by Christian H. Tobler: Fairly lengthy and informative, but there appears to be some problem with the html work-up.

Beginner's Research Guide by Eric Slyter. This article is primarily geared towards the craft of armouring, but the relevant points can be applied to any historical research. This article turned out to be far longer than I originally expected it to. Indulge me, though. If you can get through this article, you'll have no trouble doing historical research

Pikeman Armour from the First Half of the 16th Century by Jason Grimes. For convenience the article has been split into three time periods. The first will be for the years 1500 to 1520, the second for the years 1520 to 1535, and the last for years 1535 to 1550.

A Quick Guide to Making Chainmaille INCLUDES: Tools, Winding Coils, Cutting Links, and Knitting- 4 in 1 Pattern. This appears to be a developing site so be sure to go to the INDEX page and keep track of new additions.

How to Make Springs If you don't count automatic machinery, coil springs have basically been made the same way for the last 300 years. But try to learn how to do it yourself and you'll find that no one has written up "how to do it" for anyone except mechanical engineers. If you want to learn to bend wire, you have to sit at the elbow of a professional springmaker and hope he'll teach you. After 300 years, it's about time the "how-to" was made available, so here it is. Grab a six-pack, pull up a stool, and read all about how to make springs.

ChainMaille: the LORD Randolph Method: This document is intended to assist the novice chain mailer in designing and producing his own suit of armor.

Circular Logic: Tips Chris has put up a page of tips for both beginning and experienced armorers. Notes on tools, construction, and weaves. No graphics, no step by step, just tips. One of the few armorers that does the "Persian" weave. Persian weave instructions are here.

The Bladeturner Armoury (formerly The Colluphid Armory): It's back! The best mail armor pattern source on the web. The Pattern Library is housed here, with instructions on how to make a coif, hauberk, bishop's mantle, leggings, sabatons (foot coverings), vambraces and mail gauntlets, as well as work in leather and plate. These patterns are excellent but do require a bit of time to work through. The Hauberk Explorer is a great resource, pointing out interesting tidbits and pitfalls to watch when making a hauberk (or any mail shirt, for that matter). There are also a few contributed articles concerning riveted mail construction.

Phil's Riveted Mail Page: Not much in the way of construction here, but the "bedtime story" does lend a great deal of weight to the argument that butted mail is not, in fact, historically accurate. Pictures from museums, also a little blurb on tools and materials for riveted mail included.

Wire Gauge Conversion Chart at READE: A very complete table with lists comparing AWG (American wire gauge), B&S (Brown & Sharpe), and SWG (Imperial Standard Wire Gauge - British legal standard). Thanks to Keith Baker for this link.

The Chainmail Armour Home Page: Lots and lots of info on the history of mail. Pictures of medieval riveted mail. Also runs a java chat room out of here dedicated to mail.

The Ring Lord's Java Powered Calculators. These nifty calculators will tell you how many rings you need for a project based on your measurements and the ring size you choose. There's one for coifs and one for shirts (you specify the length as to what kind of shirt you want it to be).

Basic Armouring - A Practical Introduction to Armour Making by Paul Blackwell: [PDF5.8 MB] Basic Armouring may be copied and printed for personal use. It may not be distributed for profit in whole or part, or modified in any way. Electronic copies may be made for personal use. Electronic copies may not be published. The book is copyright 2002 by Paul Blackwell, and is published by Brighthelm. [SSRsi Note: They did the work, so we are hosting the pdf Onsite, saving them their bandwidth.]

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