Chain Mail

[schley]

Hi all

I have just finished watching a BBC Documentary on guys soldiering as Romans on Hadrians Wall in reproduction costume with mail lorica etc! You could see the rust developing on the mail as the programme went on and the Scutums were becoming waterlogged every time they were rested on the ground! Brilliant stuff but it got me wondering!

I have over the years tried different finishes on chain mail from really dark to really bright to washed out with rust and other stains! Which I might add I was criticised for as being too rusty!

I have looked at the amount of chain mail suits of armour and edged weapons that have survived the centuries and they are many! Some with barely any rust at all but more modern reproductions seem to suffer from rusting once they are exposed to the air at all never mind water!

Now here is the question did pre atomic iron have different rust resistant properties to current steel or iron products!

Any help or info out there??

I look forward to the replies

John

 

[Sambaman]

John, I have no idea! You might pose this question over on the MedRom forum though. Those guys over there are pure genius when it comes to this stuff and they may have some better insignt for you. Good luck!

Jay H.
OKC

 

[schley]

Jay

thanks do you have a link for medrom please?

John

 

[Jeff]

Chain mail does rust. So showing it rusty is just fine. Many things were used to stop the rust. One of a squires jobs was to roll barrels full of sand around with chain mail inside to get rid of the rust.

 

[Guy]

Below is a link to Med Rom forum

http://forums.delphiforums.com/medrenfig/start

 

[vergilius]

Very interesting subject !

 

[Sambaman]

Guy thanks for the link! I have just now had time to get back here.

John, good luck.

Jeff, REALLY interesting fact about squires. I can just see a squire pulling chain mail out of a barrel and examining it for rust! (Hint, Hint all you sculptors out there!) VERY interesting indeed.

Jay H.
OKC

 

[gorgosaurus]

Mail made bfore the invention of stainless steel was very prone to rusting, Jon.
The same goes for lorica segmentata, helmets and shield bosses.
In fact all iron and "steel" implements (incredibly many variations in carbon content of weapons and armour before modern industrial technology).

Oiling helps but little. Blackening by burning oil on surfaces helps also, but little again.

I´ve done the barrel of sand job and it works. No fun doing it every day though and campaign and parade armour must have looked very different.

Spike.

 

[Dr Bison]

Marcus Junkelmann says...

Hi there,

In 1985 the experimental archaeologist Marcus Junkelmann undertook a 540 km march over the Alps in reconstructed Roman gear with a group of like-minded men. In his book "Die Legionen des Augustus" he relates how they feared before they set off for their march that their loricae hamata would rust in no time at all. But in the end it turned out that their worries were unfounded, as long as they kept moving - the rings of the mail coats were rubbing against each other, thus scraping off the rust immediately. And the photos in the book show mail coats that are neither bright and shining nor rusty and stained, but an honest dark burnished metal colour.
Of course, it's a completely different story with segmented armour, helmets and other metal surfaces.....

Hope this helps

Cheers
Karl

 

[Jeff]

Well one thing that happens is that the metal reaches a state were the surface rust can form a coating that protects the underlaying metal and it stops rusting. Any one who shoots black powder should be aware of the browning process. Oil was used and so was paint. We do not have a lot of original armor with the paint still on it, but we know form records that it was pretty common. There is also a process were the metal is left black from the forge and this helps to keep it form rusting as well. There were some forms of bluing as well. I do not know the what was used for this but some armor still have traces of this kind of protective coating.

I have read that some mail was painted or blackened so it did not need to be polished. Some say that robber knights did this and it were the term blackmail came from. I am guessing that nobles felt like they were being cheated buy paying a ransom to someone who was not also a noble.

Having worn armor I can say that helmets get flash rust at the first bit of moisture. After getting this flash rust it starts to get a coating that makes it rust less same with mail. The metal gets a little darker every time this happens. The only thing that would make it bright again is taking quite a few layers of metal off. Bees wax seems to really help and I am pretty sue it was used to help protect helmets and armor. Lamp black is something your hear about. I am not sure what it was mixed with but again you got a black coating.

 

[gorgosaurus]

Junckelmann was like a demi-god to the Museum Director at the Iron Age Park where I worked for almost 3 years.
However, in our experience simply wearing mail 8 hours a day whilst marching around, exercising or shooting an onager wasn´t enough to keep it rust free. Only some surfaces of the rings abrade agaibnst each other and they are the least visible.
Shiny new mail soon turned a dull gey with slight brown tinge.

Thanks for the "blackmail" anecdote, Jeff, I´d forgotten that one.
We used to coat our mail and other iron implements with a protective carbonised layer by burning linseed oil onto the surface. This blackening can last quite a while.

As for painted helmets and armour, all the examples I´ve seen are late medieval. Any one know of Roman and early medieval paint technology? They didn´t have oil paints like the ones we use today, but mixing pigments with linseed oil is quite an old technique - don´t know if it sticks to metal though. And what about a primer?

Spike.

Spike.e brynja I wore at the Vikingecenter

 

[schley]

Spike, Karl, Jeff,Jay, Guy, Liam & Friends

Thanks all for your input it was most helpful and I have learned a lot on this subject Now to put it into practice!!! I will probably do 2 mailed figures back to back just to try out the techniques!

I was delighted to see the explanation of Blackmail that was a surprise for me, Rolling in barrels of salt now I know what squires were really used for!

Thanks again guys

John

 

[Jeff]

"I was delighted to see the explanation of Blackmail that was a surprise for me, Rolling in barrels of salt now I know what squires were really used for!"

It was not salt it was sand. Salt would have the exact opposite effect. Squires did all kinds of character building labor for knights. Rolling the barrels of sand around would serve two purposes one to get the mail clean and two to make the squires stronger. After rolling them around they would have to brush out the sand and oil the mail or apply some form of protection to it. The fact that mail gets rusty were you do not see it is very true. The arm pit area always rusts and the shoulders can also get pretty rusty. The area over your stomach also gets rusty and this happened when I was a skinny kid and had no gut to speak of. Any where the mail is subjected to your sweat. Or were it does not move a lot. I should look for some photos of padded coats we have worn under mail to show you the areas that get rusty.

The sources I have for painting are late medieval and renaissance sources. You do seem to see knights wearing armor that has been colored in some way in tournament art form earlier periods. How this was done in an earlier time I do not know. They did have cloth covers for some pieces. But it does appear to be painted in some illustrations.

The term Black mail may have come from the Scottish borders. There is more then one historian that has put this theory forward. If you know anything about this area of the world in the medieval and renaissance periods it does seem a likely source. That area of the world being pretty wet is also some place that would develop or use any form of rust prevention proven to imped rust seems likely as well. Mail seems to have been favored in this area of the world. It was quite common in the borders. Most Borders used light flexible forms of armor. Jacks and brigandine also being popular. And now you have way more information then you need.

 

[schley]

Hi Jeff

Thanks for that, I dont think you can ever have too much info on any subject and I appreciate any help from all quarters!

John