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Step 2Making rings
Ok, so making rings for riveted maille is almost exactly the same as it is for butted maille. The only 2 differences are that you can use thinner wire, and you need to cut them with an overlap.
In this case I'm using 16ga. tie wire. you can usually find this stuff pretty cheap in most hardware stores. You're looking for the black stuff that leaves black crud on your hands as it is not galvanized and is already annealed.
My mandrel is an old roller from a garage door and is about half way between 3/8" and 1/2" I couldn't tell you exactly what size that it is but the rings look about right for the larger rings that seem to be common with near eastern armour.
Anyways, just wind your coil like you would for any other maille, then cut them with your freshly modded side cutters. You'll want to leave 3/16" to 1/4" of overlap.
Once you've got your rings all cut it's time to normalize them. This step isn't strictly necessary, but I
find it does help a bit. I get about 10% less bunk rings in the flattening stage if I normalize them first.
To normalize them I string them onto a loop of wire, then heat them up red hot and let them cool to room temperature. I'd heard you can do this on a gas stove, but my stove was taking too long. I prefer to use a blowtorch. Alternately I'm sure a BBQ would work wonders, or a fireplace.
Lastly, do not hold the wire with your fingers while you are blow torching the rings, it is a bad idea. Also, do not put the recently red hot rings onto anything flammable while they are cooling, it is also a bad idea.
In this case I'm using 16ga. tie wire. you can usually find this stuff pretty cheap in most hardware stores. You're looking for the black stuff that leaves black crud on your hands as it is not galvanized and is already annealed.
My mandrel is an old roller from a garage door and is about half way between 3/8" and 1/2" I couldn't tell you exactly what size that it is but the rings look about right for the larger rings that seem to be common with near eastern armour.
Anyways, just wind your coil like you would for any other maille, then cut them with your freshly modded side cutters. You'll want to leave 3/16" to 1/4" of overlap.
Once you've got your rings all cut it's time to normalize them. This step isn't strictly necessary, but I
find it does help a bit. I get about 10% less bunk rings in the flattening stage if I normalize them first.
To normalize them I string them onto a loop of wire, then heat them up red hot and let them cool to room temperature. I'd heard you can do this on a gas stove, but my stove was taking too long. I prefer to use a blowtorch. Alternately I'm sure a BBQ would work wonders, or a fireplace.
Lastly, do not hold the wire with your fingers while you are blow torching the rings, it is a bad idea. Also, do not put the recently red hot rings onto anything flammable while they are cooling, it is also a bad idea.
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The only problem with galvanized wire is that to normalize the rings you heat them hot enough to burn the galvanizing off. burning the galvanization causes it to belch out zinc fumes, and that'll give you a bit of heavy metal poisoning (zink fume fever in this case). Now, even though heavy metal poisoning is about as cool as poisoning can get it isn't much fun. In the case of Zinc fume fever your looking at some nasty flue like symptoms for a day or 2.