Making Mail Armour
Armour made of connected metal rings was popular from pre Roman times to well into the late middle ages. Chain Mail as it is (incorrectly) generally known, was not as effective as iron plate armour, but certainly offered a better degree of protection than nothing at all while still allowing a good degree of mobility.
In Europe almost all chain mail (also sometimes written as 'chain maille') was made using a 'four in one' pattern. Each ring was connected to four others to produce a strong but relatively lightweight mesh which was excellent at stopping cutting blows from swords and axes and reasonably effective at deflecting spearpoints and arrows.
We have all seen pictures of chainmail, but there is no better route to understanding this form of armour than making some for yourself. This is reconstructive archaeology folks.
Iron wire is the basic material from which maille armour was created. However if this is hard to aquire then steel, copper or aluminum wire will suffice to both appreciate the techniques of chain mail manufacture and produce something that will impress everyone who sees it. A trip to the local DIY store. Then with just a little practice you could make yourself a coif (head protector) or a hauberk (a chain shirt).
Wire is not particularly expensive. My first coif cost about £15 for the wire, and I could have halved that cost by buying the wire online.
So to get started, we need to make the rings themselves. These are easily done by wrapping a length of wire around a short steel bar and then cutting off rings with a pair of aviation snips or sawing down the length of the bar with a hacksaw. In the video below I only made a few coils, but when you are doing it, you can make many more rings at once by coiling longer lengths of wire. Drilling a small hole near the end of the steel barhelps to hold the end of the wire in place as you turn it. A handle at the other end (a few dozen wraps of masking tape will do) will help ease the pressure on your wrist. Later you may decide to make a more complex tool for wrapping coils, but this basic setup is really all you need. The diameter of the steel rod is about the same as the diameter of a bic biro. Archaeological examples of chain mail show us that there was no universal fixed size. Some had bigger rings, some had smaller, so approximately 8-12mm is about average.
The pieces are easily manipulated with pliers. Pick one up and close the ends to make a circle. Now do another three so you have four closed circles. Hang all four onto one opened ring and then close it. You now have a 4 in 1 section. This is the commonest european pattern although 6 in 1 and 8 in 1 are both possible.
The entire armour is made from these units joined together. Close two more rings and hang them onto an open ring. now hang two of the rings from your first 4 in one onto that open right and close it too. You should now have the 8 ring arrangement shown below.
Now repeat the last step, adding two new closed rings and two rings from finished piece to a new open ring. in this way the chain will extend to the left or right depending on which side you are adding your rings. The key thing to remember is that the rings A, B and C are not directly attached to each other. They are attached to the row above them only.
Once the row is the length you want, it gets even easier. I suggest you get a pin board and pin the top row to the board to give you an easy working surface. From now on, simply add a ring that joins two completed rings together. Just one ring to join A and B, the next to join B and C and continue along the row. Then at the end come back to the start and work along again.