Gallery - Ironskin

Armored Sassanid Horse Archer Both the Sassanid E

Armored Sassanid Horse Archer

Both the Sassanid Empire and the Byzantine Empire were using highly trained armored horse archers the Iberian war from 526 to 532 CE. These mobile troops would shoot their arrows into an enemy to break up their formation from a distance. Such units were riding over the battlefields of Callinicum when the Byzantine forces could push back their enemy to modern Syria.

Does it also make you think of the old game mount-and-blade warband?

Picture from byzantinemilitary_blogspot_com.

Set of armor from the 1400s This is mainly from t

Set of armor from the 1400s

This is mainly from the fortress Chalcis which used to be in the hands of Venice until the Turks took it in 1470. The set got combined to represent the style worn about 1400, because there was no complete set of that time. Hence instead of a breast plate we see an early form of brigandine in red velvet. It was a time when a lot of plate has already been added on top of mail armor. Most of this set of armor is restored. Only parts at the left thigh, the right lower leg and the helmet visor are genuine. Even the red velvet was added in the 20th century.

Regarding the mail, the rings as all partially flattened and riveted. There are beautiful decorative triangular fringes of both brass rings at the collar and iron rings at the hem of the shirt.

This is Nr. 29.154.3 from The Metropolitan Museum New York.

Indian Mail Vest with 4.5mm rings This is a vest

Indian Mail Vest with 4.5mm rings

This is a vest of very small butted rings. The diamond shape pattern in the mail is made of gold plated rings. In Indian culture this pattern is said to resemble the dark waters of the Jamna river and the muddy water of the Ganges river. The fabric collar is probably a later addition.

This was sold at an auction by Mandarin Mansion Antiques. Pictures an info from their website mandarinmanison_com.

My humble nose in a little too wide hauberk Let's

My humble nose in a little too wide hauberk

Let's use this little preview of my current project to talk about coifs: Everyone in the reenactment scene has likely seen this type of coif in period artwork. Now can we come up with a practical name to call this? How do we tell them apart from say coifs with ventail?

Some more explanation: There is a lace running all around the face opening (I stuffed it under the mail next to my eye). Another lace fixes the mail around the neck. When both are open, it's possible to get the head through the face opening and pull the coif back like a hoodie.

How would you name this?

6mm Mail Mask: When you see closely tailored mail

6mm Mail Mask:

When you see closely tailored mail chances are that you get a mainly satisfying impression. What you don't see are the many changes and the fumbling that leads there. I remember working on this beast from summer this year: The chin is mainly shaped like a rectangular block protruding from the throat. But there are always some edges that need to be rounded and some seams that need to be put on tension. Mail is so different from fabric - that is in a beautiful and exciting, yet sometimes nerve-wrecking way.

St. Maurice: a 13th-century statue brought back to

St. Maurice: a 13th-century statue brought back to live:

St. Maurice was said to be the leader of the legendary Roman Theban legion. He refused to attack Christians and thus he became a martyr and saint.

People in 13th-century Germany worshipped St. Maurice and funded a statue that portrays him with black skin, wearing the period armor of a knight from 1240 to 1250.

Just recently the Cathedral Museum of Magdeburg, Germany installed a reconstruction that gives us an idea of the original colorful painting. They could gather that information from traces of color on the surface.

Not every aspect of the statue must be interpreted as actual 13th-century reality. For example the chainmail pattern orientation on the torso and coif is very uncommon. Also in my opinion the gilding seems to be reserved for artwork - not for actual mail armor. Nevertheless @tobiasbleckert with the help of Isak Krogh created a fully functional armor of similar design.

The armor worn on top of the mail is likely a coat of plates (metal and/or leather) as it gained in popularity from 1200 to the end of the century.

Sources: Left: Mar Yung on commons_wikimedia. Middle: Photographed and kindly provided by @paul.schd. Right: By @tobiasbleckert respectively Isak Krogh.

16th Century Mail Harness This Maximilian era arm

16th Century Mail Harness

This Maximilian era armor has particulary uncommon rings. The rings are about 10 to 12mm big and they show a spike facing inwards. At first it reminded me of some Indian rings that have an entire bar of wire through the middle. They look like the Greek letter theta θ. Yet here the spike is short and there are no traces on the opposite site. We can assume that the rings have experienced a lot of friction through the ages. Thus the original shape wouldn't have looked as smooth and perhaps not as spiky. It seems to me that the spike is formed by the rings material, not the rivets material - but it's hard to tell that.
Now the question is how and why did the craftsmen create this ring shape?

Thank you at @kunert who kindly provided the pictures. The armor is exhibited in the Castle Museum in Würzburg, southern Germany @museum_franken.

Triple rivets! Why is that? We're lookig at a mai

Triple rivets! Why is that?

We're lookig at a mail garment that is exhibited in the Beijing Military Museum. I have shown you double rivets before, but this is new to me. Double rivets usually are made with a U-shaped piece of wire. This one here seems to be made with three individual rivets as you can tell by an empty rivet hole. Also note the wedge rivets, that have been used to fix the slit.

With wedge rivets, double rivets and there like comes a litte benefit: They stop any rotation around the rivet when a ring is deformed. This helps to keep the rivet in place. Yet tripple rivets seems to be over the top. Was there a reason behind this other than beeing fancy?

Photo shared by 柠檬红茶雪糕 via pinterest. Thank you @funkmachine7 for showing this to me! And here is your puzzle @c.r.tunila. Only I don't know tha answer either.

On a quest to make 'medieval' wire: Making wire a

On a quest to make 'medieval' wire:

Making wire almost takes as much effort as making riveted rings: Forging iron into a rod, reheating, reshaping, gradually forming the rod smaller and thinner. Then the drawplate comes to action: pulling the wire through smaller and smaller holes and heating (softening) it inbetween.

Why am I doing this? I want to experiment with wire that is more like wire from the past: with wrought iron instead of mild steel, with slag inclusions and surface impurities. Along the way I'm also building the tools myself. The drawplate is especially challenging, because it needs tiny holes in decreasing diameters and I can't drill them (not a period method). Instead I drift the holes with a punch and fine tune the diameter by pulling wire through. Haven't quite mastered it yet.

What do you know about making wire? Any thought welcome!

Knight of the Teutonic Order, 13th-Century: The T

Knight of the Teutonic Order, 13th-Century:

The Teutonic order started out in 1192 as a crusading catholic military order formed by mainly Germanic members for the protection of Christians in the Holy Land. After the defeat in the middle east, they violently enforced their belief in today's Rumania and later in north Eastern Europe around the Baltic sea. The order still exists today, yet in a more peaceful manner awarding knighthoods and perform charitable work.

This a shoutout to Sam from @TeutonicPenguin. You see him with all his homemade equipment and he did a quality job as I find. Check out TeutonicPenguin on YouTube to find a video with him putting on this armor. Furthermore thank you to @mikkjall.rikrson, for helping me keep track of all things mail and reenactment.

Meet Paul the Battle-Marten When my friends moved

Meet Paul the Battle-Marten

When my friends moved into a new flat, they found this stuffed marten left behind. We decided to build a suit of mail to help him on his mission to become the world's most famous battle-marten. Paul shall be feared amongst his enemies and honored amongst his fellows.

We are thinking about auctioning him for a good cause. Should we? Thank you @robinnn_scherbatsky and @felixkalkowski for initiating this.

Full hauberk with side ventail ... wait a minute..

Full hauberk with side ventail ... wait a minute...

This is one of the models for a new mod of the popular medieval/fantasy- game Mount and Blade Bannerlord. That mod is called "In the Name of Jerusalem II" and it's created by a bunch of game designers by the name "Team Century". They undertake the noble effort to bring more historical accuracy into the game, supported by the reenactment community.

Now I'm pretty hyped about this and I love the textures and models. There are a few things I would do differently, but I don't want to spoil the great job lamenting about the details. This is the time to check what you have learned about mail: Do you see what I might want to improve?

Picture by Ellis Chou, originally shared in the Facebook Group "XI & XII Century European Armor". Link to the mod:
www_moddb_com/mods/in-the-name-of-jerusalem-ii

Foot covered in mail: find and reconstruction Fro

Foot covered in mail: find and reconstruction

From the bones still inside, we can tell that this is a left foot covered in mail. The rings are 5 to 7mm in diameter. The lower end of the mail was sewn to a sole and there were also traces of textile showing inside. Perhaps this is a fragment of long mail chausses.

To be honest: I can't fully reconstruct the pattern from the picture, yet I expect it too look like the example below. Later sculptures and finds of mail chausses point that direction.

This is from the Kyulevcha village find in Shumen district, Bulgaria. The suggested dating is 9th-century. Top picture and info are from the paper "Pagan Bulgaria - Power and Society". Lower picture by me. Thank you @rule.303 for showing me this.

13th century Baptism Pot from Hildesheim, Germany

13th century Baptism Pot from
Hildesheim, Germany

Recently I had the chance to meet this medieval artwork in person. It shows the flat (leather) side of the mail chausses and gives a rough idea about the construction of the coif with a lace around the face. Interestingly the figure in the back shows a different pattern orientation of the mail sleeves.

Just sharing with you a work in progress and the j

Just sharing with you a work in progress and the joy of first snow in Germany! ❄️

These are finger-free gloves as interpreted from 12th-century depictions. Why is the inside of the wrist uncovered by mail? There will be laces that pull the mail together.

Did you get snow yet?

Fake or real: Early great helmet from Poland This

Fake or real: Early great helmet from Poland

This helmet is said to be found just recently near Wyszkowa in Poland. It was suggested to be from 13th to 15th century. For me it's rather early 13th-century. The mail is of a dense and heavy type and it's clearly riveted. I've never seen mail used as an aventail on a helmet like this. Furthermore I find it a bit strange that the mail is hanging like a curtain, not connected to the front plate. Also I can't spot rivets, where they would usually connect the helmet plates. Is it a modern reenactors helmet that endet up in the wrong place? The mail looks quite authentic though as far as one can see that.

The helmet is now renovated and studied and futher archaeological research is conducted at the site of the discovery. I will follow this and keep you updated when there is more to know!

The pictures of the helmet were shared by Rafal Grzeda via his Facebook page. I got notice of it by @MustonenPeter. Check out his account! I'm sure you like it.

Mail bevor with kettle helmet, mail making tools a

Mail bevor with kettle helmet, mail making tools and other works of @matth_iaszimmermann

You can't imagine how deep my jaw was dropping when I recently saw some works of Matthias Zimmerman. Over the last 25 years, he has tackled a lot of mail projects - mainly for the 15th-century which he is reenacting.

He had the chance to restore a few original pieces from private collectors and with that fellow countryman, Matthias gained an admirable skill-level in making rings. Especially outstanding are the iconic watershed-shapes of late medieval mail. That is where the overlapping area of the ring is forming a little roof around the rivet.

Noteworthy is also his version of a mail bevor. It is attached to the leather lining of the kettle helmet. Independently of Matthias, I and others were doing versions that are worn separately with a textile suspension on top of the head.

If you didn't feel the enthusiasm between the lines yet, I can warmly recommend you to follow @matth_iaszimmermann.

Fine mailshirt, possibly German 1500 This mail sh

Fine mailshirt, possibly German 1500

This mail shirt was sold for 10.000 Euro at a German auction back in 2010. It is 85cm long and weighs 10.1kg. The wire of the rings is more oval than round with 0.9mm respectivel 1.2mm wire crossections. Calculating with the weight of single rings there must be about 47.000 rings in the shirt.

There is a point that small rings like these serve better for celebration and representary purpose than fighting. That is because thinner wire can get deformed more easily on the field. Bigger rings with stronger wire are more sturdy regarding the daily wear and tear.

Pictures and info by Swordfish on vikingsword_com forum. This apparently German user used to be the owner of the shirt and has an imense knowledge of arms and armor. I'd be super happy to reach out if somebody can help me establish contact.

6mm Mail Collar explained: When you connect mail

6mm Mail Collar explained:

When you connect mail parts, you typically use certain specific angles. 45° is a very practical angle for a smooth seam. You need 8 of those 45° seams to create a full 360°-circle. Yet 6 can already be enough for a collar because what you need is rather a cone than a circle.

In any way, the line in the front counts double because two 45°-edges meet. The shoulders have triangular pieces inserted that bring 4 more seams in total. And the last two seams are located near the gap.

This is my recent most recent work. It is amongst others inspired by a 15th- century mail collar from Nuremberg (Item IE29 in the collection of Veste Coburg). The new owner will add a textile liner around the neck to stiffen the standing part and to make it more comfortable.

Would you feel satisfied with the length or rather have it shorter/longer?

Fully Laced Mail Chausses It's a thing that we do

Fully Laced Mail Chausses

It's a thing that we don't get to see that often amongst reenactors. Yes it does take time to put them on, but in case of doubt they fit better and weigh less than fully enclosed tube-like mail chausses.

I have the impression that these laced chausses were popular earlier than the tube-like mail chausses. There are also artworks showing knights with only their left foot clad in mail. That is the side were you - while fighting from horseback - would expect most danger.

Picture by One lucky guy on Flicker. That's his actual nick name.

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