Bronze Chainmail

[Yelm's Light]

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

Just the needle nosed pliers would be the magic bit. The harder the metal the more strength required. I'm wondering who would be able to make the tools required to do this in bronze age Glorantha and who would have the time! This is clearly dwarven magic!

There's another way to do it that wouldn't take nearly as much strength, nor inventing a specialized tool, but would probably be even more time-consuming:  hammer the wire around a cylindrical form, leaving a small space between the ends, thread the mail ring, and then hammer it closed around a slightly smaller form that allowed for space for connected rings.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Yelm's Light

[David Scott]

16 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

hammer the wire

Too noisy to during a game, pliers are quiet, not sure you can even hammer them closed.

https://metalsmithing.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-chain-mail-armor-from-start-finish-0118499/

The guy in our group uses small rings.

[Yelm's Light]

I was talking about doing it in Glorantha; and I came up with a refinement:  instead of a cylinder, use a cone-shaped form like jewelers use to size rings to fingers.  You could hammer out a bunch of mail rings first, thread them one by one, slip the cone in to its furthest extent within the ring, and bang it shut.

The rings in the article look to be about a half-inch in diameter and maybe a sixteenth in wire diameter; shouldn't be much of a problem to hammer, certainly easier than using needle nose pliers, if slower.  Of course, the form would have to be sturdy enough that it wouldn't break at slightly less than a half-inch diameter where you were hammering away.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Yelm's Light

[M Helsdon]

Something entirely unofficial...

[Noita]

I thought all the smithing in Glorantha involved magic of some sort.

[David Scott]

22 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

and I came up with a refinement:  instead of a cylinder, use a cone-shaped form like jewelers use to size rings to fingers.  You could hammer out a bunch of mail rings first, thread them one by one, slip the cone in to its furthest extent within the ring, and bang it shut.

If it's a technique it's likely been adopted somewhere and refined. I'm not an expert at this, but i've not come across it. Any one out there with real mail making experience? - I'm talking hot metal and hammers here.

[David Scott]

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_mail.htm

This site is interesting as at the end they try swimming in viking mail...

[Lord High Munchkin]

On 2018-02-18 at 8:38 AM, David Scott said:

Ignoring history and looking at what we know exists, bronze mail does seem to exist - just not in the form we'd expect. It seems that it was used as decorative edging on iron mail. The material was a bronze alloy called Latten and it looks like gold - hence it's decorative role.

Mail shirt at the Wallace collection in London

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t1.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=1&sp=2&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=2

Mail standard at the Wallace collection in London

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t2.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=2&sp=2&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=3

both have it as the edging.

The consensus seems to be that the reason that bronze mail wasn't made is that it was more difficult to work with as it was brittle and that iron was much more plentiful. Why use an inferior material. I realise that Gloranthan bronze to only analogous to real bronze so there must be another reason - 

Have you ever watched someone making mail? We've a guy at our group who links mail while gaming (much like those who knit while gaming). He's buys wire (it's not iron but a softer alloy) so he's not doing the drawing process through plates or hammering it down. He wraps it round a core to get the tiny diameter required, then snips it in to rings. Then he uses pliers to bend open the ring, attaches it to the appropriate place (it's 1 to 4 mail) then bends the ring closed. It's really time consuming. This isn't even the riveted kind (I've no idea how long that would take) or the ring to scale kind (quicker as there is a scale disc in the mix).

Just the needle nosed pliers would be the magic bit. The harder the metal the more strength required. I'm wondering who would be able to make the tools required to do this in bronze age Glorantha and who would have the time! This is clearly dwarven magic!

BTW if you like swords and armour, and are visiting London - most people miss the Wallace Collection in the heart of the West end as they believe it's just paintings, cookery and fancy room with furniture. It has an excellent arms and armour collection spread through 5 galleries.

https://www.wallacecollection.org

Hmmm, latten is more correctly filed under the term "brass" - although it is all on a spectrum, as metals used were not totally pure.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Lord High Munchkin said:

Hmmm, latten is more correctly filed under the term "brass" - although it is all on a spectrum, as metals used were not totally pure.

Yes, I’m aware latten is a loose term applied to both brass (copper and zinc) and bronze ( copper and tin), it comes down to copper and more Tin or zinc as to what you call it. Although in Glorantha I’m not sure there are such purity issues and zinc and brass (equivalents) do exist.

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, Iskallor said:

I thought all the smithing in Glorantha involved magic of some sort.

Any activity does, really. All crafts have a sorcerous/alchemical component to them.

Smithing the gods' bones is a highly magical activity, due to the subject material.

I am still unclear about the non-god bone metal deposits. Are there any?

Do Gloranthans smelt and reduce metal from ores? This process of transmutation is the very real magic.

And if the metal comes from ores, do the ores in return come from corroded bones of long forgotten gods dismembered long before there was the concept of Death?

Much of the Gloranthan everyday metal is "brass" rather than bronze, the metal remains of sons or cousins of Lodril, Turos etc, molten sky metal mixed with molten earth metal, and possibly consolidated as bones at some time. Brass is less suitable for smithing swords, but is great for casting shapes in molds, mass-producing blades for spears and shorter or heavier swords.

Actual material ratios between sky metal and earth metal may vary both in brass and in bronze. Not much of our terrestrial 5% admixture of tin (or similar alloy components) to copper here. (And before anyone in the know complains, terrestrial brass is a mixture of two fixed ratio compounds of copper and zinc, a metal unknown to the makers of brass, although they could tell the ore apart from tin ore.)

[Noita]

14 hours ago, David Scott said:

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_mail.htm

This site is interesting as at the end they try swimming in viking mail...

I like the lifting of the chainmail skirts and stabbing the unprotected belly. Critical hit!