Stitching two pieces of scalemail together

[Stitching two pieces of scalemail together]

I see, well TRL and I disagree about the correct ring size for scales. Those scales were designed to work best with approx. 9/32" ID. Using 1/4" rings makes the weave slightly stronger but also much heavier, less flexible, etc.

The basic form of the seam should still work but you will need to substitute larger rings in places to keep it from bunching up.

[Stitching two pieces of scalemail together]

Are you using rings from TRL? What's the actual ID of them?

[Making armour from steel washers?]

I just put the numbers into my ring strength calculator, but the basic idea is cross sectional area of the wire multiplied by UTS of the wire.

Edit; Actually, it looks like I was wrong too. My calculator was set for square wire, for round wire it's about 215lbs. So just to double check that would be (((0.048i/2)^2)pi)120,000lb/i^2= ~217lb

[Making armour from steel washers?]

You only have to break one, but your math is still off. You're using yield strength of annealed stainless bar stock, you should be using UTS and 120Ksi is typical for commercially available rings and wire. Annealed stainless wire is still usually about 100Ksi. The finer the wire is drawn the higher the baseline numbers will be due to grain refinement of the metal.

Typically you'll get a mechanical advantage of about 2:1 for most blades that can penetrate maille armor without breaking, but the majority of modern carry knives or improvised blades will just break or blunt immediately. A good dedicated stabbing weapon would get you about 3:1, say a spear or a dagger. Weapons optimized for armor piercing can push 4:1 but you will never likely see one of those. These mechanical advantages apply against butted rings as well, so it's still going to be about two orders of magnitude or roughly 100x stronger, no matter what.

You're also wrong about crack propagation, that doesn't occur unless the wire is very hard, especially with stainless alloys. Also keep in mind that any padding or give to the armor will bleed off a large amount of force.

Historical maille armor averaged about 18g to give good protection vs spears and daggers but with modern alloys and welding 20g can be just as strong. In practice 22g is enough to defeat most attacks with a modern knife and most stab resistant armor in use today runs from 21g-24g wire depending on the application.

[Stitching two pieces of scalemail together]

I hear you, I have moderately protanomalus vision myself and it can be a real pain. If you're still having issues I can grab those pieces and mark them up with more vivid colors then reupload for you.

[Stitching two pieces of scalemail together]

Yeah, there are scales added in, they have a silver colored backside rather than the bronze color of the rest of the scales. Similarly the rings used in the seam are brass rather than stainless.

Have you downloaded the image so that you can really zoom in on the details? I find the forum gallery software to be substandard for viewing images, which is ironic since that is its only purpose.

[Stitching two pieces of scalemail together]

You should probably just stick with the pattern that I posted. To the best of my knowledge nobody outside of my factory has ever done these seams before. There might be some minor differences since I'm using welded rings with an aspect ratio of ~9 but it should still work I think.

[Making armour from steel washers?]

I just did the math really quick, it should take 275lbs of force to break open a welded 18g stainless ring.  That's probably closer to two orders of magnitude more.

[Making armour from steel washers?]

On 3/22/2019 at 5:33 AM, Rob MacLennan said:

It's been a long time since I did any materials science stuff but my gut tells me that a welded 1/4", 18 gauge stainless shirt would be more stab resistant than a butted 1/4", 16 gauge stainless shirt. not by much though. The 18 gauge piece would be infinitely more wearable, too.

It's safe to say that the welded piece would be an order of magnitude more stab resistant, all other things being equal. As a rule butted mail has very little stab resistance although it's pretty good against slashes.

[Making armour from steel washers?]

I've tested a lot of armor and I have to agree that anything that isn't welded won't be very stab resistant.  As far as cost goes, how much is your life worth? 

I would suggest that you at least call my company and get a quote on a stab resistant shirt. It'll be far better than anything you can make yourself and probably not as expensive as you think. If you do be sure to mention to whoever you speak to that I offered you the highest discount rate.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

Well there wasn't really a lot I could do in that case, the costume designers thought that they knew what they wanted and were very insistent on their "vision". Being able to have the actress in for some test fittings would possibly have helped some but the whole idea of a scale armor gown is just not practical.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

Those ones are small, it isn't built to scale. Best to just ignore the sizes and build the pieces to an appropriate measurement.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

Three is a pretty close approximation for most peoples shoulders, you could go up to four for better freedom of movement in some situations. The way these seams are constructed there shouldn't be any issues with scales sticking up, you can definitely make more flexible expansions but these are the smoothest looking that I know of.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

You're welcome. For larp you'll definitely want to fill the armpits in with maille or just leave them open. Scale armpits don't move so well. I never recommend sleeves going past the elbow either. The dress was a costume for a movie and it turned out to be cumbersome enough that the actress wouldn't wear it.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

The top and bottom pieces are the torso, neckline to the right, sleeve on the left. The longest seam runs from the neck down the trapezius muscle to the acromion and transitions from an expansion seam to a straight seam just past there. The shorter seams run from the neck down into the armpits on the front and back.

Here's a link to some pictures of a dress we made so you can see the technique in situ.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.760886937333833.1073741827.133364950086038&type=1

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

Here are couple examples of my most basic shoulder pattern. This technique can also be used for more advanced styles. Spaced out for smooth curves, combined with contractions for form fitted tailoring, etc.

Let me know if you guys have any more questions about it.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

I'll get started on a tutorial then, periodic reminders would be appreciated. BTW Rob congrats on the weight loss, I'm actually trying to lose 40 lbs myself, it's a lot harder now than it was when I was younger.

[Getting back into it, a few questions about scales.]

Wow, it's good to see you back after all these years.

1. I have a new pattern for scale shoulders now. I keep meaning to post details but there are always other more important projects to attend to. If there was more interest it might happen sooner.

2., 3. & 4. Get yourself a swiveling shirt display stand like one of these. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/DL888-High-ending-Men-shirt-dipaly_60594788158.html or a valet stand if you want to be fancy. https://karvluxury.com/product/classic-valet-stand/

Once you've finished the mantle piece just hang it inside out on the stand and build down from there. It's the fastest way I've found to weave unwieldy scale shirts and it keeps the scales from getting scratched up. Once the shirt is done flip it right side out and you now have a decent looking display for it.

[tapestry project]

That looks amazing, how do you plan to display it?

[Ring/jewlery welder]

I can advise you on welders but first I'd need to know what your budget and application are.

If you just need a cheap jewelry welder then it's probably best to wait for TRL to restock them. I can't recommend the ABI pulse arc welders at all.

If you're wanting to make high end jewelry then learning to do hard soldering with a torch might be your best option.

If it's armor you want to weld then there are a few options depending on the size and alloys that you need it to be able to handle.

You can also find some useful info about resistance welders for armor in the most recent reply I made in the following thread. 

 

[Scalemail Advice Needed]

Okay, in that price range you only have one realistic option that doesn't require any electronics knowledge.

https://www.harborfreight.com/120-volt-spot-welder-61205.html

One of these things will do alright for 14-18g steel. You'd need to replace the copper arms with some heavy copper cable and bolt the electrodes to a chunk of plywood or something. You want to leave about a 3/16" gap and make sure that they're insulated from each other. You can check out how I did my electrode setup in Fig. 1-1 of this article.

http://www.mailleartisans.org/articles/articledisplay.php?key=594

There's some other useful info in there too but some that doesn't apply to you, it was the manual for the old TRL welders.

There are videos on TRL's youtube showing how the electrodes are set up and how the weld is done.

There are some newer videos as well but all you'll learn from those is how not to weld.

Later on you can upgrade this welder with gas plumbing and a timing circuit for titanium. It'll weld most metals pretty well with a bit of practice.

[Scalemail Advice Needed]

I can think of a few options for welders, what's your budget for this?

[ABI Mini Pulse 3 Question]

Sounds like the filler isn't wetting to the base material, is that correct? I'd suspect an issue with oxide first.

 

I'm not familiar with speedwire, what's the fineness of the silver? What alloy is the base metal? Are you using a flux or shield gas? How did you clean the piece?

[Scale direction on fashion bracers]

Just FYI, if you make bracers with the tips of the scales pointing up towards your elbow it can be pretty easy to get your hands stuck in your pockets.

[Soldering and Welding]

I'm a bit late replying but I can confirm that the type of machine you posted a link to on ebay will weld .5mm sterling in 3mm rings. One problem though is that many of these Chinese pulse arc welders are poorly made and don't function properly, caveat emptor.

 

If you're using the argon correctly then you won't need to do any clean up because it shouldn't oxidize. A tumbler might not be necessary in that case.