Blackmaille56

BLACKMAILLE
Part 56 - FSMG Project: Tailoring a Maille Hauberk, Part 1
by Lord Thomas the Black

BLACKMAILLE

FSMG Project: Tailoring a Maille Hauberk, Pt 1

Welcome back to another edition of Blackmaille!

This month, I thought I'd take you inside another of my side projects: The Black Oak/ Barony of Forgotten Sea Maille Guild. This is actually two separate organizations that share membership. The Forgotten Sea Maille Guild is the weekly meeting place for anyone interested in maille in the Kansas City Metro area, while the Black Oak Maille Guild consists of those talented, hard-working people who help put on our demo every year at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival.

A while back, our Baronial guild was approached by a prominent Knight of Calontir. He'd recently acquired a maille shirt, with the intention of re-creating a shirt worn in "Kingdom of Heaven" (Fig 1). The hauberk needed to be tailored and have a 6-in-1 collar added, and that's where we came in.

Fig. 1

The first part of our project involved adding 1 row of maille down the insides of both arms. This was easy enough; we removed a row of rings to open the sleeves, counted the basic units, constructed matching strips, and attached them to the sleeves.

Fig. 2 Fig. 3

The next step was to build up one armpit to match the sleeve. Again, pretty straightforward.

Fig. 4

Next, we had to join up the armpit seams. If you've read my article on tricky seams (Blackmaille #27), then you know these can be a royal pain. Fortunately, these were not. Both sides of the seam lined up evenly, and joined without any drama. We even installed an "Ave Maria" ring in the right armpit!

Fig. 5

The last part that we were able to do this time around was to build up the neckline to fit better. The neckline on the shirt was oddly constructed in the first place, so we had to make due. It was necessary to build two 45-degree angles into the neckline, and to add a substantial amount to the front to bring it up where it needed to be to attach the 6-in-1 collar.

Fig. 6

While this was being done, Louis was working on the 6-in-1 collar, based on our knight's neck measurement. When he was done, we laid it out to make sure it'd fit the shirt.

Fig. 7 Fig. 8

When this was done, I realized we'd have to come up with a new way to connect the collar. Unlike a usual 6-in-1 to 4-in-1 connection (Fig. 9), this connection would require connecting 6-in-1 to a 4-in-1 45-degree angle. So, I made a test piece to work this out (Fig. 10).

Fig. 9 Fig. 10

Now the preliminary work was done, and we were ready to do a fitting with our client.

So ends part one. Join us next month for the fitting, and the work that resulted there-from. In the meantime, thanks for joining us for another edition of "Blackmaille"! As usual, any questions, comments, hate mail, or fan mail can be sent to us at:

            Blackmaille
                        c/o Tom Beckett
                        13628 Belmead Ave
                        Grandview, MO 64030

Or you can email them to me at: tbeckett1@kc.rr.com

See you next month!

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