Belegarth

Hi everyone, I just have some basic questions about armor, I know some of this has been answered, I searched and am still confused. What do the different gauges of chain mail mean? can anyone link me to a place to buy some basic passing chainmail? I dont have the time to make it myself. to be honest I would prefer to buy some leather. I know some of you on here make and sell leather (burke,forkbeard). If you would care to message me, id love to discuss buying some.

tl;dr message me if you have the time and resources to sell me armor.

Gauges refer to the thickness of the metal rings.

You can wait for people to message you, but these people are doing other things, you might have to message them. As far as finding passing chain mail, just google for chain-mail with the passing gauge in the search bar.

I can attest to the impressive quality of both Forkbeard and Burke's work, if you buy from either of them you definitely won't be disappointed. You might want to try and get ahold of them on Facebook, plus you can also check out some of their work. Just don't expect it to be cheap; they're prices are super fair and reasonable, and probably one of the best deals on the internet as far as getting custom, functional, art goes, but depending on what you want to get, it'll probably be more than cheap chain mail.

Thanks to both of you, is the minimum gauge on chain 20? I didnt state that before but that was the major source of my confusion. I will look into all the information you have provided.

To answer your question yes 20 gauge is the smallest you can go, but unless its riveted chain with a really small diameter you are going to run into the problem of the rings being too weak to hold together. i remember being told of a story where someone garbed the shoulders of a chain shirt and gave it a tug and ripped the chain mail off the guy.

i would suggest 16-18 gauge rings at 3/8 in. even without rivets that seams to be a good solid platform to go with.

ok awesome thanks bacchaus

I suggest 16 gauge or riveted or welded. I've ripped out an 18 gauge butted maile shirt the first event I wore it to. Admittedly, it was a size too small.

I'm actually in the process of making a 14 gauge 3/8's inch diameter chainmail vest and so far it's holding up nicely, just need to pay attention to the ring so that they're actually butted together.